Labour & employment law column by Robert Smithson

The summer Olympics are finally over and the 4-year period of hand-wringing over Canadian medal results has just begun. Amidst all the drama, the achievements, the failures, and the medals of various colours, the aspect of London 2012 which stood out in my mind was the controversy over athletes not trying hard enough.

The whole saga kicked off with eight doubles badminton players being disqualified and sent home. Their offence was intentionally losing a match.

A recent article in the Globe and Mail’s careers section caused me to do a triple-take. It quoted studies indicating that the more an organization seeks to be undiscriminating and merit-based in its employment practices, the less likely it is to achieve those objectives.

If that’s truly the case, one can only wonder how human resources professionals will feel about the security of their jobs. After all, introducing policies and procedures aimed at limiting discrimination and emphasizing merit is a significant aspect of what they do.

Our federal government’s recent introduction of proposed reforms to the employment insurance system has prompted the expected furor from both sides of the debate. As Finance Minister Jim Flaherty astutely noted last week, employment insurance is “a very sensitive subject” in this country.

In the history of questionable dismissals of employees, the saga of journalist Edward Kennedy has to rank near the top of the list. Over 65 years after his firing, his former employer has apologized.

Kennedy was a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press news agency during World War II. He was stationed in liberated France in 1945.

His claim to fame was that he broke possibly the biggest news story of the 20^th century, Germany’s surrender to the Allied forces. Unfortunately for him, that scoop was also his temporary downfall.