Naseem Mahamad (age 19) started employment as a Bell Person with Residence Inn by Marriott (Laurier Ave, Ottawa) on June 1, 2016. As a first job, he was never given a letter of employment nor a job description. He was told his duties included loading and unloading baggage and assisting guests to and from their rooms. During his employment Mr. Mahamad had stellar performance, receiving regular praises from his managers, supervisors, co-workers and hotel guests. In recognition of his consistent high performance and positive can-do attitude, Mr. Mahamad received regular raises in September 2016 ($14/hr), January 2017 ($15/hr), and again in May 2018 ($16/hr).

His employment was terminated abruptly and was told the owner is angry because Mr. Mahamad was 10 minutes late. There were several street closures due to festivities downtown on that Sunday (August 12, 2018) morning and this situation was next to unavoidable. Mr. Mahamad texted his co-worker and told him he is trying to get there and will be there as soon as he possibly can. Mr. Mahamad received no prior warnings and was asked to leave immediately. His supervisor cited the fact that one of the building owners, Mr. Jeff Gillin, had been through the building previously and singled out people such as Naseem for termination. The harsh and dehumanizing manner in which Mr. Mahamad was treated left even his direct supervisor in tears. Two days after his abrupt termination, Mr. Mahamad texted his supervisor and asked for his record of employment and personnel file, however, this request was refused. He was told in this text exchange that his former employer had already begun hiring to replace his position.

In October 2016 Mr. Gillin was visiting the building and ordered Mr. Mahamad and one other bell person to remove a gang that was congregating and doing drugs behind the building. Mr. Gillin gave no choice to the two employees. The two employees were clearly not security guards and were not trained to deal with life threatening situations such as the one Mr. Gillin wilfully placed them in. Mr. Mahamad did not complain about the incident, nor did he mention it to anyone else, however, it was widely known amongst the staff what had happened.

Mr. Mahamad earned $16/hr for his previous three months of continuous employment, averaging $544 biweekly.

Mr. Mahamad is now completely distraught, cannot obtain a record of employment , not sure if he would ever be able to find another job and cannot bring himself to study at Algonquin College.

-Is this an appropriate way to terminate someone?
-Is it appropriate for an employer such as the Marriott chain to employ a young person and not provide a letter of employment, a written job description, a performance review.......or is the intent to have a loop hole so that you can take these sort of actions with someone who is young and naive.
-can an employer refuse to provide a record of employment?
-is there anyway to protect young and inexperience workers from this type of abuse so that they do not enter the workforce with weakness, mistrust, fear and constanstantly casting doubt on themselves?
Can you please help this youth on what next steps should be?

Thanks you.