Ontario Shores manager shows DeNiro-Stiller movie clip to intimidate staff

September 11, 2012:

WHITBY – Dietary staff failed to get the joke when their Ontario Shores manager showed them a clip from the 2000 film “Meet The Parents” during a staff meeting earlier this year.

In the YouTube clip, Robert DeNiro corners his future son-in-law in a tuxedo rental dressing room after finding drug paraphernalia among the bridal party. DeNiro reminds Stiller of his “circle of trust.”

“If I can’t trust you, Greg, I have no choice but to put you outside the circle. Once you’re out, you’re out. There’s no coming back.”

“I will be watching you, studying your every move,” DeNiro warns. “I will bring you down, baby. I will bring you down to Chinatown.”

“Veiled threats of this nature are not acceptable in the modern workplace,” says Warren (Smokey) Thomas, president of the 130,000-member Ontario Public Service Employees Union which represents the workers at the Whitby mental health hospital. “Is this the message management truly wants to send to staff about their working relationship?

OPSEU Local 331 has complained about the incident and has yet to receive either explanation or apology for the inappropriate video

The video comes amid deteriorating labour relations at the Whitby hospital.