Summary
Ontario’s economy, like others around the world, has changed. Work is different and, for many people, increasingly less secure. Many workers struggle to support their families on part-time, contract or minimum-wage work, and many more don’t have access to time off due to illness.
In order to create more opportunity and security for workers in this changing economy, we introduced the Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act, 2017. It was passed on November 22, 2017.
This legislation makes a number of changes to both the Employment Standards Act, 2000, the Labour Relations Act, 1995, and the Occupational Health and Safety Act, including raising the minimum wage and providing employees with:
We’ve introduced legislation to increase the general minimum wage to $14 per hour on January 1, 2018, and then to $15 on January 1, 2019.
Learn more about our proposed changes to the minimum wage.
It will be mandatory for employers to pay:
Casual, part-time, temporary and seasonal employees will be allowed to ask their employer to review their rate of pay if they believe they’re not receiving the same rate of pay as full-time/permanent employees who perform substantially the same work.
Temporary help agency employees will also be allowed to ask their employer to review their rate of pay if they believe they’re not receiving the same rate of pay as employees of the client who perform substantially the same work.
The employer will have to respond by either adjusting the employee’s pay or giving the employee a written explanation.
Employers will be exempt from the new equal pay for equal work rules for part-time, temporary, casual and seasonal employees, if the wage difference is based on:
Temporary help agencies will be exempt from the new equal pay for equal work rules for temporary help agency assignment employees if the difference in the rate in pay is based on something other than sex, employment status or assignment employee status.
This will come into effect on April 1, 2018.
Temporary help agencies will be required to give their employees at least one week's written notice or pay in lieu of notice, if an assignment, originally estimated to last three months or longer, ends early.
If the temporary help agency gives less than one week's notice, they must pay the wages the employee would have been entitled to receive had one week’s notice been given.
The temporary help agency will not have to give notice or pay in lieu if it offered the employee another assignment that was reasonable and lasted at least one week.
Agencies will not have to provide notice or pay in lieu of notice if there is:
This will come into effect on January 1, 2018.
The legislation will allow employees to:
Employers will also be required to pay wages to the employees for three hours of work if the employee:
Employers will not be required to pay for a cancelled shift if they were unable to provide work because of:
Employers will not be required to pay wages for three hours for a shift that lasts fewer than three hours if they were unable to provide work because of fire, lightning, power failure, storms or similar causes beyond their control.
Employees cannot refuse a shift if the reason that the employer is asking them to work or be on call is to:
Employers will not be required to pay wages for three hours for an on-call shift if the employee is on call to ensure the continued delivery of essential public services, regardless of who delivers those services and the employee was not required to work.
These scheduling changes will come into effect on January 1, 2019.
Under the legislation, employees will be entitled to three weeks of paid vacation after five years with the same employer.
This will come into effect on January 1, 2018.
Currently, some employees have the right to take up to 10 days of unpaid, job-protected leave, each calendar year due to illness, injury and other emergencies/ urgent matters. But these rules only apply to workplaces with 50 or more employees.
The legislation will require all employers to give all employees 10 personal emergency leave days per year, including two paid days if the employee has been employed for one week or longer (7 days).
This will come into effect on January 1, 2018.
An employee who has been employed for at least 13 consecutive weeks will be entitled to up to 10 individual days of leave and up to 15 weeks of leave if the employee or their child experiences domestic or sexual violence or the threat of domestic or sexual violence. The first five days of leave, each calendar year, will be paid, the rest will be unpaid.
This will come into effect on January 1, 2018.
Employers cannot misclassify employees as independent contractors. This address cases where employers treat employees as if they are self-employed and not entitled to employment standards protections. If there is a dispute the employer will have to prove that an individual is not an employee.
This came into effect on November 27, 2017.
Under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, employers cannot require workers to wear footwear with an elevated heel (for instance, high heels) unless they are needed for the worker’s safety.
This does not apply to employers of workers in the entertainment and advertising industries.
This came into effect on November 27, 2017.
We are stepping up enforcement to make sure these new rules are followed, including:
Once the new employment standards officers are hired, the Employment Standards program will:
Learn more about some of the other changes to the Employment Standards Act, 2000and the Labour Relations Act, 1995, including:
Since the minimum wage will rise to $14 on January 1, 2018, and then to $15 on January 1, 2019, the next CPI increase would occur on Oct. 1, 2019.
A minimum wage is just one tool for ensuring that all Ontarians can share in our joint prosperity. This builds on the work that the government is doing with income security, the basic income pilot and also other initiatives such as OHIP+, free tuition for low income Ontarians and the expanded Canada Pension Plan.
The Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act amends the Employment Standards Act to expressly prohibit employers from misclassifying an employee as a contractor. This could allow for penalties to be imposed on employers that misclassify. In the event of a dispute, the responsibility would be on the employer to prove that the individual is not an employee.
Being misclassified as a contractor can result in an employee being unjustly denied rights and benefits under provincial labour laws. This new provision will protect against such misclassifications.
The legislation sets out new scheduling rules:
These scheduling rules come into force on January 1, 2019.
There are a number of exceptions to the new scheduling requirements which include the following:
The term “emergency” in the exception is defined as a situation or an impending situation that constitutes a danger of major proportions that could result in serious harm to persons or substantial damage to property and that is caused by the forces of nature, a disease or other health risk, an accident or an act whether intentional or otherwise, or a situation in which a search and rescue operation takes place.
The phrase "essential public services" is currently interpreted to refer to services that are provided to the public at large and which may be considered "essential" because they are necessary for an employer to prevent situations that could result in, for example: danger to life, health or safety; the destruction or serious deterioration of machinery, equipment or premises; serious environmental damage; or disruption of the administration of the courts.
This exception would apply "regardless of who delivers those essential public services. As such, this provision could apply to employees who work for private companies that deliver public services, for example, privately run ambulance or road-clearing services, or a business that provides food to hospitals.
A new domestic or sexual violence leave has been established.
For employees that have been employed for at least 13 consecutive weeks, the new legislation provides up to 10 individual days of leave and up to 15 weeks of job protected leave when an employee or their child has experienced or is threatened with domestic or sexual violence. The first five days of leave each calendar year would be paid, the rest would be unpaid.
The new legislation also requires employers to put mechanisms in place to protect the confidentiality of records they receive or produce in relation to an employee taking domestic or sexual violence leave. These leave provision comes into force on January 1, 2018.
This change mirrors the recent changes to the Federal Employment Insurance Act and would align the Employment Standards Act with the available Employment Insurance benefits for employees. Family Medical Leave would increase from up to 8 weeks in a 26 week period to up to 28 weeks in a 52 week period.
A qualified medical practitioner who may issue a certificate necessary to take family medical Leave is now a physician or a nurse practitioner.
This change mirrors the recent changes to the Federal Employment Insurance Act and would align the Employment Standards Act with the available Employment Insurance benefits for employees.
Formerly, Ontario offered up to 37 weeks unpaid leave for a parent to provide care or support to their critically ill child. The new legislation renames this section ‘Critical illness leave’ and expands it to include a new leave that allows 17 weeks of leave for an employee to provide care or support to a critically ill adult family member. It also expands the list of family members for whom an employee could take the leave to include critically ill children of other family members.
Formerly, Ontario offered up to 104 weeks unpaid leave for a crime-related death of a child and up to 52 weeks leave for the crime-related disappearance of a child. The new legislation extends this leave of absence to all child deaths, regardless of the reason, and it extends the available duration of the crime-related disappearance of a child leave to 104 weeks.
Pregnancy leave:
Parental leave:
A qualified medical practitioner who may issue a certificate related to pregnancy leave, stating that the employee cannot work due to complications caused by pregnancy, the expected due date, and/or the actual date of birth, stillbirth or miscarriage is a physician, nurse practitioner or a midwife.
The Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act increases paid vacation from two weeks to three weeks for employees who have 5 years or more of service with the same employer.
The changes provide wage parity for casual, part-time, temporary and seasonal workers performing substantially the same work as full time employees for the same employer and it would require employers to provide a written explanation to the employee who expresses that they are not receiving wage parity as compared to full-time employees and the employer disagrees.
Currently, the ESA prohibits an employer from paying an employee of one sex at a rate of pay less than the rate paid to an employee of the other sex if they perform substantially the same kind of work, their performance requires substantially the same skill, effort and responsibility and their work is performed under similar working conditions.
There would be exceptions to the requirement for equal wages where a wage difference is based on:
The new legislation requires the Minister of Labour to start a review of equal pay provisions for casual, part-time, temporary and seasonal employees by April 1, 2021.
Yes. Employers are able to use seniority systems that are based on accumulated hours to support pay differentials.
Temporary help agencies recruit and assign people to perform work on a temporary basis for clients of the agency. The duration of the assignment can vary from a day to years.
Initially, these agencies provided clerical workers, but today clients comprise diverse sectors and professions (e.g., manufacturing, administrative, support services, information and information technology, etc.), and as such require assignment workers with varying degrees of skill and education.
These employment agencies or "head hunters" are not the employers of the people they are placing.
The new wage parity provisions are intended to dis-incentivize the use of temporary agency employees unless there is a genuine business need and aim at preventing the “perma-temp” problem for vulnerable workers.
Eligible employees have the right to take up to 10 days of job-protected leave each calendar year. The first two days of the leave in each calendar year are paid if the employee has been employed for one week or longer. The rest is unpaid.
Yes. The employee needs to let the employer know before they start the leave (or, if this is not feasible, as soon as possible after starting the leave). It does not have to be in writing.
Employers can require an employee who takes personal emergency leave to provide evidence reasonable in the circumstances that the employee was entitled to the leave. However, employers cannot require employees to provide a note from a physician, registered nurse or psychologist.
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