Canadian HR Reporter

N E W S 12 www.hrreporter.com Major changes for Alberta workplaces with passing of Bill 32 Life may become somewhat easier for employers in Alberta as the Conservative government makes several alterations to the rules around overtime pay, mass dismissals, pay deductions and union dues, finds John Dujay long as daily and weekly average hours fall below a certain limit, there's no overtime payable. The other big change is that employee consent is no longer required, says Parker. In the past, employees had to agree to overtime averaging arrangements and there was a set limit on how long they could last; now, employers can unilaterally impose arrangements on workers by giving two weeks' notice and the arrangements can last indefinitely. "These agreements no longer expire whereas under the previous iteration of the legislation, they had to be renewed every two years. And again, you'd have to go through the consent process," he says. The new regime "allows employers to schedule more hours in a day without the requirement to pay overtime pay, as long as the average weekly hours over the course of the averaging period does not exceed 44 hours," according to Birch Miller, a partner at Blakes in Calgary. "To give you an example of that, if you have a 10-week averaging period and and to bring balance back to Alberta's labour laws," says Jason Copping, Alberta's minister of labour and immigration. The new measures include changes to overtime rules, termination pay and layoff timelines, in addition to clarification around union certification and transparency about where union dues are allocated. For employers, the alterations to the Employment Standards Code will be a welcome change. "Overall, these changes are favourable for employers and they provide much more flexibility for an employer to manage its workforce," says Shaun Parker, associate lawyer in the employ- ment and labour group at Osler in Calgary. Overtime modifications For HR departments, the payroll functions will see the widest and broadest modifications. "If I am an HR professional, the first thing I want to think about for Bill 32 is probably around the payroll stuff," says Stephen Shore, a partner at Ogletree Deakins in Toronto. In particular, many organizations are excited about the hours of work averaging arrangement, he says, meaning work hours can be averaged over a certain number of weeks and, as certain days you're scheduling up to 12 hours a day for employees to work, as long as when you average out the number of hours in each week over that 10-week period it does not exceed 44 hours, you won't need to pay overtime pay." 'Profound' changes to union rules At unionized workplaces, some of the new rules are quite profound and impactful, says Shore. "In a quite a bold way — and perhaps not surprisingly, knowing that this is Alberta and a conservative government — we're seeing legislation which we're just not familiar with in Canada around things like union transparency, unions having to provide their financial statements, employees having to opt in rather than opt out." The presumption is that employees will not be paying dues toward the political and advocacy causes of unions, he says. "The portion of the money that an employee pays in a union doesn't go directly to their representation; an employee will only pay if they choose to. These are issues which have been bubbling in Canada for many years." But for those employees who opt out of supporting their union's political "That's an interesting change because it provides flexibility in terms of making the deductions right in payroll rather than having to seek consent from the employee." Birch Miller, Blakes IN an effort to alleviate some of the burden for employers in Alberta, the United Conservative Party (UCP) government promised to cut red tape and provide businesses with breathing room in a province that has been wracked by an economic downturn in the oilpatch and the COVID -19 pandemic. With the introduction of the Restoring Balance in Alberta's Workplaces Act, a wide series of adjustments was enacted in July and November. "Our government was elected on the promise of supporting employee choice BILL 32 BY THE NUMBERS 30 days Length of time employers have to pay administrative penalties 13, 14 years old Age at which children can now work without a permit 90 days Length of time layoffs can persist (within 120-day period) Source: Alberta government

• Cover