Canadian Employment Law Today - sample

Preparing Ontario employers for the Bill 148 storm The Ontario government's bill is moving closer to being passed and the province's employers are bracing for a wave of change BY LAURA WILLIAMS A s two weeks of Ontario govern- ment consultations with business leaders, union representatives and employee advocacy groups came to a close recently, a clear consensus emerged amongst employers from across the province: e Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act, 2017 (Bill 148) goes too far, too fast, in its attempt to modernize Ontario's Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA) and the Labour Relations Act, 1995 (LRA). "ere is no question that the proposed changes laid out in Bill 148 will put the success and competitiveness of Ontar- io's business community in jeopardy, par- ticularly our small business community," Ashley Challinor, director of policy for the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, told media after one of the consultation ses- sions, echoing the views of industry and business organizations that expressed similar concerns over the bill's rapid schedule for change. ere is no doubt that Bill 148 will pres- ent a host of new challenges to Ontario employers. e legislation, if passed in its current form — which is all but guaran- teed given the Liberals' strong majority at Queen's Park — seeks to boost employee wages and strengthen workers' rights at a time of increasingly precarious em- ployment. e Ontario government is particularly concerned about the rise in part-time and casual employment, just as full-time employment opportunities become more elusive in the face of major sectoral shifts and both automation- and globalization-driven economic change across the province. Bill 148 takes drastic, expedited steps to- ward levelling that playing field — and in so doing will place a more onerous financial burden on employers. Grim predictions of financial hardship and even job losses stemming from the legislation are not far-fetched — many employers may be hard-pressed to man- age these changes, particularly small and medium-sized organizations that employ fewer than 20 people. With that in mind, here are some of Bill 148's key proposals and why they could give so many organizations grief in the months and years ahead. Wages Bill 148 proposes to increase the mini- mum wage to $14 per hour on Jan. 1, 2018, then to $15 per hour by Jan. 1, 2019 (up from the current rate of $11.40 per hour). e minimum wage would then continue to increase in step with inflation. e leg- islation would give a pay raise to 25 per cent of Ontarians. Bill 148 also includes equal pay for equal work provisions. ese would require that casual, part-time, tempo- rary and seasonal employees receive the same pay for performing the same job as full-time colleagues, subject to certain exceptions. Temporary help agency em- ployees would receive the same wages as permanent employees of the organization to which they are contracted, when per- forming the same duties. ese changes would come into effect on April 1, 2018. How it will impact employers: Where organizations rely on minimum wage la- bour, the change will have an obvious and immediate impact on labour cost struc- tures, while also forcing changes to every- thing from wage grids to training budgets — an administrative task that could prove both arduous and costly. Some smaller employers may even be forced to lay off workers or terminate employment rela- tionships to mitigate the damage of the swift increase in wages. Scheduling Rules around shift scheduling would be changed to protect employees employed in the same position for three months from reprisals if they request work sched- ule or location changes. e ESA cur- rently does not extend reprisal protection in these circumstances. Employees would also be allowed to refuse to accept shifts with less than four days' notice. ese changes would take effect on Jan. 1, 2019. In addition, employees would receive pay for three hours of work if their shift was cancelled within 48 hours of its sched- uled start time. Under the current law, employers may cancel scheduled shifts at any time before an employee arrives for work, without providing compensation. On-call employees would now receive a minimum of three hours' pay for each 24- hour period they are on call, regardless of whether they work. How it will impact employers: Beyond the impact to their bottom-line, proposed scheduling rule changes under Bill 148 would hamper organizations' labour flex- ibility. is could be particularly detrimen- tal in sectors such as hospitality or security, which rely largely on lower-waged employ- ees and often require a greater degree of scheduling latitude to effectively manage employee hours. Employee misclassification Some of the most significant changes un- der Bill 148 are the proposed provisions that would restrict employee misclassi- fication. Employers will now face much stricter penalties — including prosecu- tion, public disclosure and fines — if they classify employees who are by definition part- or full-time employees with protec- tions under the ESA, as contractors. Em- ployers are currently not subject to penal- ties for misclassification. How it will impact employers: is change ups the ante when it comes to pe- nalizing employers for misclassifying em- ployees — a practice that has long been prohibited under the ESA. What remains to be seen are the extent of the sanctions. What we do know is that organizations will face far greater risk and will need to be far more diligent to ensure that any new con- tract hire does, indeed, meet the province's definition of a contract employee. Paid vacation and personal emergency leave Under Bill 148, minimum vacation en- titlement will grow to three weeks and AS THE PROPOSED changes to Ontario's employment standards and labour laws chug along towards being passed, human resources lawyer Laura Williams gives her take on what the changes mean for Ontario employers. 4 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2017 CASE IN POINT: EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS BACKGROUND

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