Ontario’s new Labor Law for Workers is designed to help people achieve a better work-life balance.
But exactly how that happens, in some way, will be left to individual companies to decide.
Driven in part by pandemic lockdown restrictions that forced a shift to remote work and blurred the line between office and personal time, Bill 27 passed Tuesday and will become law when it receives actual consent from the lieutenant governor.
The legislation includes a requirement that workplaces with 25 or more employees implement a written “disconnect from work” policy.
Muneeza Sheikh, a senior partner at employment and labor law firm Levitt Sheikh, spoke with Star about how the legislation will affect both employees and employers.
Questions and answers
When does this new legislation go into effect?
So as I understand it, employers don’t have any pressure to have the policy in place until six months after the Workers’ Act receives the actual consent, so they have a full six months after receiving the consent, plus the grace period. of 2022.
Regulations on the application and scope of the legislation and the scope of the new requirements, what class of employees are excluded, is expected to be released (soon).
What does this mean for employers?
This is what I am saying to my employer clients: While the bill is certainly for the benefit of employees, there is no intention to fully respond in a punitive manner to employers at all. There will be plenty of time to get it right.
How will these new rules be enforced?
There are a lot of employment lawyers scratching their heads, and I don’t think we’re going to have the full scope of something like this until we have some published decisions.
This is conjecture, but I suspect that what is going to happen is after a complaint, there will be an investigation by the Ministry of Labor and there could be a warning and if you have the same employer with the same violations over and over again, I believe there This is when we will begin to receive monetary penalties.
When you see violations of this nature, generally speaking, this is what the punitive landscape looks like.
What does this mean for employees? What if your boss keeps sending emails after hours or if they choose to keep working late?
Much has been said during the pandemic about working from home employees, the fact that many people actually suffer from mental health problems during this difficult time, and the stress associated with not being able to keep their jobs. We saw hundreds of thousands of employees illegally laid off during the pandemic. So in my opinion, the Labor Law for Workers is the government’s response to saying that it is important for you to keep your job, but at the same time, it is extremely important for you to have a healthy life outside of work.
The biggest stumbling block I see is that there will be no way to measure employees who choose to pay versus those who want to continue working because that is their preference.
There will be employees in the workplace who, by nature or preference, may work longer hours, may engage in work-related communications after hours, and then you may see how they skyrocket in the workplace in terms of professional development. And then the question is will there be any complaints against employees who say, well, everyone is supposed to disconnect from work. The yardstick for employees could change.
What about workplaces with fewer than 25 employees?
I think the spirit of the legislation is that it applies to everyone. But in terms of applicability, it would only be applicable in relation to employers with 25 or more employees, they would have to develop these written policies.
What other sections of this legislation are noteworthy?
The other section that was probably the most interesting to me as a labor attorney is this restriction on the non-compete provision. It is a kind of provision of this legislation that is debatable. Because most employment attorneys will tell you that the non-compete provisions, in general, in Canada, are quite difficult to enforce … because they unfairly restrict a person’s activity after they leave a company.
We see that companies struggle to retain employees. Perks like free gym memberships or a friendly office space atmosphere don’t carry the same weight in a post-pandemic world. What are some of the things you think employees are looking for, and what can companies do to keep great workers from leaving?
I believe that employee morale always rises through flexibility. The narrative has always been, before the pandemic, that those who work remotely do not do so as effectively as those in the office. And in a way, the pandemic has really worked to demystify that notion.
If you can offer some kind of tiered approach, as you see a number of public and private sector employees doing, part remote and part office work, I think a lot of employees really enjoy a hybrid model.
Reference-www.thestar.com