How to go to the bathroom at work

Bathroom breaks come up frequently in news stories about workers’ rights. The City of Hamilton just narrowly avoided a transit strike where bathroom breaks were a major issue. A City of Ottawa transit worker, calling himself a “whistle-blower” also recently spoke about lack of “recovery time” for drivers – aka not enough time to go to the bathroom between bus runs. Ottawa City Transit workers currently have three minutes per hour for “recovery” although drivers say that the routes are so tightly timed that they rarely are able to take those three minutes. In addition to transit jobs, lack of time for bathroom breaks is also something we see come up for workers on continuous production lines or warehouse workers. So what’s the law on time to go to the bathroom?

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Will Saving Provisions No Longer Save Us?

Saving provisions are widely used in employment agreements to ensure that even if a decision-maker finds that some aspect of some clause is not enforceable due to the fact that it could possibly, maybe, one day, maybe, sorta violate the Employment Standards Act (ESA), the saving provision will communicate to that judge that this was not the employer’s intention to do so. 

A saving provision did not work for the employer in the recent case of Groves v. UTS Consultants Inc., 2019 ONSC 5605. The contract, in this case, violated a few parts of the ESA and the contract’s saving provision did not do its job of saving! 

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Power Imbalances and Romance in the Workplace

McDonald’s is in the news this week after their Board told their CEO, Steve Easterbrook, to “move on” after learning that he had been engaging in a romantic relationship with an employee. While the relationship was “consensual,” McDonald’s policy forbids managers from having romantic relationships with subordinates – whether they directly supervise them or otherwise. Easterbrook acknowledged that what he had done was against the “values of the company.” 

A similar story broke last week when Congresswoman Katie Hill resigned amid allegations of inappropriate sexual relationships with staffers in her office and on her campaign team. 

So what’s wrong with finding love at the office? In both of these cases, the (main) issue was the imbalance of power. In our post #metoo era the issues inherent in relationships with power imbalances are being taken seriously and acted on. 

Both Hill and Easterbrook were at the top of their respective food chains. They engaged in romantic relationships with those below them on those food chains and with those over whom they held power in the workplace. Whether they were in relationships with those whom they directly supervised or not, there is no question that both Hill and Easterbrook would have had the power to impact their lovers’ trajectory at work – for good or ill – should they have chosen to do so.  

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Ministry of Labour Inspections

The Ministry of Labour (MOL or the Ministry) has been busy implementing its Healthy and Safe Ontario Workplaces Strategy. Introduced by the previous Wynne government, the initiative has focused on small Ontario industrial businesses. A small business is one with fewer than 50 workers. 

Occupational Health and Safety Act Inspections

In late August, the Ministry published a report on the results of the inspection initiative. During the period April 1, 2018 to March 31, 2019, the Ministry of Labour visited 3,942 small business workplaces and issued 13,907 orders and requirements under the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA). They also issued 184 stop-work orders.

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What Happens to Vacation When an Employee is on a Leave?

Employers often have questions about what to do with vacation when an employee is on a leave. Do they still earn vacation time? Do they still get vacation pay even if they aren’t getting paid? Vacation is one of the trickiest employment standards, but we will shed some light into its dark corners in this post! 

The Right to Vacation

Under the Ontario Employment Standards Act (the ESA), employees are entitled to vacation both during periods of active and inactive employment. Employees are entitled to a minimum of two weeks of vacation per year if they have been employed for less than five years and three weeks per year after five years of employment. Vacation can be paid time off or additional pay. Employees who work part-time generally earn vacation pay on each paycheque, as opposed to paid time off. 

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Time Theft and the Case of the Winnipeg City Workers

This news story was just so wonky, and incorporated many of the crazy things we regularly get questions about, that we had to write about it! This situation took place in Winnipeg, Manitoba. On this blog, we usually focus on Ontario law because we are in Ontario, but other than Quebec, employment law is similar across Canada so the principles discussed here would apply across the common law provinces.

Slacking Inspectors 

Last week, the City of Winnipeg fired eight employees in its Property and Planning department. These employees were unionized, so their terminations are being challenged by their union – they may get their jobs back but they are off for now. 

The terminations followed a City of Winnipeg investigation, which was prompted after an anonymous citizens’ group paid a private investigator to video city inspectors conducting personal business during their work shifts. How crazy is that?

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