All About Overtime

Our clients ask a lot of questions about overtime. Despite many workplaces that are trying hard to keep work hours reasonable and limit them to 40 hours per week, in busy workplaces, overtime is very often inevitable – at least once in awhile. 

There is a lot to know about overtime, more than we can cover in this post, but here are some highlights and practical tips. 

The Overtime Threshold

In Ontario, the overtime pay threshold is 44 hours per week. This is set out in the Ontario Employment Standards Act.  In some provinces, the threshold is 40 hours, but we will focus on Ontario in this post. The 44-hour threshold means that any time an employee works beyond 44 hours in a week is overtime. Employees who work overtime receive extra pay (or time off — see below) for that time. The value of overtime is 1.5 times that of regular time. In other words, an employee who works 1 hour of overtime is entitled to 1.5 hours of their regular pay.

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Canada Labour Code Amendments Coming into Force

Calling all federal sector employers! Significant amendments to the Canada Labour Code come into force on September 1, 2019. That’s this coming Sunday. 

Does this apply to you?

Employers are often confused by the various workplace laws and requirements. It’s tricky to know which apply and not every law applies to every workplace. 

In Canada, the Constitution divides power between the federal and provincial governments. Here is a fun article if you want to delve more deeply into this topic. 

The Canada Labour Code is a federal law which sets out minimum employment standards for sectors that fall under federal power. These are generally sectors that go between the provinces, for example, air travel, railways and road transportation. It also applies to the telecommunications sector, banks and federal Crown corporations. 

For workplaces not involved in banking, telecommunications, air transport etc., minimum employment standards will be set by the provincial law. In Ontario, this is the Employment Standards Act. 

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Workplace data theft – Protect your company with best practices

The Capital One Data Breach has been big news lately, and for good reason. It’s a big deal. This breach compromised the data of over 100 million Capital One customers. Instead of a shadowy overseas hacker or a creepy crawler from the dark web, the hacker was a former employee of the cloud hosting company through which Capital One stored their data (unconfirmed, but likely Amazon Web Services). She hacked through Capital One’s firewall to access information stored on the Amazon cloud. See women can be hackers too! This particular woman is now in US federal custody. 

Allegedly, Capital One configured a web app incorrectly, which created the vulnerability through which the hacker was able to access the server and the data. 

This situation is a nightmare for all involved – the customers, Capital One, and perhaps Amazon – and serves as a good opportunity for us to remind users about data security and workplace privacy. 

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Texting at work

Let’s face it, we are all addicted to our phones. Some of us have jobs where our phones are required to be locked up in a locker for the day and we only have access to them on breaks. As a desk worker – who does not have to lock up her phone – I can only imagine the agony! 

Time spent on a personal device can interfere with work and productivity. Ever fall into an Instagram trance and next thing you know 2 hours have passed? Sure, you haven’t…

Personal devices and the persistent distractions of the digital era can be a problem for employers. In certain workplaces, distraction by a digital device can be dangerous or bad for customer relations. I’m sure we’ve all been kept waiting at some point by an employee who was giggling into their phone instead of helping us. 

So, what can employers do?

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The Duty to Mitigate and Why You Have to Look For a New Job

If you’ve been terminated from your job and spoken to an employment lawyer you’ve probably heard the word “mitigation” thrown around. In this post, we will talk about mitigation, what it is and why it matters to you and your case. 

The Duty to Mitigate

The duty to mitigate is a legal concept that basically means you’ve got to take reasonable steps to stop your own bleeding. What that bleeding looks like will depend on the type of legal case you’re involved in. If you are involved in a personal injury case, mitigation means following doctor’s orders and doing all that you can to recover from your injury. In the context of employment law, the duty to mitigate means trying to get a new job and replace your lost earnings and employment benefits.

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Update on notice periods – it’s good news for employers

We wrote about the Dawe v. Equitable Life Insurance Company, 2018 ONSC 3130 back in January. Check out that post here.  The Dawe case was notable because the judge in that case awarded Mr. Dawe a notice period of 30 months. The judge also made the comment that he would have awarded Mr. Dawe 36 months of notice, but stopped at 30 because that was what Mr. Dawe had asked for in his Statement of Claim. 

30 Months of Notice!!!!

This case caused a stir with employment lawyers because historically 24 months of notice has been the high-water mark. It has been very rare to see a former employee awarded more than 24 months of notice and this would only be the case in “exceptional circumstances.”

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