Proposed Changes to the Ontario Employment Standards Act in the Face of the Pandemic

I think we can all agree that the world is a little bonkers lately –  it seems like things are changing and getting more serious by the minute. Between the time I thought I was finished writing and ready to press “publish” Ontario declared a state of emergency. 

We are getting lots of questions from employers about what to do in the face of various impacts from COVID-19, as more and more measures come into place and make it harder for us to go about our daily lives and work.  

For some, businesses are shutting down and contracts to provide services are being cancelled. This is causing employers to think about how to scale back and how to be fair to their employees while also staying afloat. 

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COVID-19 FAQs for Employers

FAQs for Employers - Frequently asked questions by employers needing more information on the impact, rules and best practices for addressing the global coronavirus outbreak. (Last Updated March 16, 2020). Further free resources can be found here. Should you need legal advice on how to manage your workplace during the COVID-19 outbreak, please get in touch.

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Surveillance in the Workplace

Workplace privacy is an evolving and somewhat muddy area of law. In Ontario, our key employment law statutes, the Employment Standards Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Act, are silent on the issue of privacy. Yet surveillance is ubiquitous. Employers often have cameras in the workplace, which end up providing them information about their employees, whether they were seeking it or not. Employers and employees often wonder, is this legal?

PIPEDA and Video Surveillance

The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPIEDA) is a privacy law that applies to private-sector organizations across Canada that collect, use or disclose personal information in the course of commercial activity. PIPIEDA defines a commercial activity as any particular transaction, act, or conduct, or any regular course of conduct that is of a commercial character, including the selling, bartering or leasing of donor, membership or other fundraising lists.

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Why You Need An Employee Handbook – The Devil Is In The Details

What’s an Employee Handbook?

An employee handbook is a document where an employer can keep all their policies, procedures and other information an employee needs to have. Often, it forms a part of the employee’s contract, and employees are required to review the handbook and sign their copy to acknowledge their understanding.

Why Do You Need an Employee Handbook?

A good employee handbook sets a business up for success, in terms of setting expectations and managing the workforce. Handbooks give employees the lay of the land.

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Public Health Emergencies and the Workplace

The Wuhan Novel Coronavirus (or 2019-vCoV) is a public health emergency in Canada with confirmed cases in Ontario. This has led many employers to ask how they should manage their employees’ concerns, while still trying to operate “business as usual”.  On the one hand, employers are obligated to provide a healthy and safe work environment, while on the other, they must respect an employee’s privacy and ensure that their responses to any health or safety concerns do not violate human rights legislation.

Stay Well Informed

Because an employer’s legal obligations continue during a public health emergency, clear and accurate information and communication are vital. Employers should remain informed of the latest public health information and communicate essential information and specific expectations to their employees. For example, relaying the importance of handwashing and hand sanitizing, while maintaining well-stocked supplies for doing so. 

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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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