Over the past year we have spent a lot of time thinking, writing, presenting and advising on Bill 148. As Toronto employment lawyers the Ontario employment laws are our bread and butter. Bill 148 overhauled many aspects of the laws we work with every day. This post provides an overview of some of the
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Public Holiday Pay Change
The first reversal of a Bill 148 change is on the horizon. On May 7, 2018, the Ontario government announced it will be reviewing the Bill 148 change to how public holiday pay is calculated. The new way of calculating public holiday pay has reportedly generated the most complaints of any of the Bill 148 …
Update on Random Drug Testing in the Workplace
With the legalization of marijuana looming on the horizon this summer, concerned employers are thinking about how to keep drugs out of the workplace. While random workplace drug testing might seem like an attractive option, in Canada the law remains unsettled on what’s permitted. The most prominent legal battle over random drug testing in Canada …
Pay Transparency Act Passes
In March, we blogged about Ontario’s Bill 203 the Pay Transparency Act, 2018. On April 26, 2018, the Bill passed on third reading. The Pay Transparency Act, 2018 (the Act) will come into force on January 1, 2019.
The purpose of the Act is to promote gender equality and equal compensation between men and women …
Equal Pay for Equal Work Now in Force
On April 1, 2018 Equal Pay for Equal Work, the new section 42 of the Employment Standards Act (ESA) came into force. This was a Bill 148 amendment. You can read more about the big changes Bill 148 has made to the Ontario employment landscape in our previous posts on this topic.
Equal Pay for …
Bill 148 Client Questions: Personal Emergency Leave for Short Term Workers
Today we will address another in our series of Bill 148 client questions. Over the last two weeks we have tackled a question related to the new vacation entitlements and one about the entitlements of salaried workers to the Three Hour Rule. This weeks’ question addresses one of the most talked about changes in the …
Bill 148 Client Questions: The Three Hour Rule
This week we bring you another in our Bill 148 client questions series. Today we will tackle the three hour rule.” This change comes into effect on January 1, 2019, in the category of Employment Standards Act scheduling changes.
Q: Does the three hour rule apply to salaried employees?
A: It’s easy to see how …
Personal Emergency Leave
Amongst the many changes to the Employment Standards Act introduced by Bill 148 is the expansion of Personal Emergency Leave. Previously only available to employees in workplaces with 50 or more employees, this 10 day leave is now available to everyone. The first two days of leave are paid. Effectively this amounts to two days …
Artificial Intelligence in Recruiting
Stories about artificial intelligence (AI) stealing our jobs and robots going rogue have been in our collective consciousness for years. Elon Musk has also sounded the alarm bells, calling AI the “biggest risk we face as a civilization”. While he may know a few things I don’t, I can’t say that I …
Religious Accommodation in the Workplace
Merry Christmas! Wait. What? Can we still say that in public? Why yes, we can, but not at the cost of excluding all other religions in the workplace.
For those that do not celebrate Christian holidays (and/or secular commercial holidays derived from Christian traditions), focusing only on Christian traditions can feel like exclusion.
It’s hard …