Ontario labour changes will hurt employers
Rules on pay, vacation, unions spell trouble
With the provincial election on t he near horizon, the Ontario Liberals have confirmed sweeping changes to Ontario’s employment and l abour ecosystem. These changes go far beyond the highly publicized minimum wage increases recently in the news.
Premier Kathleen Wynne claims the employment system is ripe for change given both Ontario’s purportedly booming financial health and, as she appears to believe, the increasing exploitation of low income workers. In reality, the changes are little more than a risk- laden stunt calculated to appeal to her disenfranchised voter base and make the Liberals the party of choice versus the Tories.
Here are some of those changes that should leave employers, particularly nonunion ones, profoundly concerned:
Employers will now have to pay the same rate for casual and part-time employees as for full- time ones. Analogous to the minimum wage, with youth and second- income earners filling most of these roles, this traditional gateway into the workforce will become closed off and many of the present incumbents laid off.
Employees with five years of service or longer, will be entitled to three weeks of paid vacation, up from two. This adds two per cent immediately to the employer payroll for those employees, which will cause downward pressure on wages. A two per cent wage cut to compensate is NOT a constructive dismissal.
Emergency leave provisions will change, forcing all employers (not just those with 50 or more employees as at present) to provide up to 10 days of leave where an employee claims to have a personal emergency, or where an employee claims to be sick. Two of those days are now paid. That adds .4 per cent to wages.
An employer’s right to ask for sick notes for purported sick leaves of less than 10 days a year has been removed. This will provide a licence for employees so inclined to take off up to 10 days a year, falsely alleging illness, knowing that their employer has no basis to disprove their claim. False absenteeism claims is already one of the major human resource problems for Canadian employers. The major tool to resist it has just been removed.
Family medical l e ave ( where an employee has to care for an ailing family member, after a doctor confirms that the relative requires constant care) will be extended significantly to grant an employee the right to take up to a 27-week leave in a year, increased from only eight weeks in a 26- week period. What rules will be in place to determine whether that employee is a necessary custodian? Likely none.
Employees no longer will be obliged to address their concerns with their employer before filing a complaint with the Employment Standards branch, giving the employer virtually no opportunity to correct any potential wrongs before the Ministry’s intervention. Employment standards officers investigating those complaints will not be able to dismiss vague or incomplete complaints, opening the flood gates to frivolous complaints by disgruntled employees, sometimes leveraging the complaint for other advantages.
In the labour sphere, the changes are even more ominous for non-union employers, making it much more difficult to avoid unionization and more difficult for employees to rid themselves of unions that no longer serve their interests.
Unions will be granted remedial certification ( automatic unionization without a vote when an employer contravenes the Act) with more ease, as the changes decrease the threshold of determining what qualifies as employer misconduct.
The Labour board can also sweep decertification applications (allowing employees to de- unionize) to the side, where a first collective agreement has not been signed, and where the labour board has not engaged with the parties through mediation-arbitration to help them come to an agreement. Weak unions without membership support have just been provided a new lease on life.
The changes also make it easier for temporary workers, building- services workers, and home and commun- ity-care workers to form unions.
Unions ( in a breach of privacy for employees) will be able to require employee lists and the contact information for those employees by simply showing that 20 per cent of them support the idea of organizing.
To salvage the increasing discord between Wynne and her voter base, this legislation threatens the very prosperity that Wynne claims she wishes to spread among employees.
The changes are supposedly being implemented for the betterment of vulnerable workers, but no regard has been given to the deleterious impact on, particularly, small- and mediumsize businesses. In whole, these union- and advocacy-group- sponsored changes represents a clarion call to employers to avoid the Province of Ontario or, for those already here, if they can’t automate, to move across a border while still solvent and able to do so.