On November 22, 2017, the provincial government passed Bill 148, the Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act, 2017. Bill 148 has brought and continues to bring about the most significant reforms to employment laws in over two decades. While some of the changes took effect in January 2018 and earlier, more changes are taking effect in April 2018 and January 2019.
The changes brought about by Bill 148 include increases to minimum wage, 3 weeks’ vacation pay entitlements for employees with 5 years of service, 2 paid sick days, a full day’s pay as holiday pay for casual employees, 18 months of job protected parental leave, 3 hour minimum on-call pay, and the obligation to pay part-time employees the same rate of pay as full-time employees. Further, as a result of Bill 148, employers are now exposed to prosecutions and penalties where they have mislabeled employees as contractors.
In December 2017, we held a complimentary webinar about the changes. As a follow-up, on February 28th we will be holding a breakfast seminar and live webinar on Bill 148. At this event, in addition to broadly reviewing the changes, our speakers will focus on providing practical advice and tools to mitigate some of the impact of the legislation.