{"id":1655,"date":"2019-01-29T15:28:58","date_gmt":"2019-01-29T20:28:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/more-changes-to-come-to-labour-and-employment-laws-under-bill-66-in-ontario\/"},"modified":"2021-06-25T17:30:03","modified_gmt":"2021-06-25T21:30:03","slug":"more-changes-to-come-to-labour-and-employment-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/more-changes-to-come-to-labour-and-employment-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"More Changes to Come to Labour and Employment Laws under Bill 66 in Ontario"},"content":{"rendered":"

On December 6, 2018, the Ontario government introduced another new bill that will make even further changes to Ontario\u2019s labour and employment laws.\u00a0 This new bill, called Bill 66 or the\u00a0Restoring Ontario\u2019s Competitiveness Act,<\/em>\u00a02018 (\u201cBill 66\u201d), would make several amendments to Ontario\u2019s\u00a0Employment Standards Act<\/em>, 2000 and Ontario\u2019s\u00a0Labour Relations Act<\/em>, 1995 in an effort to address certain concerns raised by employers and others.\u00a0 These changes also seek to make Ontario businesses more competitive.\u00a0 Bill 66 comes on the heels of other recent legislative changes made by Ontario\u2019s government including the changes made in Bill 47 or\u00a0Making Ontario Open for Business Act<\/em>.\u00a0 Further information about Bill 47 can be found in our recent blog post entitled \u201cPremier Ford set to Reverse Recent Changes to Ontario Employment Laws.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bill 66 is not yet the law in Ontario but it has passed its first reading in the legislature.<\/p>\n

The following are some key changes proposed under Bill 66 with respect to both the\u00a0Employment Standards Act<\/em>\u00a0(\u201cESA\u201d) and\u00a0Labour Relations Act<\/em>\u00a0(\u201cLRA\u201d):<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Bill 66 will eliminate the duty of employers to post a copy of an ESA poster in the workplace.\u00a0 The ESA poster currently sets out employer and employee rights and responsibilities under the ESA.\u00a0 However, Bill 66 will still mandate that the employer must provide a copy of the poster to each employee.<\/li>\n
  2. Bill 66 will eliminate the requirement that employers must obtain approval from the Director of Employment Standards in order for the employer to make agreements with employees to work more than 48 hours in one work week.<\/li>\n
  3. Bill 66 will eliminate the requirement that employers must obtain approval from the Director of Employment Standards in order to average hours of work for the purposes of determining an employee\u2019s entitlement to over-time pay.<\/li>\n
  4. Bill 66 would amend the LRA to deem certain municipal workers as well as certain workers employed by local boards, school boards, hospitals, colleges, universities and public bodies to be \u201cnon-construction\u201d employees.<\/li>\n
  5. Bill 66 would eliminate any current binding collective agreements as a result of deeming the above workers to be \u201cnon-construction\u201d employees and those trade unions would no longer be able to represent those workers.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Our Thoughts about Bill 66<\/strong><\/p>\n

    We think that the most significant changes proposed under Bill 66 is with respect to the LRA.\u00a0 Currently, workers for local boards, municipalities, school boards, universities, etc. are deemed to be \u201cconstruction\u201d employees and, as such, are subject to collective agreements as \u201cconstruction\u201d employees.\u00a0 Bill 66 would make so those workers are no longer bound by any current collective agreement in the construction industry and those trade unions would not be able to represent those workers.<\/p>\n

    We believe that the purpose the government\u2019s actions with respect to Bill 66 is to allow entities such as hospitals and universities to be able to work with non-union employees.\u00a0 It will be interesting to see what happens if Bill 66 actually becomes the law in Ontario and what the reactions will be from trade unions that currently represent these workers.<\/p>\n

    In any event, we encourage employers to refrain from taking any major action about their employment policies or procedures with respect to Bill 66 given that Bill 66 is not yet the law in Ontario.\u00a0 If either employers or employees have any questions about Bill 66 and how these new changes will affect the workplace, it is imperative that they speak with an employment lawyer to help guide them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    On December 6, 2018, the Ontario government introduced another new bill that will make even further changes to Ontario\u2019s labour and employment laws.\u00a0 This new bill, called Bill 66 or the\u00a0Restoring Ontario\u2019s Competitiveness Act,\u00a02018 (\u201cBill 66\u201d), would make several amendments to Ontario\u2019s\u00a0Employment Standards Act, 2000 and Ontario\u2019s\u00a0Labour Relations Act, 1995 in an effort to address […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1798,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Legislation.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1655"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}