will provide employees who make such requests with protection
against reprisal.
2. Scheduling rules (amendments contemplated for
January 1, 2019)
Bill 148 contemplates numerous changes to the ESA provisions
dealing with on-call employees and minimum call-in pay; and it
also provides employees with a new right to request changes to
their schedule and/or work location – again, accompanied by pro-tection
against reprisal.
3. Minimum vacation entitlements (amendments contemplated
for January 1, 2018)
Under Bill 148, an employee’s minimum statutory vacation en-titlement
will increase from two weeks to three weeks upon his or
her completion of five years of service.
4. Leaves of absence (amendments contemplated for January 1,
2018)
The Bill 148 amendments will increase the duration of parental
leave by 26 weeks – i.e., from 35 weeks to 61 weeks for employees
who also take pregnancy leave, and from 37 weeks to 63 weeks for
employees who do not.
In addition, Bill 148 will:
■■ Boost the family medical leave entitlement from eight weeks
per 26 week period to 27 weeks per 52 week period; and
■■ Significantly enhance employees’ rights to personal emergency
leave – in particular, by stipulating that two days of the
annual 10-day entitlement be paid days, and by prohibiting
employers from insisting that employees provide medical
documentation to substantiate personal emergency leave taken
for medical reasons.
In addition to introducing those new obligations – which many
organizations (and particularly small businesses) can ill-afford –
Bill 148 will increase the maximum administrative penalties that
can be imposed for violations of the ESA.
Moreover, the Ministry of Labour has announced an intention
to hire almost 200 additional employment standards officers; and
there is good reason to believe that those officers will be kept very
busy not only with education and enforcement initiatives in re-lation
to the Bill 148 amendments, but also with a substantially
increased volume of ESA complaints.
In that regard, a number of the new provisions will – unfortu-nately
– be ripe for abuse by employees. Consider, for example, the
following:
■■ Section 74(1) of the ESA already stipulates that:
No employer or person acting on behalf of an employer
shall intimidate, dismiss or otherwise penalize an em-ployee
or threaten to do so,
legal words
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16 ❚ OCTOBER 2017 ❚ HR PROFESSIONAL