Employment legislation

Pregnancy leave extended from 6 weeks to 12 weeks for employees after a miscarriage or stillbirth.

Parental leave increases from 35 weeks to 61 weeks for employees who take pregnancy leave.

Total combined pregnancy and parental leave is up to 18 months.

Total for parental leave only (if pregnancy leave not taken) is up to 63 weeks or approximately 14 ½ months.

When an employee is eligible for Employment Insurance (EI) and the full benefits program, UW provides an EI top-up benefit for a portion of the leave (top-up benefit is shared between parents if both are UW employees); the benefit provided is the same dollar amount regardless of the leave duration elected by the employee. Policy 14 is currently under review through the Secretariat and HR is engaged to ensure it reflects these changes to leave duration and benefit entitlement.

Replaces the critically ill child care leave. Dual leaves:

• Up to 37 weeks (in 52-week period) to care for a critically ill child
• Up to 17 weeks to care/support a critically ill family member >18 Expanded list of family members

Human Resources and the Secretariat are working together to update our websites with the new links to the Employment Standards Act.

Staff Leaves

Minimum vacation entitlement increases to 3 weeks’ vacation time and 6% vacation pay after 5 years of service with the employer.

UW offers a greater benefit as part of our vacation policy. Note: casual/temporary employees with 5+ years of service accumulated will need to receive this benefit. Contact your HR Partner when specific cases arise. Our Temporary hiring processes for staff has been reviewed as part of our due diligence.

If an employee has two or more different rates of pay, they are entitled to overtime pay at the rate applicable to the period of overtime.

Currently, this is a manual calculation. Contact your HR Partner for advice and to ensure consistent application.

Prohibits misclassifying employees as independent contractors.

Onus on employers to prove employment status.

Misclassification may result in penalties, prosecution, and public disclosure.

Currently we have a program through our Finance Department that assesses employment status vs independent contractors (ICON). https://uwaterloo.ca/finance/expenses/independent-contractor-determinations/assessment-using-icon-questionnaire

Assignment employees to be paid equally to employees of agency’s client if:

• They perform substantially same work for same organization;
• Utilize same skill set; and
• Work is done under similar circumstances.

Assignment employees have the right to inquire about their rate of pay without fear of reprisal.

Where your contract employees is an agency employee the process will be managed by our preferred vendor (the Dean Group) and will be charged as part of their overall invoice. Your HR Partner can assist you in determining the correct rate of pay prior to the assignment.

Extended from 8 weeks in a 26-week period to 28 weeks in a 52-week period.

Human Resources and the Secretariat are working together to update our websites with the new links to the Employment Standards Act.

Staff Leaves

Applies to all employers regardless of size.

10 days per year, two of which must be paid as long as employee has worked for at least a week.

Paid days must be taken before unpaid days.

Employers may not request a medical note to substantiate claim for personal emergency leave, but can require other evidence of entitlement.

Employer can request a medical note for any time after the 10 personal emergency leave days.

UW guideline recommends 3 paid emergency days for regularized employees (separate from sick leave which continues to require medical support after 5 work days of absence; separate also from bereavement leave). Should you encounter this request for a casual or temporary employee, contact your HR Partner to ensure consistent application.

We are working with the Secretariat to ensure that all guidelines and policies relating to leaves are updated to reflect the changes in the Employment Standards Act.

Employee who has been employed for at least 13 consecutive weeks entitled to:

• 10 days unpaid; and
• up to 15 weeks unpaid
• the first 5 days are paid

Entitled if the employee or employee’s child experiences domestic or sexual violence or threat of domestic of sexual violence.

Purpose of leave:

• To seek medical attention
• To obtain services from a victim services organization
• To obtain counselling
• To relocate
• To seek legal or law enforcement assistance

Employer may make reasonable request for evidence of necessity but must also safeguard confidentiality.

Human Resources and the Secretariat are working together to update our websites with the new links to the Employment Standards Act.

Staff Leaves

Up to 104 weeks (2 years) of unpaid leave if employee’s child dies for any reason.

Human Resources and the Secretariat are working together to update our websites with the new links to the Employment Standards Act.

Staff Leaves

Up to 104 weeks (2 years) of unpaid leave.

Human Resources and the Secretariat are working together to update our websites with the new links to the Employment Standards Act. Staff Leaves

$14.00 per hour: Jan 1, 2018

We are working with departments across campus that employ casual employees to ensure the minimum rates are applied where applicable. Contact your HR Partner for assistance.

Several new record-keeping requirements are proposed to be added to current records required by employers. Such changes include keeping records of the dates and times an employee was scheduled to work or be on call; records of any cancellations of scheduled days of work and dates and times an employee worked.

Additional record keeping obligations will be added with respect to overtime pay, public holidays and vacation pay including increasing the retention period of records of vacation time and vacation day from 3 years to 5 years.

Records need to be kept related to employee taking new domestic or sexual violence leave.

All managers should maintain records for their employees as we do not track all of these specific items in our HR system. Additional support will be available when we go live with our new system (Workday) in 2019.

One week’s notice of termination of contract that was scheduled to last more than 3 months that is ended early unless employer offers a reasonable alternate assignment of at least a week.

Contact your HR Partner to ascertain appropriate notice. If your contract employees is an agency employee, the process will be managed by our preferred vendor (the Dean Group) and will be charged as part of their overall invoice.

Equal pay regardless of a difference in employment status and an entitlement for equal pay for assignment employees of a temporary help agency who perform substantially the same work as an employee of the temporary help agency’s client.

Prohibits reprisals against employees who inquire about rates of pay or who disclose their rate of pay to determine or assisting in determining compliance with the equal pay for equal work provisions.

Note: Pursuant to Ontario Regulation 526/17, students under age 18 are exempt from equal pay if they work over 28 hours weekly or if working during a school holiday.

Contact your HR Partner to Identify rationale to distinguish between varying wage rates, where applicable.

$15.00 per hour: Jan 1, 2019

Thereafter adjusted for inflation each Oct 1 as in current ESA.

We are working with departments across campus that employ casual employees to ensure the minimum rates are applied where applicable. Contact your HR Partner for assistance.

Employees may request changes to their schedule or work location after 3 months of service.

Employers must discuss these requests and either grant them or provide reasons for denial.

Employees who regularly work more than 3 hours per day, but upon reporting to work are given less than 3 hours, must be paid for 3 hours equal to the greater of:

• 3 hours of pay at regular rate; or
• Pay for time worked + wages equal to regular rate for the remainder of the 3 hours

The three-hour rule also applies if an on-call employee is available but not called in (or called in on fewer than 3 hours).

Only required to pay for three hours in 24-hour period commencing with beginning of call-in period.

Requirement does not apply to employees who are on call to ensure continuous delivery of essential public services.

Employees can refuse to work if they were not scheduled to work and given less than 96 hours notice of schedule change. If a shift cancelled with less than 48 hours notice, employees entitled to 3 hours of pay.

If employee’s shift or on-call period is cancelled within 48 hours of start time, the employee is entitled to three hours of pay.

Does not apply:

• If shift is shortened or extended
• Shift is cancelled for circumstances outside employer’s control, e.g., weather, fire or power outage

We do not have specific on-call guidelines but there may be roles across campus when on-call is required. Please contact your HR Partner if you are unsure whether or not the new 3 hour rule is applicable.

Employers cannot require a worker to wear footwear with an elevated heel, subject to qualifications.