Support for Progressive Labour Law – 2020

BACKGROUND – On October 23, 2018, the Ontario Government’s Bill 47, Making Ontario Open for Business Act replaced the majority of Bill 148, Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act (Government of Ontario, 2018). The Ontario Human Rights Commission submission to Ministry of Labour Changing Workplace Review (2015) notes that nearly 70% of part-time, contract, temporary and temporary help agency workers in 2013 were women, a proportion that has not changed significantly over the past three decades (Ontario Human Rights Commission, 2015). Women comprise a disproportionately larger portion of precarious professionals (60%) than men (40%) (Hennessy and Tranjan, 2018).

Not every worker fits neatly into the category of employee or independent contractor, where some are more likely in a traditional employment relationship rather than that of an independent contractor, which deprives these workers of the protections of the Employment Standards Act (ESA) (2000) including employment insurance (EI), severance and other benefits, unless employer is prohibited from misclassification (Ontario Human Rights Commission, 2015). Most Ontario’s 534,000 minimum wage workers are women in marginalized groups and are more likely to work for minimum wage. The Ontario Equal Pay Coalition recommends the minimum wage should be $15 per hour, effective immediately and new wage must keep up with inflation and continue to increase until it is at the level of a living wage (Government of Ontario, 2017; Law Commission of Ontario, 2012). The wage-setting process should include moving from arbitrary set figures using to include implementation of annual increases based on an economic indicator formula based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and average weekly earnings (Dickens, 2015; Gunderson, 2007; Gunderson, 2005), which will provided a measurable formula consistent with economic conditions for minimum wage workers where 60% may be women (Green, 2015).

The ESA provides the minimum standards for working in the province of Ontario, setting out the rights and responsibilities of employees and employers in Ontario workplaces and regulating employment in the province of Ontario, including wages, maximum work hours, overtime, vacation, and leaves of absence for all workers including precarious workers where women are in the majority, with less job security, few if any benefits and minimal control over working conditions. From 2012 to 2017 studies were prepared for reforms (Government of Ontario,2014; Ontario Human Rights Commission, 2015, resulting in revisions to the law in 2017 and some repealed in 2018 (Kirkness and MacMillan, 2018).

Since March 2020 economic impacts of pandemic conditions have exposed the disparate vulnerability of women in such institutions as long term care and others whose reliance on temporary and casual workers who are predominately women, as a means of using exclusions in the employment act to exploit limited legal protections by limiting wages, hours of work, and benefits.

The following repealed measures are recommended revisions to the law to help protect rights of women who are more likely to be ‘vulnerable workers’ engaged in precarious work. Law Commission of Ontario’s Vulnerable Workers and Precarious Work Final Report (2012) key recommendations to improve the flexibility and ability of women to live in economic parity include:
A. Raise minimum wage and reform the minimum wage setting process
B. Require equal pay for equal work
C. Provide two days of paid personal emergency leave for employees employed for at least a week
D. Reform the Public Holiday pay formula to apply in proportion for short term work
E. Require employer notice for schedule change to provide short term working women flexibility for family commitments