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On April 11, 2022, Bill 88 – Ontario’s Working for Workers Act, 2022 – received Royal Assent and became law. We reviewed this new legislative change with local legal experts, Hina Ghaus and Tushar Anandasagar, of Gowling WLG (Canada) LLP.
“We discussed the proposed legislation, with a specific focus on workplace electronic monitoring policies, in a previous blog post. At that stage, the legislation was still in draft form. For the final version, we wanted to provide the members with an up-to-date overview of what actually applies,” says Tushar.
Here are the key takeaways:
Employers: “Electronic Monitoring Policy”
Bill 88 introduced new provisions into the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (“ESA”), which require all employers who employ 25 or more employees to have a written policy in place on electronic monitoring of employees.
The electronic monitoring policy must include:
According to Hina, time is of the essence: “There are 3 key dates to keep in mind for the first year. Employers who had 25 or more employees on January 1, 2022 must have this policy in place by October 11, 2022, and provide a written copy of the policy to existing employees by November 10, 2022. In subsequent years, any employer who has 25 or more employees on January 1 of any year, must have a policy in place by March 1 of that year.”
“There are more requirements to consider regarding ongoing compliance, including when you will need to deliver a copy of the policy (once finalized) to your staff,” says Tushar. “Employers must provide a written copy of the policy to all employees by no later than 30 days from the day the employer is required to have the policy in place, or for new employees, within 30 days of their joining date.”
There are additional wrinkles to consider for those businesses that utilize temporary help agency employees. “For “assignment employees” (the ESA term for temporary help agency employees), they need to receive a copy of the policy within 24 hours of the start of the assignment, or within 30 days from the day the employer is required to have the policy in place, whichever is later,” says Hina.
During our last overview of the draft Bill 88, there was ongoing debate about this legislation and how it would be enforced.
According to Tushar, the “enforcement” mechanisms under the ESA are quite limited: “Yes – the ESA contains several provisions which allow an employee to file a ‘complaint’ about this policy compliance requirement – but the grounds upon which the complaint can be based are very limited. For instance, the ESA allows an employee to complain about whether a copy of the policy was provided in a timely manner, or not.”
Notably, there is no prohibition under the ESA which prevents an employer from engaging in electronic monitoring of one form or another. In fact, it is explicitly stated in the legislation that these requirements do not affect or limit an employer’s ability to use the information obtained through electronic monitoring of employees.
“As expected, there is nothing under Bill 88 which restricts an employer’s ability to monitor, or use the information obtained through monitoring, nor does it create a statutory “right to privacy” for employees,” says Hina. “There is no actual definition of ‘electronic monitoring’ under the legislation, although it is still early, and we could see clarification of this aspect of the law as we get closer to October 11, 2022.”
Tushar points out that the standard rules may not affect all employers the same way and pointed to the unique context of unionized workplaces.
“The ESA is only part of the picture. For many workplaces – notably unionized settings, a notable caveat applies where the parties to a collective agreement have negotiated language that permits or prohibits certain forms of electronic monitoring (in some cases referred to as a ‘surveillance’ clause),” he says. “There is an extensive body of unionized case law that deals with the “reasonableness” of employee monitoring / surveillance – and that needs to be balanced with this new policy requirement. We are actively assisting union sector employers with managing this issue.”
Finally, Hina notes that Bill 88 was just passed, and more is likely to be forthcoming from the province as we near October 11.
“We don’t have any codes of practice, guidelines or regulations (yet) on this new legislative requirement. As with the ‘Disconnecting from Work’ policy compliance requirement, we may see the province publishing more on this issue over the coming months,” she says.
For the time being, Hina, Tushar and the rest of the team at Gowling WLG continue to diligently sift through the latest legislative changes. For further information, please feel free to contact Tushar at [email protected] and/or Hina at [email protected]. |
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