On December 2, 2021, the Working for Workers Act, 2021 (“Act”), came into force amending several existing Acts impacting employer and, in some circumstances, employee obligations. You can find the full Act, including the dates each Schedule of amendments comes into force, here (link).

Some of the amendments to the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (link) include:

• an obligation for employers with 25 or more employees to create a written policy on employees disconnecting from work. The purpose of creating these new policies is intended to assist employees to have a better opportunity to create boundaries for their own time outside of work; and
• prohibiting non-compete agreements, with two exceptions: 1) for employee’s in executive positions; and 2) when a business owner sells their business but becomes an employee of the business immediately following the sale.

One of the amendments to the Fair Access to Regulated Professions and Compulsory Trades Act, 2006, (link), includes removing Canadian experience requirements for foreign-trained professionals. For more information on how the Act benefits foreign-trained professionals, read our previous blog post here (link).

Other amendments under the Act include changes to the Occupation Health and Safety Act (link) to help improve working conditions for delivery workers by clarifying their right to access a washroom when they pick up or drop off a delivery to a workplace.

Bakerlaw has extensive experience representing individuals with human rights complaints at the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, the Canadian Human Rights Commission, and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. Bakerlaw has represented clients in regulated professions in cases of discrimination based on place of origin, age and disability as well as in other areas of employment law. Bakerlaw has also represented clients on Charter matters at multiple levels of courts and tribunals.

Learn more about the work we have done with regulated professionals here (link) and bakerlaw’s legal services in employment law here (link), human rights here (link), and the Charter here (link).