Can Employer Call You in for Only 3 Hours Work
Right to disconnect: Go ready to pay staff three hours pay for an later on-hours, thirty-second call
Howard Levitt: A reader asks: Can I record-record conversations in the workplace?
With the correct to disconnect now enshrined as police in Ontario, what happens to employees who do or do non respond to work calls afterwards their shift has ended?
Not responding to an employer call when the policy permits disconnection, obviously, is no longer cause for bailiwick.
What will surprise near is that the Ontario Employment Standards Act may stipulate a minimum of three hours pay for an employee fifty-fifty for a 30-2nd, after-piece of work phone call. This is not a change to the law. Section 21.2(ane) states that "if an employee who regularly works more than than three hours a mean solar day is required to present himself or herself for work but works less than three hours… the employer shall pay the employee wages for three hours."
It has commonly been causeless that the section required employees to really attend the function but, with then many working from home, it cannot be interpreted that way.
Even for those employees who work in the office, presenting oneself could well exist interpreted to mean to make oneself available to perform piece of work. That interpretation has non nevertheless been tested, just employers contacting employees after hours will incur massive unexpected liability if the department is interpreted that manner. This will not apply to salaried employees whose income includes piece of work afterwards hours.
The new result has emerged as companies and their staff navigate the new mail-COVID piece of work era. Here are some of the other questions I received over the past few weeks.
Q: What are the key problems facing employees who are looking to resign? What should they exist mindful of in terms of obligations to employers, restrictive covenants, etc.?
A: If they take non-competition covenants, they should determine their enforceability and, if enforceable, the likelihood that the employer volition pursue them. Equally well, since courts will seldom provide injunctions but more frequently damages, has the company suffered any compensable loss as effect of the breach?
There is as well the law of 'wrongful resignation' where employees have to provide the employer sufficient advance notice of resignation so that the employer can find a suitable replacement.
If sufficient discover is not provided, the employer can sue for amercement. Therefore, employees should attempt to resolve with the employer the advance discover that information technology requires. If they cannot come to a resolution, the employee should obtain legal advice as to the advance notice required. It is not the two weeks advance notice, which is the subject of mutual myth.
Employees should also exist cautious to not accept whatever confidential information or company documents or they tin can be sued. If they are fiduciaries, they must adhere to their fiduciary obligations even following resignation, including the obligation not to solicit their employers' customers or business opportunities.
Q: I have heard of formulas for severance calculations equating length of service and termination payments. Are they valid?
A: Length of service is 1 of more than 100 factors referred to in my book, The Police force of Dismissal in Canada, that courts tin consider. It is oftentimes not even the major gene. Although employees with a very long service record are almost always entitled to many months of severance, the reverse does not apply. In 1 example, an employee terminated after but two weeks was awarded one twelvemonth'south pay by the court. Senior executives will seldom receive severance of less than six months, regardless of their tenure and could be awarded substantially more, even with curt service. At that place are many other factors which can influence a court to award significant severance to a curt-service employee, two other major ones being re-employability and harsh handling.
Q: Can I tape-record in the workplace?
A: It is not a offense to record your own conversations — as opposed to leaving a recorder in a room to capture conversations where you lot are not involved —, but that does not mean you can practice so with dispensation. No one wants to work in an environment where they are concerned virtually being surreptitiously recorded, and so such an action is generally cause for discharge. I believe an exception will exist made for an employee who is existence abused, has complained and is not believed past human resources or management. In that circumstance, I believe a court will permit them to tape-record an interaction to institute their betoken. But fifty-fifty that would not permit them to keep a recording permanently ongoing.
Q: Practice I get employment insurance if I am terminated for refusing to be vaccinated as a term of employment when the visitor policy requires it?
A: I am told that EI has been instructed not to provide unemployment benefits in those circumstances. Withal, if there is no reason for the policy, i.e. the employee is permitted to work from abode and has no contact with anyone, such a decision could be successfully challenged.
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Q: Is there a minimum mileage allowance?
A: Employers could take employees drive their own cars for business purposes and pay no mileage allowance at all. There is no minimum and it depends on whatever is negotiated.
Q: What if I sign a two-year contract and leave earlier it is over?
A: The employer could sue you lot for damage for not providing notice until the terminate of the term. Withal, it would accept to prove those damages and, to the extent it has whatsoever, those damages would be reduced by the amount your forgone bacon is saving the company.
Howard Levitt is senior partner of Levitt Sheikh, employment and labour lawyers with offices in Toronto and Hamilton. He practices employment law in eight provinces. He is the author of six books including the Law of Dismissal in Canada.
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Source: https://financialpost.com/fp-work/right-to-disconnect-get-ready-to-pay-staff-three-hours-pay-for-an-after-hours-30-second-call
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