On July 29, 2020, Bill 32, Restoring Balance in Alberta’s Workplaces Act received Royal Assent. The Bill will make a number of changes to Alberta's Employment Standards Code. The goal of the Bill is to provide both employees and employers with more transparent rules that promote fairness and productivity, including more clarity with regards to rest periods, temporary layoff notices, general holiday pay, and other changes.
Changes in the Employment Standards Code would take effect November 1, 2020, except for the following changes which will take effect August 15, 2020.
Rest periods and hours of work
Penalties, variances, and exceptions
Termination pay and layoffs
The length of temporary layoffs, where an employee will not lose their job, is to be extended to 90 days within a 120 day period.
If a layoff was due to COVID-19, separate rules allow employees to be laid off for 180 consecutive days as established under the COVID-19 Pandemic Response Statutes Amendment Act.
In terms of group termination, you will not need to give group termination notice to employees or unions.
There will be one set of rules for all terminations of 50 or more people in a four-week period rather than different requirements depending on the number of employees being terminated.
You will still need to give the Minister of Labour and Immigration four weeks notice, or as much time as is reasonable, if you terminate more than 50 employees at a single location.
The time in which you are required to pay terminated employees their final pay will be extended to:
- 10 consecutive days after the end of the pay period in which they were terminated, or;
- 31 consecutive days after the last day of employment
General holiday pay
Average daily wage will not include vacation pay and general holiday pay in the calculation. Instead, It would change to be the employee’s total wages averaged over the number of days they worked in the:
- 4 weeks immediately before the general holiday; or
- 4 weeks ending on the last day of the pay period that occurred just before the general holiday
Overpayment of wages
If you have overpaid an employee due to a payroll error, or for vacation pay paid in advance, you would no longer need to obtain written permission from your employee(s) to deduct the overpayment from their pay cheque.
Rest periods and hours of work
You will have to give your employees at least 30 minutes of rest every 5 hours for shifts that are longer than 5 hours. The rest period can be within or immediately after the 5 hours of work, or at any time mutually agreed upon by both yourself and your employee(s).
In terms of hours of work, more flexible rules for averaging arrangements are to be put forward, that would make it easier to set up arrangements, create schedules and calculate overtime. With this new Bill, you would need no longer need your employee's consent to start or change an "hours of work averaging arrangement." Instead, you could simply give your employee(s) 2 weeks’ notice. Further changes to averaging agreements would be:
- Arrangements could have an averaging period of up to 52 weeks;
- Arrangements would no longer need to have an end date;
- You could negotiate with employees how to handle schedule changes or missed shifts but employees must get 8 hours of rest between shifts if there is a schedule change;
- You would not have to provide daily overtime, unless daily overtime is included as part of the arrangement;
- The weekly overtime threshold would apply, regardless whether daily overtime is included in the arrangement or not.
Youth employment
You will be able to hire 13 and 14-year-olds for specific job without getting a permit first. Types of jobs include light janitorial work in offices, coaching and tutoring. It also includes some jobs in the food service industry if the youth is working with someone 18 or older.
Penalties, variances, and exceptions
As with the current employment standards code, if rules are broken, you will get a penalty. However, with this new Bill, the amount could be adjusted on a case-by-case basis and you will have more time to make the payment - up to 30 days.
More flexible rules would make it easier and quicker for employers to get approval for, and renew a variance or exemption. As an employer, you may write to the Minister of Labour to request an order to vary or exempt any provision under the Employment Standards Code or Regulation.
Variances or exemptions are exceptional, and certain criteria must be met and outlined in the application. Changes in the legislation will provide more flexible rules to make it easier and quicker for employers to get approval for, and renew a variance or exemption.