Employment Law Assistance:

Question: What are my rights and duties as an employee in Ontario during hiring, discipline, and termination under the Employment Standards Act, 2000?

Answer:   In Ontario, employment rights and duties are mainly set by the Employment Standards Act, 2000, S.O. 2000, c. 41, plus related rules such as the Human Rights Code, R.S.O. 1990, c. H.19 and the Occupational Health and Safety Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. O.1, with additional protections coming from common law; generally, employees must follow lawful policies and do their work as assigned, while employers must follow minimum standards on things like pay, notice, leaves, termination processes, and non-discrimination, and discipline or termination must be handled fairly within those requirements (for example, unlawful termination or retaliation can trigger remedies); if you are trying to understand what steps to take or how to document events, Marketing.Legal™ can help you find the right Ontario-focused resources and create a clear plan for next steps for lawyers, paralegals, and other legal professionals, call (800) 551-5751 to get started.

Understanding Rights and Duties Within Employment Relations

The various disputes and lawsuits that may arise from employment relationships are more and more frequent in the world today as long gone are the days of substantial loyalties between employer and employee whereas times have changed since days when a boss would be a dinner guest or a gold watch was given to a thirty (30) year employee.

What Is Employment Law

Employment law applies to employment relationships without unionization as opposed to circumstances where an employment relationship involves unionization as is subject to labour law.

Generally, principles within the employment law realm will favour and benefit an employee rather than employer.  The laws general favouring of employees arises from the view that employees are more vulnerable throughout the employment relationship, including when seeking work, when negotiating raises, when subjected to discipline, and when terminated.  Essentially, the law presumes that employers possess a greater level of legal sophistication, a stronger bargaining position, and a greater financial capacity to participate within legal disputes.  Accordingly, the law provides various protections that attempt to balance the playing field to the benefit of employees.

Employment law involves both statute law, being the law established by government legislation as well as common law, being the law established by judicial precedent decisions.  The laws applicable to an employment relationship are many and include, among others:

• The Employment Standards Act, 2000, S.O. 2000, Chapter 41;
• The Human Rights Code, R.S.O. 1990, c. H.19;
• The Occupational Health and Safety Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. O.1;
• The Pay Equity Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. P.7;
• The Workplace Safety and Insurance Act, 1997, S.O. 1997, Chapter 16, Schedule A; and
• The tens of thousands of previous case decisions that constitute as the common law.

Representation

Help may be available to either employers or employees on a variety of issues and arising from a broad spectrum of employment environments including industrial, construction, professional, administrative, health care, retail, among other sectors.