New Ontario law allows less pay for overtime
The Toronto Star talks to Josh Mandryk about Bill 66
Bill 66, the so-called Restoring Ontario’s Competitiveness Act, was passed into law today. As we previously explained, Bill 66 continues the Ford government’s attack on working people across the province.
As the Toronto Star reports, among other things, Bill 66 amends the Employment Standards Act, 2000 to “lighten regulations around a practice called ‘overtime averaging’ in a way that has significant implications for how much overtime pay workers receive.”
The Star spoke to Josh Mandryk about Bill 66’s overtime averaging amendments, which free employers from seeking the permission of the Ministry of Labour to use an averaging agreement:
“Requiring Ministry of Labour approval of overtime-averaging agreements is an essential safeguard for employees’ basic overtime protections and ensuring there are bona fide reasons for overtime averaging,” said Joshua Mandryk, a lawyer with Toronto-based labour law firm Goldblatt Partners.
“The removal of this oversight will inevitably result in the proliferation of overtime-averaging agreements in workplaces where no warranting circumstances are present, and employers are simply seeking to cut costs by denying their employees’ overtime entitlement.”