On 11th April 2022, Bill 88, Working for Workers Act 2022 has received the Royal Assent. The new law amends some of the Acts that are Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA), the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OSHA), and the Fair Access to Regulated Professions and Compulsory Trades Act, 2006 (FARPCTA).
Key points:
- Enact the Digital Platform Workers’ Rights Act (DPWRA), 2022, which would establish rights for workers who offer services through digital platforms. The DPWRA provides basic rights and protections for digital workers.
- Expand requirement for digital platform operators to provide workers with information about performance ratings. For inspection point of view DPWRA also imposes requirement for record-keeping on digital platform for each workers.
- Amends OSHA that would require employers, who become aware or ought reasonably to be aware that there may be arise of a worker having an overdose of opioid in the workplace, to provide and maintain in good condition a naloxone kit in the workplace. If there is a failure to provide safety in work environment by employers and any workers get injured or dead in the job, directors and officers will be subject to a maximum fine of $ 1,500,000, or a prison of term of upto12 month, or with both.
- Electronic Monitoring Policy (EMP) is amended to require an employers with 25 or more employees will be required to create and publish an electronic monitoring policy before 1st March of that year where the employer has 25 employees or more as of the preceding 1st January, or alternatively within six months after Bill 88.
The motive of the Fair Access to Regulated Professions and Compulsory Trades Act, 2006 (FARPACTA) is to help ensure that individuals and regulated professional applying for registration by regulated professions, are governed by registration practices that are transparent, unbiased and fair. The new law brings changes in FARPCTA to require a regulated professional to make a registration decision within 30 business days of receiving an application from a “domestic labour mobility” applicant.