N.B. minimum wage increase • P.E.I overhauls employment standards act
NEW BRUNSWICK
Minimum wage going up
Effective Sept. 1, 2010, the general minimum wage rate in Manitoba will increase from $8.50 per hour to $9. The minimum wage rate for employees whose hours of work per week are unverifiable and who are not strictly employed on a commission basis will also increase from $374 per week to $396.
PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND
Employment Standards Act amendments
Amendments to the Prince Edward Island’s Employment Standards Act that were passed late last year come into effect on Oct. 1, 2010. The amendments in Bill 2, the Employment Standards Amendment Act, 2009, affect a number of standards in the act.
Pay and pay statements
•Employers will be allowed to give employees electronic pay statements as long as the employer provides the employee with confidential access to the statements and a way to make a paper copy of them at the workplace.
•Pay statements will have to include gross amounts of any vacation pay and pay in lieu of notice being paid to the employee.
•Employers will have to give employees notice of at least one pay period before reducing their regular wage rate.
•Employers will be allowed to make deductions from an employee’s pay for group benefit and savings plans that an employee takes part in or asks to take part in.
•Employers will not be allowed to withhold or deduct amounts from an employee’s pay for faulty work, property that was damaged or if a customer failed to pay for a product or service.
•Employers will have to keep a record of the overtime hours each employee has worked and used in the employer’s payroll records.
Overtime
Employees will be allowed to bank overtime hours at a rate of 1.5 hours of paid time off for each hour of overtime that they work instead of being paid overtime pay for the hours.
In order to set up an overtime bank, the employee will have to request it in writing. The employer will have to provide the employee with the time off no later than three months after the week the employee works the overtime hours.
Upon termination of employment, the employer must pay the employee for any outstanding banked overtime.
Breaks
The act will specify that breaks and rest periods are unpaid and that employees are allowed to leave the workplace during an eating period or rest period for which they are not paid.
Vacation
•Employees with at least eight years of continuous employment will be entitled to three weeks’ vacation, with vacation pay of at least six per cent of vacationable earnings. Employees with fewer than eight years will continue to be entitled to two weeks, with vacation pay of at least four per cent of vacationable earnings.
•Employees will be allowed to waive their right to vacation time if they have been employed by their employer for a continuous 12-month period and, during that time, worked less than 90 per cent of their normal working hours.
•Employees who wish to waive their vacation time will have to notify their employer in writing before the end of the 12-month period.
The employer will still be required to pay the employee vacation pay owing not later than one month after the end of the 12-month period in which the employee earns the vacation entitlement.
Continuity of employment
The amendments will add a standard for continuity of employment if the employer’s business is sold, as long as not more than 13 weeks pass from the time the new owner hires the employee and the earlier of the employee’s last day of employment with the previous owner and the day of the sale.
Termination
•An employer will be required to give an employee a second notice of termination or layoff if the employee continues to work for the employer for a month or more after the original notice period ends.
•The list of exceptions to termination notice will grow to include: employees employed for a definite task for a period of no more than 12 months, employees being laid off for no more than six consecutive days and employees who have been offered reasonable alternate employment by their employer.
The bill also includes an amendment that will allow the Employment Standards Board to set one minimum wage rate for all employees or different rates for different groups of employees. This amendment has not yet been proclaimed law.
Source: Canadian Payroll Manual, a publication of Carswell, a Thomson Reuters business.
