Changes includes adoption and surrogacy leave, limits to sick-note requests
Manitoba HR teams face two new compliance obligations under amendments to The Employment Standards Code.
The changes include a 16-week unpaid leave for adoption and surrogacy that is came into force June 1, and limits on when employers can demand a sick note that begin Oct. 1.
Both passed as government-sponsored bills championed by Labour and Immigration Minister Malaya Marcelino, per Manitoba Hansard, but on different timelines. The attachment leave falls under Bill 10 while Bill 11 brings Manitoba in line with most other provinces, which already restrict sick notes for short absences.
Attachment leave
Bill 10 entitles a worker with at least seven consecutive months of service to an unpaid leave of absence of up to 16 continuous weeks tied to a "placement" — the adoption of a child, or "the arrival of a newborn child of an employee into the employee's care where the person who gave birth to the child is a surrogate." It closes a gap that left intended parents through surrogacy without a dedicated, job-protected leave.
The leave may begin up to six weeks before the estimated placement date and must end within 16 weeks of the actual date; only one leave is available where two or more children are placed in the same week. Employees must give four weeks' written notice where possible but keep the entitlement even if notice is short.
An employee may end the leave early on two weeks' or one pay period's notice, and may continue it for a further two weeks if told the placement will not occur. Employers may request "evidence reasonable in the circumstances," and an employee already on parental leave "may interrupt their parental leave to take attachment leave," resuming it afterward.
Sick-note limits
From Oct. 1, Bill 11 bars an employer from requiring a sick note "unless the absence continues for a period of more than one week" or the employee "has been absent from work because of injury or illness on more than 10 scheduled workdays in that calendar year." A partial day may count toward the threshold, so employers must track cumulative absence days by calendar year.
When a note can be required, employers must accept one from a broad range of providers — not only a physician — including nurses, psychologists and midwives. They must also reimburse "any reasonable amount" the provider charges, within 30 days of receiving proof. Miss that window and the unpaid sum is "deemed to be a wage owing," letting the worker file a complaint.
Recently, for the second time in two years, Prince Edward Island's governing Progressive Conservatives voted down a private member's bill that would have prohibited employers from requiring sick notes from absent workers.
P.E.I.’s new Employment Standards Act (ESA) also comes into force on June 30.
