The Ontario government continues to do its best to protect, support, and attract workers to the province as they introduced new legislation on Monday (October 25, 2021).
The proposed new measures would promote healthy work-life balance and ban non-compete agreements.
These newly proposed changes are a part of the Working for Workers Act, 2021, brought forward by Monte McNaughton, Minister of Labour, Training, and Skills Development.
“COVID-19 has changed the way we work, leaving too many people behind, struggling to put food on the table and make ends meet for their families,” said Minister McNaughton. “Our government is working for workers. To do so, we must act swiftly and decisively to put workers in the driver’s seat and begin rebalancing the scales. Today’s proposed legislation shows Ontario is ready to lead the way into the workplaces of tomorrow, and create the conditions that will make talented, innovative people want to work in our great province.”
Disconnect from work policies will be required for employers with 25 employees or more to allow employees more time spent with family and loved ones. Workplace policies could include, for example, expectations about response time for emails and encouraging employees to turn on out-of-office notifications when they aren’t working.
If passed, this proposed legislation would make Ontario the first jurisdiction in Canada to make it easier for employees to relax when not working.
“Ontario can not be a province where people burn out from endless work and the family time comes last. We need to give our workers a break,” added McNaughton.
One other huge part of the proposed legislation is to prohibit employers from using non-compete agreements. Non-compete agreements often restrict employees from taking new jobs with another business in the same field. This would also give the province a competitive advantage in attracting global talent. Employers would still be able to protect their intellectual property through narrower clauses.
Another first would be made if passed, making Ontario the first jurisdiction in Canada, and one of the first in North America, to ban non-compete agreements in employment.
In September 2021, 29 per cent of people (aged 15 to 69) in Ontario who worked at least half their usual hours worked from home, the highest percentage of any province in Canada.