Employee Rights

All employees have rights. The employment standards acts of ontario sets out minimum rights
for most employees in Ontario workplaces. But some employees are not covered by the ESA.
Those are secondary students who are part of work programs like co-op and employees who are
not paid.

To minimum working age in Ontario is 14 or 15 depending on the job. Even though the
minimum age is 14 or 15, some places like Walmart, only hire if youre 16 or older. If youre a
student and you have a job, you should be getting paid $10.70 per hour as it is the student
minimum wage but if you work 28 hours in a week then you should be paid the general
minimum wage which is $11.40 per hour. Some people are not entitled to a minimum wage.
Those people are students training for law, professional engineering e.t.c, persons performing
work under a program approved by a college and a work experience program, and people
employed as a student to instruct or supervise children.

As an employee you have certain rights. Employees are to get a 30 minute eating break after
working for 5 hours in a row. Workers who are called into work and are over 18 must be paid for
at least 3 hours at minimum wage even if they did not work that much time. Employers must also
pay workers overtime if they work more than 44 hours a week. There are certain jobs that dont
get overtime. Those are; installation and maintenance of swimming pools, landscape gardeners,
person employed as a student to instruct or supervise children and person employed as a student
at a camp for children. Also part of an employee right is that you must be given a notice before
you are terminated. If you have worked 3 months-1 year, a one week notice is required, if you
have worked 1-3 years, a two week notice is required and lastly if you have worked 3 years and
more than you should receive a one week notice for each year worked. Employees are also to be
paid for a public holiday. Their holiday pay is calculated by dividing previous four week pay by
20. Employees are entitled to a minimum of two weeks of vacation with pay (4%) after working
for 12 months.

All employees protected by the ESA are allowed to take unpaid time off for some types of
leaves. There is pregnancy and parental leave that allows mothers who give birth to take 17
weeks of pregnancy leave and 35 weeks of job-protected parental leave and all other parents to
take up to 37 weeks of leave. There is family medical leave that allows you to leave your job for
up to eight weeks in a 26 week period to take care of a seriously ill family member. There is
personal emergency leave that allows you to take 10 days off of job-protected unpaid leave, for a
serious illness or a medical emergency, if your employer employs at least 50 people.