Currently, when an employer dismisses 50 or more employees from its establishment in four weeks, they are entitled to an increased notice period of eight, twelve, or sixteen weeks, depending on the number of dismissals made. In contrast, remote workers are not entitled to these notice periods, even in a mass redundancy, because they do not work within the employer's establishment.

Instead, the ESA's proposed amendment broadens the definition of 'establishment' to include employees' remote offices, thus equating the notice treatment of remote workers with those at headquarters.

Depending on how the amendment is implemented, employers should consider that, if passed, it will also impact the determination of what constitutes a mass layoff and whether it has occurred.

"Whether you commute to work every day or not shouldn't determine what you are owed. No billion-dollar company should be treating their remote employees as second-class," said Monte McNaughton, Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development, in the government statement. "The future of work is here, and our government will continue to lead the country in ensuring workers have the protections they need to find better jobs and earn bigger paycheques in the 21st-century economy."

It is even more so when one considers that, according to an Ipsos poll conducted on behalf of the Ontario Workforce Recovery Advisory Board, 89 per cent of Ontarians believe that the workplace has permanently changed due to COVID-19. As a result, the province needs to take action to update labour standards.

The government has also proposed requiring employers to provide new hires with written information about their jobs, such as pay, work location, work hours, and the date by which that information must be provided (e.g., before their first shift).

These changes are at the proposal stage and are not yet law.  

These proposed changes are part of a larger package that expands on the ground-breaking actions in the Working for Workers Acts of 2021 and 2022.

You can find here our previous article on the issue.