Ontario employment lawyer talks remote worker compensation

Interview Summary

The Ontario government is proposing new legislation for remote employees in order to protect their rights in the event of a layoff. Were remote workers exempt from previous employment laws and severance entitlements? Are there other rights hybrid and remote employees have not been entitled to?

Alex Lucifero, an Ontario employment lawyer and Managing Partner at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP spoke to 580 CFRA’s Bill Carroll on the proposed legislation and employee rights.

Interview Notes

• Separate rules for remote employees: There are current loopholes in employment law that could have exploited employee rights in the event of a layoff. The proposed legislation seems to focus on employees that as a result of COVID-19, or not, work from home and are not in the physical workplace.
• Hybrid employee rights: Hybrid employee rights would fall under the ordinary classification of an employee. It is important to consider the specific language used for employee rights in mass layoffs currently. The current provisions also speak only to employees’ minimum severance entitlements and not their full common law entitlements.
• Loopholes available to employers: Employers implementing a mass layoff could currently argue that remote workers are separate from other employees and so exempt from minimum severance entitlements if terminated. Minimum protections in the event of a mass layoff are only a small portion of an employee’s entitlements.
• Forced to return to the office: Many employers have requested employees return to the office in some capacity. In the past year, however, a lot of employers in the private sector have introduced hybrid work arrangements.