Business, labour brace for changes to Ontario's workplace laws

Businesses in Ontario are spooked by the wide scope of possiblechanges to the province's labour and employment laws.

The Liberal government is about to receive recommendations that could lead to the most significant reforms toOntario's employment laws since the1990s.

• Big changes considered for Ontario workplaces
• As work world shifts, Ontariolooks to reformlabourlaws

Mandatorysick pay, shiftingthe threshold for overtime, boosting the minimum paid vacation, advance scheduling, andmaking it easier to joina union are all underconsideration.

"We're challenging whether or not such sweeping reforms are necessary," said KarlBaldauf, vice-president of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce. Its 60,000 members employ some two million people in the province.

"We have to make sure that you're not putting businesses in a position where theywill actually beless inclined to hire or less inclinedtoexpandas a result of new, onerous regulations," Baldauf said in an interview with CBC News.

Baldauf met with Ontario's Labour Minister Kevin Flynn on Mondayto urgethe government not to make changes without solid evidence about the costs and benefits.

Premier KathleenWynne ordered the review ofthe province's labour and employment laws in 2015, with a focus onprecarious employmentand vulnerable workers.

Businesses have been buzzing about the potential reforms since the government's hand-picked special advisers released an interim report last summer, listing more than 200 proposals under consideration. Their final report is to be handed to Flynn in the coming days.

A coalition of employer groups called Keep Ontario Working said in a statement the government"cannot risk public policy changes that would place unintended burdens" on businesses.

"Employers in Ontario should be concerned the final recommendations from the special advisers will most certainly include amendments designed to increase union density," warns the Toronto law firmSherrardKuzz.

'Serious measures to help all workers'

Some of the reformsbeing considered include banning replacement workers during strikes and lockouts, allowing domestic workers to join unions, and changing the rules about how unions are formed in certain industries that tend to be non-unionized.

"We're hopeful that the government takes serious measures to help all workers, whether they belong to a union or not," saidOntario Federation of Labour presidentChris Buckley.

"There's such a host of issues that are wrong," Buckley said in an interview with CBC News. "You have workers sitting at homewaitingfor the phone to ring, theydon't have their schedules in advance. You have workers who don't have paid sick days."

Ontario's EmploymentStandards Act currently does not require employers to give any paid sick days. The law requires a minimum of two weeks annual paid vacation, and the government's advisers are considering whether to recommend boosting that to three weeks.

The advisers are also considering whether to recommend a law that would force employers to give workers advance notice of their schedules.

TheWynne government has made no decisions yet about what policies if any will change.