AMAPCEO Submission to the Changing Workplaces Review

This year, the Ontario government launched public consultations to consider the changing nature of the modern workplace.

The Changing Workplace Review consultations focus on determining how the Ontario Labour Relations Act, 1995 (OLRA) and Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA) “could be amended to best protect workers while supporting businesses in our changing economy” (Ministry of Labour).

On Friday morning, President Dave Bulmer presented the AMAPCEO Submission to the Changing Workplace Review to a panel of government advisors.

In his remarks, President Bulmer focused on a few key recommendations, including:

1. The need to eliminate exclusions from the ESA and OLRA, such as prohibitions from organizing by registered professionals and some designated “managers”;
2. The need to defend the right to paid overtime by broadened categories of workers;
3. The importance of enacting clear legislation and policy around the rights of employees to digital privacy in the workplace; and
4. The provision of increased access to arbitration to end conflicts, based on the Manitoba LRA, which allows either party to request arbitration after a period of strike or lockout.  

AMAPCEO’s submission addresses the challenges of globalization, rapid technological change, and a restructured labour market. As the report outlines, “these changes are well documented and include, as examples, an increasing reliance on short term and temporary work relationships; an ongoing downward pressure on wage and benefits; and long-term declines in union density rates.”

In such a climate, the need to amend legislation to protect workers’ rights grows ever more pressing.

You can read all twelve of AMAPCEO’s recommendations to the Changing Workplace Review in the full report below: