In Canada can employer force employees not to discuss wage? In Canada can an employer require its employees not to discuss wages (either internal or external of the company)? What if the employee signed a confidentiality agreement where they agreed not to discuss wages? I would really appreciate citation from authoritative sources.
In Canada can employer force employees not to discuss wage? Not in Ontario. That would violate Section 74(1) of the Employment Standards Act, 2000: No employer or person acting on behalf of an employer shall intimidate, dismiss or otherwise penalize an employee or threaten to do so, (a) because the employee, (v.2) discloses the employee’s rate of pay to another employee for the purpose of determining or assisting another person in determining whether an employer is complying with Part XII (Equal Pay for Equal Work) See also Section 74.12(1)(a)(v.2). What if the employee signed a confidentiality agreement where they agreed not to discuss wages? The agreement would be void in that regard. See Section 5 of the same Standards: [...] [N]o employer or agent of an employer and no employee or agent of an employee shall contract out of or waive an employment standard and any such contracting out or waiver is void. The allowed exceptions are any clauses that provide a greater benefit to an employee than the employment standard (see 5(2)).
While there is no statutory law in British Columbia that requires that employees give notice of resignation, employees can be contractually obligated to give notice and even absent a contractual requirement there is a common law obligation in Canada that employees give notice. There's no fixed two week notice requirement, the amount of notice required depends on the circumstances. It would be necessary for an employer to prove damages that resulted from an employee quitting without giving notice or sufficient notice. An example of this would be Consbec v Peter Walker where the defendant was determined to have failed to give reasonable notice of his resignation: [212] Peter was obliged to provide Consbec with notice of his resignation. He did not give notice. The Law [213] The purpose of notice is to provide time for the employer to make arrangements to have the work that the departing employee looked after by others, or to find another employee. However on appeal (2016 BCCA 114) the BC Court of Appeal determined that Consbec hadn't proven any damages had occurred as a result, so no damages were awarded: [82] Although Consbec validly incurred costs and expenses of $5,875 as a result of Peter’s failure to give one month’s notice, it also saved $6,083 by not having to pay Peter’s salary during that period (i.e., $73,000/12). Accordingly, it suffered no damages as a result of Peter’s failure to give notice. In many ways having a notice period specified in a contract is a much better option than ultimately leaving it up to a court decide. There seems to be very little precedent for this, especially for non-fiduciary employees. In Consbec the trial judge opted not to make a determination of what notice period was required in the case, something the appeal court determined was an error. The appeal court determined that a one month notice period was reasonable, but didn't explain how it came to this determination. On the other hand, lawsuits like these a very rare for low ranking employees with little or no authority. As in the Consbec case, it would be hard for an employer prove damages. If Consbec hadn't been seeking large damages on other claims it's unlikely it would've brought a lawsuit. Someone who tried to falsely claim to be sick in order to avoid having to work their remaining notice period would likely at minimum owe their employer the same damages as if they had failed to give notice. If the sick time is paid and/or includes benefits they'd have to pay back or compensate the the employer for these wages and benefits. In addition, because they're still employed, they still owe a duty of loyalty to their employers that former employees do not, and so could face additional damages for doing things like working for a competitor. Someone who started work at another job couldn't use this as an excuse to avoid working during the required notice period. The person would have meet their obligations to both employers and both employers would be entitled to damages for the employee failing to do so. Again, the employee could face additional damages than those caused by their failure to work.
Yes, it also applies. However, an employment implies they agree to having employment related data stored and processed (e.g., to be paid). When there are performance related bonuses in the contract, this will likely (but IANAL) imply they agree to performance data being collected and stored appropriately. Furthermore I would assume most of such data processing (such as knowing who is responsible for a certain change, who created a file, modified it etc.) falls into "legitimate interests" of the employer, as this information may be necessary for operations. I'd assume (still IANAL) that much of the consequence wrt. GDPR is the right to have your data erased. So a company should be prepared to remove such data when an employee leaves the company, e.g., by clearing the responsible person fields upon request. At least for data where there is no legal requirement to have such data provenance. But: consult your lawyer for a proper legal opinion!
Can an employer apply one-off pay cuts via forced contributions? No. This type of issues pertains to state law, and many (if not all) jurisdictions in the U.S. have statutes prohibiting forced deductions that are neither ordered by court, nor pursuant to bargaining agreements, nor as required or expressly permitted by law. See, for instance, MCL 408.477 and .478. The case of the CEO's book sounds in clear violation of MCL 408.477(2) since the user who asked on Workplace SE mentions that the employees did not consent to that deduction. Even if an employee consents to the deduction, it is important to discern between (1) his altruistic consent, and (2) his concession for the sake of continuation of employment. Unless the consent is altruistic, the clause(s) allowing for the deduction might be rendered null and enforceable by virtue of Restatement (Second) of Contracts at § 178(1) in relation to the aforementioned statutes. Any form of deductions as a permissible sanction (as fining when the employee gets late to work) would have to be provided in the agreement between employer and employee. Otherwise it is unlawful.
The page you link is a good summary. It describes the employer obligations under the Ontario Employment Standards Act. Eating periods are described at section 20: 20 (1) An employer shall give an employee an eating period of at least 30 minutes at intervals that will result in the employee working no more than five consecutive hours without an eating period. Exception (2) Subsection (1) does not apply if the employer and the employee agree, whether or not in writing, that the employee is to be given two eating periods that together total at least 30 minutes in each consecutive five-hour period. This section has been applied several times by the Ontario Labour Relations Board and appears to have been given its plain meaning. There are two ways that the Act lets an employer provide those breaks: Provide full 30-minute eating period(s) so that the employee works no more than five consecutive hours without an eating period. By agreement, provide two eating periods that total 30 minutes, &quot;in each consecutive five-hour period&quot; If proceeding by option two, the 30 minutes of eating period have to occur &quot;in each consecutive five-hour period.&quot; The Ontario Labour Relations Board has described these two options and has said that option two requires the breaks to be &quot;within&quot; each consecutive five-hour period. See Rusty's at Blue Inc. / M &amp; S Accounting v Erica Solmes, 2022 CanLII 56373 (paragraph 125, emphasis in original): Section 20 requires an employer to give an employee an eating period of 30 minutes after no more than five consecutive hours of work, or (with the agreement of the employee) two eating periods totalling 30 minutes within each consecutive five-hour period. Whether an employee is entitled to a single 30-minute eating period or to two eating periods totalling 30 minutes, the eating periods must be uninterrupted. The other answer and the page you link also describes an &quot;exceptional circumstances&quot; exception, but that is describing section 19 of the Act. Those exceptional circumstances can only let an employer get around the requirements of sections 17 and 18. Those are not relevant to the eating-period requirements. An employer may require an employee to work more than the maximum number of hours permitted under section 17 or to work during a period that is required to be free from performing work under section 18 only as follows
Certain kinds of pay secrecy measures are illegal under the National Labor Relations Act, a 1935 law. It's not the strongest prohibition, however, because the consequences of violating it are rather weak (especially compared to other employment claims). Some government entities or contractors are under more stringent rules by executive order, and states may have their own laws. Here's a Department of Labor fact sheet. Here's a 2014 NPR story on the subject.
am I right in my understanding of "payment in lieu" in the above scenario? No. You are not being “paid in lieu” of anything; you are being paid your accrued entitlement. Payment in lieu refers to payment instead of some other obligation. In employment it usually refers to an employer paying an employee instead of requiring the employee to work out the notice period which of the daily rates at the top of the post should I request? Neither. The correct rate is the one your employer used - your annual rate divided by the number of days you get paid for. Annual leave continues to accrue while you are on annual leave (or any other paid leave). is there a legal basis for such a request? No.
No enforceable contract can contain illegal clauses and work Contracts can not remove some rights and never can bypass obligations. Talking to the police at times is a requirement by law, as is taking to the labor board. Responding to a subpoena is legally forced by the court. An NDA might limit the amount what you can say, and a contract might limit who you can sue, but can not ban you from suing at all. In germany, a contract that tries to curtail such requirements would be Sittenwidrig and make all clauses that try to limit the rights fully Void and nill ab initio - in fact, it can be used as evidence against the drafting party that they tried to do so. So to stay legal and keep the clause working in the limited fashion where it is not demanded, the clause cuts the contract to explicitly exclude such situations.