On October 25, 2021, Ontario’s government introduced the Working for Workers Act, 2021 (the Act), which, if passed, would amend certain aspects of the Employment Standards Act, 2020 and other laws impacting employment practices in the province.
The Act requires employers with 25 or more employees to have a written policy regarding employees’ “disconnecting from work.” The Act defines “disconnecting from work” to mean “not engaging in work-related communications, including emails, telephone calls, video calls or the sending or reviewing of other messages, so as to be free from the performance of work.” In a news release related to the Act, the Ontario government stated that such policies might include, “for example, expectations about response time for emails and encouraging employees to turn on out-of-office notifications when they aren’t working.” The government further stated that the measure is intended to “prioritize[e] workers’ mental health and family time.”
The Act prohibits employers from entering into noncompete agreements or contracts that include such agreements. It defines a “noncompete agreement” as “an agreement, or any part of an agreement, between an employer and an employee that prohibits the employee from engaging in any business, work, occupation, profession, project or other activity that is in competition with the employer’s business after the employment relationship between the employee and the...
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