B.C. on Jan. 1 started to ensure all workers are eligible for at least five sick days per year
The B.C. government is tweaking its Employment Standards Act, which ensures that all B.C. workers are eligible for at least five paid sick days per year.
After a change to that law went into effect on Jan. 1, to include the new provision, business representatives identified cumbersome elements.
For example, the law said that employers were to provide employees with at least five paid sick days for each year following the employees' date of being hired. This meant that someone hired on Dec. 1 would get five days until the following Dec. 1. Employers were then expected to keep track of every employee's start dates.
This process is now changing so that employees are guaranteed at least five paid sick days for each calendar year. That means that employees hired on Dec. 1 are entitled to five sick days in the month of December, if needed. A new set of five eligible sick days are then provided on the following January 1.
These days do not accumulate, and must be taken within each calendar year, so if the person hired on Dec. 1 does not take any sick days in December, the employee would have a total of five days starting Jan. 1.
The new paid-sick-days program affects more than one million workers, most of whom are in low-wage jobs. The new program does not affect workers who were already eligible for sick days through their employers.
Another tweak to the Employment Standards Act...
The HYDRA Commissioner has clarified that HYDRA will not interfere with houses built in old layouts on ULC (Urban Land Ceiling) lands , nor with unregularised vacant plots in such layouts. He urge...