No Stepping Around It! B.C. Ends Mandatory High Heels In The Workplace

The B.C. government took steps earlier this month to address the issue of mandatory high heels in the workplace, a topic that has received a lot of attention recently as a result of a bill that had been introduced in March by Green Party leader Andrew Weaver to prohibit employers from requiring different footwear for different genders. Rather than specifically addressing this as a gender issue, the B.C. government amended the existing footwear requirements in the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation under the Workers Compensation Act to set out specific health and safety standards that must be met for all workers' footwear in the workplace.

Section 8.22 of the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation now sets out a requirement for all workers' footwear to be "of a design, construction, and material appropriate to the protection required and that allows the worker to safely perform the worker's work" and precludes an employer from requiring a worker to wear