Section 18 of the Employment Standards Act, 2000
("ESA") provides that employees must be given at
least 11 consecutive hours of rest between shifts. Three recent
decisions outline different scenarios that may exempt
employers from this requirement:
- (1) where the employer qualifies for an exemption laid out in
s. 19 of the ESA;
- (2) where a collective agreement provides protections superior
to those of the ESA; and
- (3) where the employer's entire industry is explicitly
exempt under the ESA Regulations.
The decision in Unifor Local 938 & Union Gas
Ltd. 117 CLAS 129 ("Unifor") involved an
employer's implementation of a new overtime staffing policy. In
order to ensure compliance with s. 18 of the ESA, Union
Gas began to assign temporary rather than full-time workers to any
required overtime hours. At arbitration, Unifor Local
938 (the "Union") argued that the collective
agreement with Union Gas mandated that overtime be worked by
"full-time and continuous
