The Employment Standards Act Applies, Regardless

Most employees are covered by the Act. There are only limited exclusions of professionals and some employees in job creation or training programs.

It is not possible to "contract out" of the Act. The Act applies regardless of the wishes of the employer and the employee. The Act creates minimum terms and any agreement to waive the benefit of the Act is of no effect. (The effect of the Act on collective agreements will be considered in a future post.)

Watch out for

• the agreeable employee: he will waive overtime pay if he gets some additional shifts;
• the flexible employee: she likes to work some extra hours on some days and leave earlier on others;
• the employee who performs two different functions: she works as wait staff during the evenings and does marketing during the day; and