By Barry W. Kwasniewski

A policy for monitoring employees’ electronic devices may be required of employers if a new bill is passed by the Ontario provincial legislature. Bill 88, the Working for Workers Act, 2022 (“Bill 88”), passed second reading on March 23, 2022 and was referred to the Standing Committee on Social Policy. Bill 88 proposes amendments to Ontario’s Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA) that would require employers with 25 or more employees as of January 1st of a given year to have a written policy on electronic monitoring of employees in place by March 1st of that same year. Charities and not-for-profits would also be required to have these policies in place. Digital platform workers would have their right to a minimum wage added to the ESA, reservists in military skills training with the Canadian Armed Forces would be entitled to an ESA job-protected leave of absence from their regular jobs during training, and the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) would require employers to provide naloxone kits for workers at risk of an opioid overdose at the workplace, among other provisions of Bill 88.

Workplace electronic monitoring policies would be added to a new Part XI.1 of the ESA. These policies would need to contain the following information:

1. Whether the employer electronically monitors employees and if so,

i. a description of how and in what circumstances the employer may electronically monitor employees, and

ii. the purposes for which information obtained through electronic monitoring may be used by the employer.

2. The date the policy was prepared and the date any changes were made to the policy.

3. Such other information as may be prescribed [in a regulation filed under the ESA].

Bill 88 would enact the Digital Platform Workers’ Rights Act, 2022 to amend the ESA and provide digital platform workers with basic rights to information, minimum wage, a recurring pay period and pay day, notice of removal from an operator’s digital platform, the right to resolve workplace disputes and freedom from reprisal. Digital platform work is defined to mean “the provision of for payment ride share, delivery, courier or other prescribed services by workers who are offered work assignments by an operator through the use of a digital platform”.

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​Read the March 2022 Charity & NFP Law Update