The Ontario government has introduced the Working for Workers Six Act, 2024, which would build on the previous five Working for Workers acts with a suite of proposed measures to protect the health and wellbeing of workers, bring more people into the skilled trades, and keep costs down for Ontario workers.
In addition to previously announced proposed measures, including creating a new parental leave and long-term illness leave, expanded cancer coverage for firefighters, and WSIB changes that will give more money back to Ontario workers and businesses, this package would support workplace safety by cracking down on bad actor employers, with mandatory minimum fines of $500,000 for corporations convicted of repeated offences within a two-year period under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
The government is also proposing to expand existing roadside safety laws under the Highway Traffic Act to require motorists to slow down and move over for roadworkers, such as highway maintenance workers.
The proposed sixth Working for Workers Act and its related regulatory changes, if passed, would:
- Enhance safety for roadside workers by expanding existing requirements for drivers to slow down and move over when passing emergency vehicles and tow trucks under the Highway Traffic Act to also include prescribed work-related vehicles at roadside with flashing amber lights activated (excluding construction zones with posted speed limits).
- Support the safety and wellbeing of workers and their families by:
- Creating a new parental leave for parents through adoption and surrogacy so people never have to choose between being a worker or a parent.
- Creating a new 27-week job-protected long-term illness leave for workers with a serious medical condition which would be one of the longest provincial leaves in Canada.
- Requiring properly-fitting PPE for women in all sectors to bring more women into the trades.
- Improve cancer coverage for firefighters, investigators, and volunteers by removing the requirement that a firefighter’s primary-site colorectal diagnosis must be made before the age of 61, and lowering the required duration of service for primary-site kidney cancer from 20 to 10 years, the lowest duration of service in Canada.
- Grow Ontario’s workforce by investing up to $1.4 billion through the Skills Development Fund to train over 1 million workers in every corner of the province, and attract more health care workers to Ontario by expanding immigration pathways for qualified health care workers.
- Keep costs down for workers and businesses by giving back over $2.5 billion through rebating WSIB surpluses to hundreds of thousands of safe employers, reducing business premium rates to the lowest average level in half a century, and putting more money back into workers’ pockets by waiving the fee for apprentices taking their first Certificate of Qualification exam.
- Honour workers by celebrating the contributions of the “Golden Generation of Skilled Tradespeople” who built the province into what it is today, and who are passing on their wisdom and expertise to the next generation of workers to shape Ontario’s future, by creating a new Skilled Trades Week during the first week of November.
- Crack down on bad actors that exploit newcomers and harm workers by introducing new standards, fines, and lifetime bans for fraudulent immigration representatives that exploit newcomers.
The proposed Working for Workers Six Act, 2024 builds on the actions across five previous Working for Workers Acts since 2021 to grow Ontario’s workforce, keep costs down for workers and businesses, and support the wellbeing of workers and their families.
What you’ll get: