Designed to give HR practitioners and their advisors a concise summary of their obligations under the law, this Quick Reference sets out the rights and responsibilities of employees and employers in B.C. workplaces. It covers issues such as minimum wage, overtime, hours of work, vacations, statutory holidays, various leaves of absence, payroll records, temporary layoffs, and termination of employment. The guide also includes a discussion of the definition of an employee, the relationship between the common law and the ESA, the applicability of the ESA to unionized employees, various classes of individuals exempted from certain parts of the legislation, and complaint, investigation, enforcement, and determination procedures. The book details recent changes to the Act by topical heading and explains the new and revised compliance requirements. In addition to an overview of the B.C. Employment Standards Act (ESA) and a discussion of the historical background of the legislation; it also includes the full text of the Act and its regulations.

Introduction; Child and Youth Labour Regul ... ; Review of Child Labour Polic ... ; BC Child Labour Policies and ... ; Canadian Context; International Context; Study Results; Working Children and Youth; BC's First Job / Entry Wage; Policy Analysis; Fair Child And Youth Employm ... ; Policy Recommendations; Conclusion; Appendix ; Methodology; Sample and Selection of Resp ... ; Limitations of the Study; Notes; References.

The 2002 changes to the Employment Standards Act reduced the enforcement and monitoring role of the government, undermined workers' knowledge of their rights by removing the requirement to post the ESA in workplaces, reduced employment-related benefits, restricted worker control over their schedules and hours of work, and slashed the minimum wage for first-time workers, many of whom are recent imm [...] To provide a snapshot of Filipinos in BC, the paper Survey data and narratives then presents an analysis of the demographic profile reflected in the survey, including some of the challenges respondents from filipino immigrant faced. [...] According to BC labour researcher David Fairey, "This is the first time that a specific group of employees, by virtue of membership in a union, have been excluded by the Act [ESA]."20 According to Fairey, this has several major implications, and two are particularly pertinent to this study: the provisions of a collective agreement may be below the minimum standards set out in the ESA; and, it enco [...] In fact, the survey, as analysed in the next section, shows that the changes to the ESA exacerbate the economic insecurity already experienced by recent immigrants and other vulnerable workers. [...] Several scholars have demonstrated that immigrants in Canada encounter racism in the labour market as well as in the workplace.26 As the goal of this study was to examine the changes to the ESA and its impacts upon immigrants' economic security, this issue was intentionally avoided in the survey.