安省提高最低工资计划的其他政策弊端

 

 

 

 

由于人们都将焦点放在了最低工资增长上，导致大家都忽视了其它一些具有较大影响的改革方案。那么其他的这些法案的内容又是什么呢？让我们来仔细分析一下：

With all the focus placed on the Mimimum Wage increase, it is easy to lose sight of the other reform proposals which have a more significant impact. So what are these other proposed legislation? Let us look at them in detail:

 

 

1）为同一雇主工作满五年后，员工的最低法定休假将从每两年三周升至每年三周。

1)            Requirement that after five years with the same employer, the minimum vacation entitlement for workers would rise to three weeks per year from two years.

 

在工人休假期间，即使支付的是最低工资，雇主也要花超过644.65元雇佣一名临时工人取代休假员工。如果员工本身的收入超过最低工资，那么这个成本会更高。

For employers, this translates into more than $644.65 to hire someone gaining minimum wages to replace the eligible worker during this extra week of vacation. If the employee is already making above minimum wages, then it will cost even more.

 

2）雇主在对待与全职员工做同样工作的临时工时，必须和全职员工同工同酬。

2) Equal pay would be mandated for part-time workers doing the same job as a full-time workers.

 

现在有很多兼职工人在全职员工休假时作为替补工人或是方便调整工作班次的临时工人。这些临时工通常领取最低工资或是领取的工资比全职员工要低。许多雇主使用这种方法来减少雇佣全职员工的数量，除非他们的业务量得到增加并且足以支付他们去雇佣其他的全职员工。在新的劳工法下，除非绝对必要，雇主将不会以支付全职员工的报酬去聘用临时工。

There are many part-time workers currently working as supplementary help to fill in for full-time workers going on vacations or simply serve as a convenient resource pool for partial shifts. These part-time workers typically make minimum wages or wages less than those of full-time workers. Many employers use this method to minimize their head counts until they can increase their business volume and justify additional staff. With the new legislation, employers will refrain from hiring part-time employees at full-time employee wages unless absolutely necessary.

 

3）所有员工每年还将拥有10次个人紧急休假日，其中至少有两天时间必须是带薪假日。

3) All workers would also be given 10 personal emergency leave days a year, and a minimum of two of those days must be paid.

 

目前，只有大公司和一些工会成员才有这个权利。雇主不得向使用个人紧急休假日的员工要求提供病假条。这是模仿许多工会实行的病假制度而建立的。在此制度下，工会成员还可以“积攒”病假，并最终将其转变为个人休假日或退休时的一次性付款。

Currently, only employees of large companies and some union members are entitled to this. Employers would not be allowed to request a sick note from an employee taking personal emergency leave. This is modelled after the sick leave system practised in many unions. Under that system, union members can also “bank” the sick leave days and eventually convert them to holidays or lump sum payments at retirement.

 

虽然新的立法中没有关于“积攒”个人紧急休假日的明确规定，但也没有要求雇员向雇主提供事先通知的规定。员工可以在上班前一天晚上或上班前致电“宣布”需要使用个人紧急休假日，让雇主临时找寻替补的工人。劳工改革其中一条新的立法可能会使这种情况变得更为复杂，此法案为“如果雇主给予的更换班次通知少于4天，员工有权利拒绝更换班次。”（稍后在本系列文章中将会做出详细解释）。

While there is no provision for the new legislation for “Banking” these personal emergency leave days, there are also no provisions for advanced notifications to the employers as well. An employee can call in the night before or just before the shift and “announce” a personal emergency leave day, leaving the employer to scramble for a replacement worker. This action can then be complicated by another piece of new legislation relating to “refusal of shift if given less than 4 days notice” (to be explained later in this series of articles).

 

雇主不得不每年为员工寻找多达10次的替补工人。如果是一个大型企业，这个数字还要翻倍。为此，大型企业很自然需要专门聘请一个人来定期管理这种临时人员调整的状况，以确保办公室和生产线的正常运行。一些宣布使用个人紧急休假日的员工是确实有此需要，一些人却是在利用个人紧急休假日做其它事情，但是我们无法去验证。

Employers have to locate eplacement staff for up to 10 times a year for each employee. Multiply this by the number of employees at a large work place and you can imagine the need to hire someone just to manage this adjustment on a regular basis to make sure that there will be sufficient number of staff members to run the office or production lines. Some of the declared personal emergency leave days are genuine while others may not be totally legitimate and they cannot be verified.

 

这就是本次改革中最有争议的项目。想象着在一个阳光灿烂的星期五，许多员工们为了抢先到郊外的小屋度假而利用他们的个人紧急休假日，为自己安排了一个长周末，对此他们不需要负担任何后果。在这10个个人紧急休假日内甚至还有2个带薪日！我可以看到雇主和员工之间的争议和信任问题会因为这种权利的泛滥而产生，并最终可能以诉讼的形式而告终。

This is the most controversial item amongst the reforms. Imagine the sunny summer Fridays turning into a long weekend for many workers to get a head start for their cottages and vacations, all without consequences and repercussions. There are even 2 paid days out of the 10 personal emergency leave days! I can see how arguments and trust issues between employer and employees can develop because of this entitlement and may end up in  litigation.

 

雇主们意识到这些法例都是从现有的工会合同中提取的，目前被延伸到非工会成员身上。以上所有措施都是为使员工们受益而增加了雇主们的支出。

Employers recognize these items are drawn from existing union contracts now extending to cover the non-unionized worker. All of the above measures present extra monetary outlay from the employers in order to benefit the employees.

 

下一次，我们会进一步研究劳工改革的其他项目。

Next time, we will further examine other items on the proposed labour reform.