Legal Studies 1010


Section 4 - Protecting Worker's Rights

Lesson 15 - A Look at the Laws


Have you ever found yourself affected by a labour strike?

Has a member of your family ever been on strike?

Have your teachers ever gone on strike for higher pay, smaller class sizes, or some other change in their working conditions?

Have the employees of a store where you shop ever walked off the job and set up picket lines?


Strikes: are the most visible aspect of the bargaining that goes on between labour unions and employers.

Strikes: are work stoppages of employees, caused by the refusal of employees to perform work, usually in response to employee grievances.

We hear a great deal about labour unions , and they are a powerful force in our society. But the fact is that over 60 percent of employees today do not belong to a union of any kind; they still have to negotiate their wages and working conditions individually with their employers.

Labour Union: an organization that represents employees in a company or industry and bargains for them with their employer(s).


Statute-Law Protection

Most of the laws you are likely to encounter in the workplace are statutes . Every province and territory in Canada has passed a number of statutes-or acts-that relate to employment.

Three examples from Alberta are:

- the Employment Standards Code,

- the Workers' Compensation Act

- the Occupational Health and Safety Act 


The federal government has passed the Canada Labour Code , which applies only to employees of the federal government, Crown corporations, and industries connecting the provinces (for example, railways and pipeline companies).

The Employment Standards Branch of Alberta Human Resources and Employment has created a number of summaries and fact sheets that can quickly inform Alberta employees and employers about their rights and obligations. These summaries set out in clear language the minimum rights and responsibilities of both employers and employees in areas such as:

  • wages
  • holidays and holiday pay
  • hours of work and overtime pay
  • terminating employment
  • vacations and vacation pay
  • parental benefits


You can access all this material online by clicking on the website below:

http://employment.alberta.ca/documents/WRR/WRR-ES-PUB_ESGuide.pdf



Test Yourself:

1. a. What is the minimum wage in Alberta?

b. How many days off (days of rest) must an employer provide an employee?

c. When is a worker legally considered to be working overtime in Alberta?

d. How many days of paid vacation is an Alberta employee entitled to after one year of employment?

e. When is an employee legally entitled to three weeks of annual vacation?


View the Suggested Answers here and compare your answers with the ones given there.


Suggested Answers


    1. As you take this course, Alberta's minimum wage is $15.00 an hour.

    2. An employer must provide at least one day off each week, but these may be accumulated for up to four weeks and then given consecutively within those four weeks. This means that an employee may have to work as many as 24 consecutive days and then take four days off.

    3. With some exceptions, if an employee works more than 8 hours in a day or 44 in a week, that employee is legally working overtime and must be paid as such-at a rate of at least time-and-a-half.

    4. After a year of employment, an employee is entitled to two weeks of paid vacation.

    5. An employee is entitled to three weeks of annual vacation after working for an employer for five years.