Question

Uncle Ed wants to know how come his employer didn't pay him correctly according to his calculations. He says that he recently had to work overtime for his employer – 15 hours one week and 5 the next. This continued for the next four weeks for a total of 6 weeks (repeating the same pattern). He feels that he hasn't been paid correctly. He has been paid for 16 hours of overtime only. He regularly works 35 hours per week and feels that he should get overtime for every hour after that. His employer told him to look at the Employment Standards Act, 2000 S.O. as their overtime policy follows the Act. a. What is the correct answer and how should the overtime be calculated? Explain why with appropriate statutory backup.

Answer 1

As per the Ontario state labour laws, an employer will have to pay overtime to an employee who works in excess of 44 hours per week.The consecutive weeks can be averaged over a period of up to 4 weeks, if there is an express agreement between the employee and the employer regarding this, and is approved by the state authorities.

Case I - Here, we assume that there is no such averaging agreement in place, and the calculations must be done according to the 44 hours rule.

According to his assumptions of 35 hour week, if he finds himself eligible for 15 hours overtime, he has worked 35+15 =50 hours in week 1 and 35+5 =40 hours in week 2 .

In this way, he has worked for 50 hours in weeks 1,3 and 5 , while 40 hours in week 2,4 and 6. For odd weeks ( 1,3 and 5) he is eligible for an overtime of 50-44=6 hours each week, and therefore 18 hours for 3 weeks. For weeks 2,4 and 6, he is not eligible for any overtime.

Total eligbility = 18 hours.

Case II - If he has an arrangement of averaging of wages,

the mean wages for weeks 1 and 2 = 40+50/2 = 45

Here, he is eligible for overtime of an hour for first four weeks, hence the total of 4. For next two weeks, he is eligible for 6 hours overtime in week 5 and 0 hours in week 6. Total overtime is thus 4+6=10 hours.

The calculations is as per the Employment standards act 2000 of Ontario state.