Employment Standards

Temporary Foreign Workers & Employment Standards: The Employment Standards Act, and all the protections it provides, covers all temporary foreign workers. In addition, many foreign workers have additional protections under the Temporary Foreign Worker Protection Act.

Meal Breaks

If you work more than 5 hours together (in a row), your employer must give you a 30-minute unpaid meal break. Employers do not have to provide coffee breaks.

Overtime

If you work more than 8 hours in a day you must be paid

• Time-and-a-half for hours over 8 and up to 12

• Double time for any time worked over 12 hours

If you work more than 40 hours in a week your employer must pay you at time-and-a-half (1.5 x $/hour) for the hours you worked over 40 hours in that week, after the first 8 hours worked each day.

Banked Hours

You can ask your employer (in writing) to bank your overtime hours (to use later) instead of being paid for them during the pay period when they’re earned.

If you bank the hours, they will be banked based on the overtime rate they were earned at. This means if you bank 2 hours of overtime at 1.5 x $/hour, you bank 3 hours at regular $/hour.

After you have banked hours, you can ask for:

• Part or all of the wages in the time bank to be paid out to you

• Time off with pay (using these hours) for a period agreed upon by your employer and you

If an employee agrees in writing, your employer may also deduct:

• Premiums for medical insurance coverage

• Repayment of payroll advances or

• The cost of items you may have purchased from your employer

• Accidental overpayments

Employers cannot make employees pay for business expenses, even if they agree to it. This includes deducting expenses because company property was stolen or damaged, or a customer left without paying.

You can check the list of stat holidays here: statutoryholidays.com/bc.php

To qualify for statutory holiday pay, an employee must have been:

• employed for at least 30 calendar days, and

• paid for working on at least 15 of the 30 days before the statutory holiday (employees who worked under an averaging agreement do not have to work 15 days)

Statutory holiday pay equals an average day’s pay (an average of the hours worked per day in the 30 days before the statutory holiday). If you work on a statutory holiday you must be paid an average day’s pay at time-and-a-half (1.5 x $/hour) for the first 12 hours you work. If you work more than 12 hours on a statutory holiday, you must be paid double time (2 x $/hour) for the hours worked over 12 hours.

Here’s an example:

Alex’s average day’s pay is $150. On the statutory holiday, if Alex:

• Does not work: he’s paid $150

• Works 7 hours: he’s paid time-and-a-half plus $150

• Works 14 hours: he’s paid time-and-a-half for 12 hours, plus double-time for two hours, plus $150

Sick days

In BC, you can take 

• up to 5 days of paid leave per year for any personal illness or injury. Your employer must pay you regular wages for any paid sick day. They may request reasonably sufficient proof of illness (for example, a doctor's note).

• plus 3 days of unpaid sick leave per year

You must have worked with your employer for at least 90 days to be eligible for the paid sick days. They do not have to be taken consecutively.