Jason Kenney is promising to introduce new labour rules that would cut overtime pay for struggling workers in Alberta.

Under the province’s current labour laws, most employers have to pay workers time-and-a-half for overtime — in other words, 1.5 times an employee’s regular wage for all hours worked over 8 hours per day, or 44 hours per week.

Some employers compensate overtime hours with banked overtime, which allows workers to take time off with pay, also at 1.5 times the rate of regular pay.

However, the UCP promised to allow employers to only pay workers regular wages — 33.3% less than current overtime rates — for banked overtime hours.

Bob Barnetson, a professor of labour relations at Athabasca University, said the UCP’s plan would allow employers to avoid paying non-unionized employees overtime rates by forcing workers to enter banked overtime agreements with lower pay.

“It’s about cheapening labour costs for employers and an opportunity to clawback the normal overtime premium,” he told PressProgress.

“Basically Kenney’s trying to create a loophole for employers to evade overtime pay,” he added. “The cost of that is borne by workers, who will have lower wages.”

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World Water Day was marked on March 22. This year’s theme, “Leaving
no one behind,” is adopted from a central promise of the UN’s 2030
Agenda for Sustainable Development, which states that “as sustainable
development progresses, everyone must benefit.”

It’s a message that should resonate with Ontarians after Premier Doug Ford’s closed-door meeting
with representatives of a China-owned company last fall over plans to
extract 1.6 million litres a day from an aquifer in Guelph/Eramosa
Township for its glass operations. That was after the
municipal government had already rejected the plans on environmental
grounds.

It’s also where non-profit Wellington Water Watchers (WWW) has been staving off attempts by bottled water giant Nestlé to tap into local aquifers for its water-bottling operations in Aberfoyle.

The former Liberal government placed a moratorium on all future takings in 2016. The Ford government extended that for one year in
2018 “to further advance the ministry’s understanding of the water
resources in the province, with a particular focus on groundwater
takings by water bottling facilities.” But that ban runs out in January
2020, when applications for existing permits can proceed again.