While a global contingent workforce may be an extension of a company’s internal workforce for all practical purposes, legally, it is a separate and distinct group of nonemployees. That can create a number of obstacles for employers, particularly when the contingent workers are located outside the United States.
Employment laws in every country have anomalies that can catch employers off-guard because they do not seem to make sense—until you look under the surface. Three examples of this are from Italy, the Netherlands, and Australia, involving rules governing voluntary employment resignations in Italy to vacation leave accruals in the Netherlands to surprising redundancy pay entitlements in Australia. Here is a quick look at some fascinating features of these countries’ laws.
The Government of Canada announced, on Monday, September 26, 2022, that after Friday, September 30, 2022, all requirements related to COVID-19 for entering into Canada will expire.
The German government’s plans and actions to address the COVID-19 pandemic in the coming months are becoming more concrete. On September 8, 2022, the German parliament passed new measures aimed at fighting the spread of COVID-19 this fall and winter. This legislative initiative included rewriting the SARS-CoV-2 Occupational Health and Safety Regulation, which is scheduled to be in effect from October 1, 2022, through April 7, 2023.
A recent decision of the German Federal Labor Court (Bundesarbeitsgericht) shows yet again that the issue of working time remains highly fraught for German employers. Following a 2019 ruling of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) setting forth an obligation on the part of European Union employers to establish objective, reliable, and accessible systems for recording their employees’ daily working time, the subject of working time became a widely discussed topic throughout Germany. The Federal Labor Court effectively put an end to such discussions with its decision of September 13, 2022.
On September 13, 2022, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared September 19, 2022, a federal holiday and National Day of Mourning in Canada to honor the life and mark the passing of Queen Elizabeth II.
On August 31, 2022, Mexico’s Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare issued a regulation changing the Federal Attorney General’s Office for the Defense of Labor (Procuraduría Federal de la Defensa del Trabajo, known as PROFEDET) to focus on mediation, rather than having employers summoned before the agency for mandatory reconciliation with employees, their beneficiaries, and unions.
Significant changes are coming to the employee paid sick leave regime under Part III of the Canada Labour Code (CLC) that will affect employers with one hundred or more employees in federally regulated industries such as banking, aviation, telecommunications, and inter-provincial transportation. Currently, these changes are set to become effective on December 1, 2022.
On October 23, 2018, Mexico’s Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare (STPS) issued Official Standard 035, “Psychosocial Risk Factors at Work—Identification, Analysis, and Prevention” (NOM-035-STPS-2018), to “identify, analyze, and prevent psychosocial risk factors, as well as to promote a favorable organizational environment in the workplace.” Implementation of NOM-035 was phased in over time, based on employer size, and the standard became effective for all workplaces on October 23, 2020. An overview of employers’ compliance obligations under the standard follows below.
Mexico’s Ministry of the Interior (Secretaría de Gobernación) has determined that all Brazilian nationals who intend to travel to Mexico as visitors without permission to perform remunerated activities (tourism/business) must obtain stamped visas in their passports prior to their travel.
On June 16, 2022, the government of Canada tabled a bill that would make significant changes to privacy laws impacting employers in the federal jurisdiction. The new legislation, the Digital Charter Implementation Act (Bill C-27) would replace Part 1 of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and would create three pieces of legislation in its place, the Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CPPA), the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act (PIDPTA), and the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA).
As early as December 2019, the European Union’s Directive (EU) RL 2019/1937 (colloquially called the “Whistleblower Directive”) was adopted at the European level. This directive aims to strengthen the protection of persons who report possible legal violations committed by companies or authorities.
On January 11, 2021, the federal government published a decree in the Official Gazette of the Federation, amending the Federal Labor Law (FLL) to regulate the terms and conditions, employer and employee obligations, and safety and health measures related to telework. Telework is regulated by a special chapter of FLL and the telework designation is applicable whenever work is performed more than 40 percent of the time at an employee’s home or at a domicile that the employee has chosen and on which the employee has agreed.
The statutory minimum wage in Germany will increase to €12 per hour, effective October 1, 2022.
Under the new German Tax Relief Act 2022, as of September 1, 2022, employees subject to income tax are entitled to a one-time lump-sum energy price allowance in the amount of €300. The allowance is intended to mitigate the currently high consumer costs for electricity and fuel.
On June 14, 2022, the Government of Canada announced that it would suspend vaccination requirements for domestic travelers, certain federally regulated workers, and federal public service employees, effective June 20, 2022. In support of this measure, the government has cited the successful vaccination campaign and low COVID-19 case counts.
On January 12, 2021, the right to disconnect (known in other countries as the “right to digital disconnection”) became an employment right in Mexico for employees in telework arrangements, with the publication of an amendment to the Federal Labor Law (FLL) in the Official Gazette of the Federation (Diario Oficial de la Federación) the day prior.
Employers in Ontario have been waiting for clarification on the interpretation of COVID-19 leave provisions throughout much of the pandemic. Employers had hoped that the Court of Appeal’s decision in Taylor v Hanley Hospitality Inc. would provide clarity on the implications of Employment Standards Act, 2000 infectious disease emergency leave (IDEL) on an employee’s employment status.
Mexico’s federal government will soon cease updating its COVID-19 pandemic monitoring system on a biweekly basis, Dr. Hugo López-Gatell, Mexico’s undersecretary of prevention and health promotion, said in a recent press conference. The announcement comes on the heels of the four-tiered system showing all thirty-two states in green status—the only status without restrictions on business and social activities—for the second period in a row.
Employers in Ontario and Manitoba have important compliance deadlines in May and June 2022.
On April 11, 2022, Bill 88, the Working for Workers Act, 2022, received Royal Assent in Ontario, thus enacting the Digital Platform Workers’ Rights Act, 2022.
Starting from 6 April 2022, Biometric Residence Card (BRC), Biometric Residence Permit (BRP), and Frontier Worker Permit (FWP) holders in the United Kingdom will evidence their right to work by using the Home Office online service.
On April 6, 2022, the British Columbia government introduced legislation that would change the union certification process under British Columbia’s Labour Relations Code.
International Women’s Day, which draws attention to women’s rights and gender equality worldwide, has been celebrated since 1911. In order to counteract any inequalities that women may face in the workforce, the German government enacted a number of important employment laws and amendments in recent years.
On October 15, 2021, amendments to the Election Regulations for the Implementation of the Works Constitution Act (Wahlordnung or WO) went into effect. As a result, the changes in the Works Council Modernization Act (Betriebsrätemodernisierungsgesetz) of June 18, 2021, have been implemented in the Election Regulations.
As usual, there are some important changes in German employment law that went into effect at the beginning of the new year. Here are eight of the most important new developments about which employers may want to be aware.
For the first time since Mexico’s federal government rolled out its pandemic monitoring system in June 2020, all of the nation’s thirty-two states have been given the green light to conduct social and business activities without restriction, although face masks are still required while using public transportation.
In December 2013, The Accessibility for Manitobans Act (AMA) became law, with the goal of making meaningful strides in accessibility by 2023. The AMA seeks to remove barriers to accessibility in the lives of all Manitobans.
On March 25, 2022, the European Union (EU) announced that the United States and the EU had reached an agreement in principle to replace the EU-U.S Privacy Shield framework, which the European Court of Justice (CJEU) struck down in its July 2020 Schrems II decision. Since the Schrems II decision, U.S. and EU negotiators have been hammering out a workable data transfer mechanism to permit the transfer of EU data to the United States.
Mexico’s federal government has indicated that the National Health Council will soon decree the end of the pandemic in Mexico. The expected announcement comes on the heels of signs that COVID-19 cases are significantly waning, with community transmission levels low enough for the government to designate all but one of Mexico’s thirty-two states in green status under the biweekly pandemic monitoring system.
