ACA Requests Consultation On Overtime Averaging Agreement

ACA has sent a letter to the Minister or Labour outlining industry’s concerns regarding overtime averaging agreement.

In the past few months since bill 30 came into law construction employees and employers have raised significant concerns in regards to the overtime and averaging agreement provisions. In particular, both groups are concerned that the present 44 hour per week and up to 12 week averaging agreement period are not sufficiently flexible to accommodate the site-specific, project-based, seasonal nature of construction work.

Spring 2018 has illustrated the impact of weather on the ability for many construction workers to work any hours at all. Wet, cold, high winds, darkness, all impact the amount of hours to safely perform duties.

Further, construction projects may be remote from a worker’s residence, taking the worker away from their family. While they are away, they prefer to maximize hours of work to then bank for use at other times.

Our employers report that their employees are requesting the flexibility to safely work longer days over an entire season to address these issues.

ACA would like to see an exception for the industry similar to Manitoba legislation which allows for a longer work week to apply over the entire season.

You can read the letter in full here.