Difference between revisions of "Employment Law Issues (9:V)"

“Temporary layoff” is defined in section 1 of the ''ESA''. A recent B.C. Supreme Court decision, ''Besse v Dr AS Machner Inc'', 2009 BCSC 1316, established that the temporary layoff provisions of the ''ESA'' alone do not give employers the right to temporarily lay off employees: a layoff constitutes termination unless it has been provided for in the contract of employment either expressly or as an implied term based on well-known industry-wide practice, or the  employee consented to the layoff. If the right to temporary layoff exists for one of these reasons, then the limits set out in section 1 apply: where an employee has been laid off for more than 13 consecutive weeks, and this has not been extended either by agreement or by the Director, the employee is considered to have been terminated permanently, and is entitled to severance pay. He or she also may be able to sue for wrongful dismissal before the 13-week period has expired. This would be the case where, although the employer has used the term “layoff”, it is nonetheless clear that the employee has been terminated.

The Employment Standards Act does not require any payment for length of service during the first three months of employment (s 63).