The Saskatchewan Government introduced a comprehensive new labour act in the legislature Dec. 4, claiming it as an attempt to create greater transparency among unions, develop a formula for setting the rate of minimum wage and help employers and employees find the needed information they may be looking for.

Don Morgan, Saskatchewan Minister of Labour, said the new Saskatchewan Employment Act, which is expected to be passed by the May long-weekend when the provincial house rises for the summer months, would combine 12 present pieces of labour legislation into one bill. He said the act was devised through recommendations from government officials and 3,800 written submissions from the public over 90 days last summer after the government first proposed the new act last March.

Morgan said the new act succeeds in making the laws more readable for anyone looking to find information on labour laws, plus it allows the government to streamline remedies and appeals processes under various parts of the legislation. He said the public now has another 90 days to respond with concerns or recommendations on specific bills that are to be affected and the government will respond in kind.

“We posted everything on our website and in addition to the bill itself there is a (side note) that indicates what the significant changes would be, so the information is available now,” said Morgan. “We’ve also asked the public to give us their comments on it and if there are things that we have missed or could have some unintended consequences we would make whatever house amendments that are necessary before the bill passes in the spring session.”

A few of the main proposals of the new act would include regulations permitting, with consent from employer and employee, four ten-hour work days instead of the normal five eight-hour days, an ability for employers to pay wages by other means such as prepaid cards, higher fines and degree of accountability on employers to ensure that their workers are safe at all times and an indexing of the minimum wage to the annual change in average wage and the Consumer Price Index.

“I can’t imagine ever lowering (minimum wage),” said Morgan. “We could have lowered it before if there was a good reason and never did. I think that would be one of the worst things you could do to low-income people. The reason we have the process that’s there (in the new act) is it will be a blend of Consumer Price Index and average hourly wage. If they went down then it would come to cabinet before there was automatically a reduction, but I can’t see cabinet ever wanting to do that.

“We’ve raised it significantly since we’ve been in government. We’ve raised it well over 25 per cent and want to continue to make sure we’re midway or in the top half of the rest of the provinces and want to make sure we’re able to attract workers into the province.”

To read more please see the December 17 print edition of The Davidson Leader.