Federally Regulated Employees - Part 1: What Legislation Applies to You?

Corinna Traill

With the Canadian Union of Postal Workers currently out on strike and the federal Air Canada employees legislated back to work last week, this is a good time to start thinking about your workplace rights. This is the first instalment of a six-part “Know Your Rights” blog series describing the workplace rights and obligations for both federally and provincially regulated employees.

First, you must first determine which legislation applies to ¬you.

If you work in an industry that falls into any of the following categories, then you are part of the 10% of Canadian workers who are “federally regulated” and whose workplace rights and obligations are described in the Canada Labour Code (“CLC”). Interestingly, Ontario has a higher portion of federally regulated employees (40%) than any other region in the country!

Federally regulated industries include:
• Banking (bank tellers)
• Telecommunications (telephone and cable companies, radio and television broadcasting)
• Canada Post
• Pipelines
• Air Transportation (airport and airline employees)
• Railway and Road Transportation (GO, CN and VIA Rail employees, truck drivers)
• Customs

Next instalment – Part 2: Your Basic Rights