Glossary - Employment and Work
In Employment and Work, Health and Disability, Housing Law, Human Rights, Income Assistance, Tribunals and Courts
Ontario’s Human Rights Code says that employers, landlords, and service providers must do what they can to remove barriers that cause people to be treated differently because of personal differences that are listed in the Human Rights Code.
The legal word for this is accommodation. Examples of personal differences include a person’s ethnic origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital status, or disability.
This could mean doing things differently for you so that you are treated equally. For example, you might need a wheelchair ramp to get inside a building. Or you might not be able to wear the same uniform as other workers because of your religion.
But an employer or landlord might not have to do something if they can prove that it will cause them undue hardship.
In Employment and Work, Health and Disability, Housing Law, Human Rights, Income Assistance, Tribunals and Courts
Ontario’s Human Rights Code says that employers, landlords, and service providers must do what they can to remove barriers that cause people to be treated differently because of personal differences that are listed in the Human Rights Code.
The legal word for this is accommodation. Examples of personal include a person’s ethnic origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital status, or disability.
This could mean doing things differently for you so that you are treated equally. For example, you might need a wheelchair ramp to get inside a building. Or you might not be able to wear the same uniform as other workers because of your religion.
But an employer or landlord might not have to do something if they can prove that it will cause them undue hardship.
To appeal means to ask a higher decision maker to change a decision that you don’t agree with. For example, the higher level decision maker at the WSIB is called an Appeals Resolution Officer.
Approved medical practitioners that can sign an EI medical certificate include:
- a Canadian or American licensed medical doctor
- a psychologist, as long as the illness being treated is within their field
- a chiropractor, as long as the illness being treated is within their field
- an optometrist, as long as the illness being treated is within their field
- a nurse practitioner, or a midwife, as long as the illness being treated is within their field, or
- a registered nurse, only in isolated areas, when a doctor is not available.
It is usually not acceptable to have your medical certificate completed and signed by a massage therapist, osteopath, naturopath, physiotherapist, podiatrist, acupuncturist, Christian Science Adherence Practitioner, or a doctor not licensed in Canada or America.
In an averaging agreement, you agree to get overtime on the average number of overtime hours you work over 2 weeks or more, not the actual number of hours.
In most jobs, the hours you work over 44 hours a week are overtime hours. And for those hours you get paid 1 ½ times your regular wage.
To average your overtime hours over a certain number of weeks, take the total number of hours you worked in that period and divide by the number of weeks in that period.
Then subtract 44 hours from the total and multiply by the number of weeks in the period to figure out the overtime hours you’ll have.
A bargaining unit is a group of employees that is represented by a union.
The benefit period is the period of time in which you must collect all the EI benefits you qualify for. The benefit period is usually 52 weeks long, starting on the Sunday before your interruption of earnings. If you apply for EI late, your benefit period might start on the Sunday before you filed your EI application.
A Case Manager is the person at the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) who first deals with your claim. Their name will be on the first letter you get from the WSIB.
The Case Manager is your contact person at the WSIB when you have questions and they are responsible for making decisions about your claim.
Sometimes your Case Manager will change. But if you have your claim number, you can find out who the new person is.
A claim number is the unique number that the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) gives to each injury you report. It’s on the first letter that you get from the WSIB and all other WSIB documents about your injury.
