QMUNITY & PortaLaw Workshop Recap: Employee Rights in BC

Understanding the BC Employment Standards Act

QMUNITY and PortaLaw recently offered a workshop on employee rights in BC with an emphasis on understanding the Employment Standards Act (ESA). For those who could not attend, this post is a quick guide and summary of the workshop material.

Note: This post explains the law in general. It is not intended to give you legal advice on your particular problem. Each person’s case is different, so you may need to get legal help. Information in this post is up to date as of December 2025.

What is the ESA?

The ESA is the provincial law that “sets standards for payment, compensation and working conditions in most workplaces” (Government of British Columbia). 

The ESA sets out to create balanced relationships between employers and employees by:

• Creating basic standards of compensation and conditions of employment;

• Encouraging fair treatment and open communication;

• Creating a productive labour force while allowing employees to meet both their work and family responsibilities;

Who is included in the ESA?

The ESA determines the various classifications of workers. For example, under the ESA an “employee” includes:

• a person, including a deceased person, receiving or entitled to wages for work performed for another,

• a person an employer allows, directly or indirectly, to perform work normally performed by an employee,

• a person being trained by an employer for the employer's business,

• a person on leave from an employer, and

• a person who has a right of recall

While the definition of an ‘employee’ is quite broad, there are a lot of professions that are excluded from the ESA. This generally includes:

• Professions and designated/licensed professionals with a designated professional regulatory body for example (find the full list of excluded professions here): 

  • Lawyers are Members of the Law Society of BC, so their protections are under the Legal Professions Act

  • Doctors and surgeons are registrants of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC, so their protections are under the Health Professions Act

• Federally regulated employees; they are governed by the Canada Labour Code. For example, airport employees and workers in banking.

There are also some workers who are partially excluded under certain parts of the ESA such as Part 4 (hours of work and overtime) and Part 5 (statutory holidays). In our session we looked at the partial exclusion of managers and high technology professionals. You can learn more about how the Employment Standards Regulation (ESR) defines managers here, and high tech professionals here.

Common Misconceptions

The workshop also went over some common scenarios in employment that many workers experience, and how the ESA sets out protections in these situations. For example:

• “I don’t get paid overtime because I’m on salary.”

  • Even if excluded from time and a half pay for overtime in Part 4, all workers are entitled to pay at their straight rate for hours worked over the amount agreed upon - unless you fall into limited exceptions like if you are a manager or a high technology professional.

• “Vacation pay is only on my base salary.”

  • Under the ESA, employers must pay employees vacation pay (4% or 6% of total wages) on the employee’s total wages. This includes on base salary, bonuses, overtime pay, commissions, sick pay, etc.

• “I’m not getting paid because I’m just here on call.”

  • An employee’s time that is controlled by the employer is paid time! Employees are deemed to be at work while on call at a location designated by the employer unless that location is the employee’s home.

The session included a brief overview of Protected Leaves under the ESA. Job-protected leaves acknowledge that employees are entitled to time off from work in specific circumstances, and employers cannot fire or demote them for taking the leave. With protected leave such as parental leave or critical illness leave for example, as soon as the leave ends, the employer must place the employee in the position they held before taking leave or a comparable position. You can learn more about various types of protected leave here.

The thing to keep in mind with the law is that it’s always changing! For example, in our session we learned about the ESA's recent change to sick leave. Under the new section 49.2, employers are prohibited from requesting sick notes from employees for the first 2 absences of 5 days or less in any given calendar year.

For folks working in unionized environments, much of the information in this post may be subject to your collective agreement, so please be sure to refer to union resources for employment concerns in unionized workplaces.

The Province of BC has a Guide to the Employment Standards Act available for reference. Additionally, PortaLaw offers free digital resources here. Please keep in mind that the information in this post is not legal advice, if you need legal advice and support, you can contact QMUNITY’s Legal Clinic at intake@qmunitylegalclinic.ca or 778-998-0140. The legal clinic is for 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals and families in B.C and offers free guidance on employment, family, tenancy, human rights, and other legal concerns. 

Thank you to Louis and Paula from PortaLaw for all their work and knowledge in the workshop! To support their work please visit their website portalaw.ca

This session was offered as part of QMUNITY’s QueerSmart: Law series. Stay connected by subscribing to our newsletter and follow us on social media to keep up with upcoming QueerSmart workshops with community partners across BC.