Audit, Compliance and Risk Blog

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires employers to prepare and maintain records of occupational injuries and illnesses (I&I Logs) as they occur. OSHA also requires employers to post an annual I&I Summary in each “establishment” within their workplace by February 1, summarizing that workplace’s I&Is during the previous calendar year. In states that administer federal standards within state-run programs, employers follow the comparable state requirements. Establishments with 250 or more workers must file electronic summaries by March 2.

Sexual harassment in Canadian workplaces can trigger a variety of laws and regulations:

If you’re contemplating significant changes at a facility that’s regulated as a “major source” under the Clean Air Act (CAA), you’d better figure out whether those changes will “modify” the source enough to trigger significant pre-construction review and permitting by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or its state or local delegee. The likely answer to questions like yours has changed with CAA amendments and regulations over the decades. EPA has just changed them again, after ending a decade long year delay of a regulatory “interpretation” published in the last week of George W. Bush’s presidency, and stayed by the Obama-era EPA throughout his presidency, and now reaffirmed and activated by the Trump-era EPA.

When someone receives occupational direction and/or compensation from more than one entity, who’s the boss? Sometimes it’s obviously one or the other, sometimes it’s not clear which one is, and sometimes the answer may be “both.” The answer has important implications, not just for who writes a paycheck but for who is subject to legal requirements and prohibitions under applicable laws.

On October 29, a large multi-sector group of organizations announced a major initiative to eliminate plastic waste and pollution - the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment. The group is sponsored by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and intends to respond to dire projections of the environmental implications of plastic waste with. Informational materials highlight a projection from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) that more than 8 million tons of plastics end up in the world’s oceans annually, and that if present trends continue there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans by 2050.

While domestic climate politics in the U.S. and Canada generate hot air about the reality and urgency of climate change, climate science proceeds largely on its own pathways, and climate policies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are being proposed and developed by a wide variety of entities. On November 23 – often referred to as “Black Friday” by retailers and shoppers in the U.S., regardless of their attitudes about global warming – the U.S. government’s U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) delivered urgent recommendations for aggressive policies. This Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) builds on last year’s Climate Science Special Report (which I wrote about here).

The Canada Labour Code and provincial employment standards acts generally specify a minimum notice period before such terminations (the “statutory notice period”), and generally allow the employer to pay compensation to the employee instead of giving the employee notice. (e.g., CLC ss. 54-67) This compensation is usually called “severance pay”; it replaces advance notice of termination. In general, the severance pay must equal the salary and benefits that the employee would have earned if permitted to work until the end of the notice period. Courts interpret and defend these prohibitions against “contracting out” termination benefits.

We all—well, almost all of us—have devices with us at all times, which track and keep a record of our location. This isn’t some government mandate or a dystopian sci-fi novel. Indeed, we do this willingly, and even pay for both this device and the service that tracks us.

On April 26, 2018, the Ontario government passed the Pay Transparency Act, 2018 (the Act), which created a number of requirements for employers with respect to compensation reporting and disclosure to employees and potential employees, as well as compliance compensation reporting to the government, which the government will then make public.

The old maxim states that the only two things that cannot be avoided in life are death and taxes. While there still does not seem to be any way to escape our ultimate fate, until recently there was one way to legally avoid certain taxes.