Hello and welcome to this week's Ministry of Labour podcast. In today's employment standards segment, we're going to discuss public holidays.

Over the centuries, almost all societies held various days of celebration or leisure. Some of these days were religious in nature, others celebrated events such harvest time or spring planting. Over the years, these days of celebration became formalized in law.

Currently in Ontario, the Employment Standards Act provides for nine public holidays:

• New Year's Day - January 1st
• Family Day - the third Monday in February
• Good Friday - the Friday before Easter Sunday, which varies depending on the year
• Victoria Day - which is the Monday before May 25
• Canada Day - July 1st, unless the 1st is a Sunday, then it's July 2nd
• Labour Day - the first Monday in September
• Thanksgiving Day - the second Monday in October
• Christmas Day - December 25, and
• Boxing Day - December 26.

If you qualify under the Employment Standards Act, you are entitled to take these days off work and be paid public holiday pay.

Your employer can ask you to work on the public holiday, but you do not have to agree. If you do agree, your agreement must be set out in writing.

Some employers give their employees a holiday on Easter Sunday, Easter Monday, the first Monday in August, or Remembrance Day. These holidays are optional, and there is no requirement under the Employment Standards Act to give them, or to provide public holiday pay for them.

You may be required to work on a public holiday, depending on your job and schedule.

If, for example, you work in a hospital, hotel, motel, tourist resort, restaurant, tavern, or a continuous operation, your employer may require you to work on any public holiday that falls on a day that you would ordinarily work.

Other people work in jobs that are not covered by the public holiday provisions of the act.

To help you determine whether your job is covered, or if special rules apply to you, we have created an easy to use on-line tool … the Special Rule Tool.

Just go to our website … we'll give you the co-ordinates at the end of the podcast.

If you work on the public holiday, you are entitled to receive either
• your regular rate for hours worked on the holiday, plus another day off - a "substitute" holiday -- with public holiday pay Or…
• public holiday pay plus premium pay for the hours worked on the public holiday.

Generally speaking, public holiday pay is all of the regular wages - not including overtime pay - earned in the four work weeks before the work week with the public holiday, plus all of the applicable vacation pay, divided by 20.

Premium pay is 1½ times your regular rate of pay.

This is the general standard around holiday pay, and it affects the majority of employees in Ontario. However, there are a number of different rules, which may depend on your employment situation.

Please go to our website for more information on public holidays, on special rules and on how to calculate holiday pay owing.

Go to Ontario.ca - forward slash - employment standards - one word.

That's Ontario.ca - forward slash - employment standards - one word.

From there, go to the topics and Publications section and then click on "public holidays" … there you'll find all of the information you need.

Or, you can call our Information Centre at 1-800-531-5551.

That's 1-800-531-5551.

Information staff there can help you with your questions.

And that's it for another employment standards podcast on MOL Radio.

Thank you for listening.

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