Your rights at work: pay, overtime and unions

0. Three baselines to memorize (B.C., 2026)

• Minimum wage: $18.25 an hour (since June 1, 2026, and adjusted each June for inflation). Tips do not count toward it. It applies during probation too;
• A pay period can be at most 16 days. After a period ends, the employer must pay everything earned in it within 8 days. That includes overtime and statutory-holiday pay (the pay you still get for a public holiday even if you do not work that day);
• The legal minimums cannot be signed away. A clause such as “I agree to skip overtime pay” or “I accept less than minimum wage” is void even if you signed it. Why? Because a contract cannot rewrite the floor set by law.

1. Overtime: one line per day, one line per week

• Daily overtime and weekly overtime are worked out separately, and both are owed. The same hour is never counted twice: hours already paid at the daily rate do not count toward the 40-hour week. Only the first 8 hours of each day count toward that weekly line;
• There is one exception: a written averaging agreement (an agreement to average your hours out) can spread hours over 1–4 weeks before overtime is counted. These agreements have strict formal requirements, and “everyone in this trade does it” is not one of them;
• You may hear that “managers get no overtime”. That exemption is narrow. What counts is what you actually do: real authority over people, and real power to decide. The word printed on a business card does not settle it.

2. The big question: is a “flat monthly salary, half every two weeks” legal?

Take it apart. The answer has three layers:

1. Being paid a salary is legal in itself. Plenty of jobs pay by the month or by the year;
2. Paying half every two weeks is legal too. Two weeks is 14 days, which stays within the 16-day cap on pay periods. Paying only once a month, on the other hand, goes past that cap, and that does break the rule;
3. But a flat salary waives nothing. The employer must still record your actual hours every day. Your salary divided by the hours you worked cannot fall below $18.25. Hours past 8 in a day or 40 in a week still earn overtime on top. “It is a salary, so there is no overtime” has no legal force.

A three-step self-check

1. Track your own hours. Start time, finish time and breaks. A note on your phone is enough. The employer has the record-keeping duty, but your own log is the strongest evidence when you claim;
2. Convert it to an hourly rate. Divide your monthly pay by the hours you actually worked. Under $18.25 crosses the line;
3. Check it against the overtime lines. Look for any day past 8 hours without 1.5×, or past 12 hours without 2×.

3. Not paid? Complaining is free, but there is a deadline

1. Ask in writing first. A text, a WeChat message or an email all work. Say which period the money is for and how much it is. The written trail is itself evidence;
2. Complain to the Employment Standards Branch (the B.C. government office that enforces these rules). It is free, you do not need a lawyer, and you file it online;
3. Remember two clocks. First, you must file within 6 months of your last day of work (or of a temporary layoff). Second, the wages you can recover generally reach back only 12 months, counted from the day you file or your last day, whichever is earlier. So if you stay in the job and put off filing, the earliest months drop off one by one. Act early;
4. Retaliation is prohibited. If an employer fires or punishes you for asserting these rights, that is itself a violation, and you can add it to your complaint.

4. Other common traps, one line each

• “Probation is unpaid, or half-paid.” Illegal. Minimum wage applies from your first hour on the job;
• “Training doesn’t count as hours.” Training and meetings the employer requires you to attend generally do count;
• “Uniforms and breakages come out of your pay.” Generally not allowed. An employer cannot push its business costs onto your wages;
• Tips. An employer may not take workers’ tips to cover its own costs. Tip pools, where tips are shared out, have rules of their own;
• Dismissal. After 3 months of continuous employment, an employer must give you notice or pay compensation for length of service (this is the legal name; it is what people usually call severance, and B.C. has no separate severance pay on top of it). It rises with seniority, from 1 week up to 8 weeks. The official page has the full ladder;
• Vacation and holidays. Paid vacation and statutory-holiday pay are legal entitlements, not favours.

The details for each one sit on the official employment-standards pages, linked in section 8. Read the original against your own facts.

5. Unions: what they are and what they change

In a workplace with a union, wages, benefits, scheduling and discipline all live in a collective agreement (the contract the union signs with the employer on behalf of all the workers). With it, you do not have to bargain with your boss on your own. Its terms are usually better overall than the statutory floor, and that floor still applies underneath as the safety net.

What workers actually gain

• The terms are in black and white. Pay scales, benefits and overtime rules are all set out in the agreement, not left to a manager’s mood;
• Discipline has to follow a process. Warnings, suspensions and dismissal all need just cause. Nobody can be fired on a whim;
• There is a built-in appeal route. If you are treated unfairly, see your shop steward (the union’s contact person at your workplace) and file a grievance. The union takes it up under the process in the agreement, at its own cost. If that does not settle it, the case can go to arbitration.

Enforcing your rights in a union shop, in three steps

1. Get the collective agreement and read it through. You should be given one when you are hired; if you were not, ask the union;
2. When something goes wrong, go to your steward or union rep first. Note that grievances often have very short deadlines, from days to weeks, depending on the agreement;
3. If the union brushes you off: unions owe their members a duty of fair representation, and you can complain to the B.C. Labour Relations Board (the body that handles disputes between unions and employers).

Two more basics. First, union dues are tax-deductible; you claim them when you file your tax return. Second, organizing or joining a union is protected by law, and an employer who retaliates over it is breaking the law.

6. Injury and safety: WorkSafeBC

• People who work in B.C. are covered by WorkSafeBC’s no-fault injury insurance (WorkSafeBC is B.C.’s workplace injury insurer). “No-fault” means nobody has to prove whose mistake it was first. Employers pay the premiums, and workers pay nothing;
• Injured? Report it. Do all three of these, and do them promptly: tell your employer; tell the clinic it is work-related; file a claim with WorkSafeBC;
• If your employer says “let’s settle privately and skip the claim”, do not accept. Two reasons: a private deal gives you no protection later, and hiding the injury is itself a problem. You can file with WorkSafeBC yourself, without your employer’s agreement;
• You may refuse work that is clearly unsafe. And your employer may not retaliate against you for refusing.

7. Two special cases: federal industries and contractors

• Federal industries run on a different rulebook. Banks, airlines, telecoms, railways and interprovincial transport fall under the Canada Labour Code. The minimums are different, and so is the place you complain to (links in section 8). If you work in one of these, read the federal pages instead;
• “You’re a contractor” is not the employer’s call. Some employers label workers “self-employed contractors” to dodge overtime and payroll withholdings. What decides it is the substance: how much control the employer has over you, whose tools you use, and who carries the risk of profit or loss. Called a contractor, but working set shifts under someone’s direction? That is misclassification (an employee wrongly labelled a contractor), and the Employment Standards Branch can act on it;
• If you really are self-employed, with your own clients and your own invoices, see the T2125 part of guide No. 8.

8. Myths, corrected — and the official links

Pay & hours (B.C. Employment Standards)

Complaints & enforcement