PLEA gratefully acknowledges our primary core funder the Law Foundation of Saskatchewan for their continuing and generous support of our organization.
You can contact Employment Standards about workplace issues. There is a process in place for making complaints formally or anonymously.
You can call Employment Standards to discuss your work-related issues. They can be reached toll-free at 1-800-667-1783.
If you are in a union, you should contact them first about issues you have with your employer.
Before making a complaint, you may want to try to resolve the issue with your employer first. If that does not work, you can make a complaint to Employment Standards. You can either make a formal complaint or an anonymous complaint. Complaints must be made within 1 year from the date the problem occurred.
For every complaint, it is important to include evidence that supports your claim. This could be things like pay stubs or records of hours worked. Employment Standards will investigate your complaint and may ask you for more information. They can also look at business records and talk to your employer or other employees.
The federal government regulates some employers such as banks and telecoms. For these employers, you should make your complaint to the federal Labour Program.
Employers cannot fire you or threaten to fire you because you made, or plan to make, a complaint.
You can make a formal complaint to deal with something your employer has done. This kind of complaint may be filed while you are still working for your employer or after you leave the job. Some examples of things you might make a complaint about are:
You may choose to make an anonymous complaint and have your name kept private. Anyone can make an anonymous complaint. You include your name when you make the complaint, but it is kept confidential. In this situation, the focus will be on correcting issues with the employer for the future and not on a particular incident.
You cannot recover unpaid wages through an anonymous complaint. You must make a formal complaint to do that.
Various things can happen when you make a complaint. Employment Standards can:
If you make a formal complaint and do not agree with the decision, you can file an appeal. The appeal is made to an independent adjudicator. You must file the appeal with Employment Standards within 15 days of the appeal. There will be a hearing where you can tell the adjudicator why you think the decision is wrong. The adjudicator will then make their own decision.
You can appeal the adjudicator’s decision to the Labour Relations Board. This appeal must also be filed within 15 days from the date of the decision. The Board’s decision can be further appealed to the Court of Appeal.
PLEA offers free online training on preventing and addressing workplace harassment.