A Saskatchewan employer and two company directors failed to overturn a $41,454.25 overtime assessment after arguing that a higher straight-time wage and an occasional bonus gave a truck driver a better overall deal.
In Dart Services v Waisman, 2026 SKLRB 16, issued March 4, 2026, the Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board upheld an adjudicator's decision confirming the assessment against Dart Services Ltd. and directors Davin Emmel and Marty Hanson.
The board did not prohibit every employment agreement that bundles compensation together. Its conclusion was narrower: this agreement did not preserve Tyler Waisman's statutory overtime entitlement. Even if an earlier passage in the adjudicator's reasoning stated the law too broadly, that possible error did not affect the result.
A higher hourly rate did not settle the overtime question
Waisman worked for Dart from October 2019 to April 2023. His arrangement paid $45 an hour for trucking and $35 an hour for shop work, with a bonus associated with pipe sales. He understood that he was not receiving overtime calculated according to the overtime hours he worked.
After his complaint, an employment standards officer assessed an additional $41,454.25 for the period from April 11, 2022 to April 5, 2023. The assessment used the statutory overtime rate of one-and-a-half times his hourly wage.
An adjudicator upheld that assessment in June 2025. Dart and its directors then appealed to the board, alleging errors in the treatment of evidence, interpretation of the legislation and assessment of credibility.
The employer emphasized that Waisman had chosen the compensation structure over an alternative offer of $35 an hour plus overtime. Its accounting evidence showed that the arrangement could produce more money than the lower hourly rate with overtime.
The board did not reject that comparison as untrue. It found that the adjudicator had accepted the evidence of the alternative offer's lower value. But comparing the chosen arrangement with a different, lower wage did not answer whether the actual agreement delivered the overtime protections required by the legislation.
The bonus was uncertain
The adjudicator found that the bonus functioned as compensation in place of some overtime, but was irregular in both timing and amount. In some pay periods it was not payable at all, and it did not necessarily increase when Waisman worked more overtime hours.
The board found no legal error undermining those findings. The arrangement left Waisman uncertain of receiving overtime compensation in a pay period, and the bonus payments fell well below the statutory amount.
Saskatchewan's legislation prevents an agreement from depriving an employee of statutory protections. It preserves more favourable arrangements, but a contract paying less than the required overtime rate cannot qualify as more favourable merely because the employee accepted it.
The board examined the employer's reliance on earlier Court of Appeal decisions involving all-inclusive contracts. Those cases did not establish that the particular arrangement here was lawful. The governing point was that the legislation's protections still had to be met, whatever form the contract took.
An adjudicator's broad suggestion that such contracts were necessarily less beneficial could reflect an error of law, the board acknowledged. All-inclusive agreements may be permissible in appropriate circumstances. However, this adjudicator had decided the case on the agreement's actual shortcomings, not that sweeping proposition. An immaterial error was not a basis to overturn the decision.
No decisive credibility conflict
The appeal to the board was limited to questions of law, rather than a fresh opportunity to reweigh every fact. The employer argued that evidence had been ignored or misunderstood, but the board found the decision and documents supported the key findings about pay terms and the irregular bonus.
It also rejected the claim that the adjudicator needed to resolve a credibility dispute. The witnesses' relevant accounts did not conflict on the agreement's terms or whether the bonus was paid consistently. The result followed from applying the law to those facts, not from preferring Waisman's testimony over the employer's witnesses.
The board dismissed the appeal and affirmed the existing assessment. It declined Waisman's request for costs, explaining that its authority to award them was exceptional. The decision upheld an unpaid-overtime entitlement; it did not impose a new fine or establish that the money had already been collected.
