WORKING TO MEND A BROKEN SYSTEM
As the labour ministry prepares to release an interim report on the changing workplace, the Star’s Sara Mojtehedzadeh spoke with workers struggling with precarious employment about how they would make things better
Nadira Begum, 37, part-time worker
Issues: part-time work and lack of paid sick days:
“Good jobs will have a positive impact for my community and for me also because if they had fixed hours then they have to run from one place to another place.
“If they have fair schedules, then they can make a plan ahead with their children or with their personal life. It would be a nice picture. And paid sick days are essential for everybody — then you don’t infect your co-workers or client.”
Veronica Torres, 38, construction worker
Issues: enforcement of employment laws and being misclassified as “independent contractors” who have no rights under existing laws:
“I want to see if the government can push employers to follow the law. Because they have the power, they have the money. They know how the system works. But they give to the workers all the responsibility to follow the law, to ask their rights, and to prove that we’re not self-employed. . . . Employers need to take responsibility. They are making a lot of profit.”
Dan Janssen, 35, airport worker
Issues: companies continually changing service providers resulting in mass job losses, and fair wages:
“The protection needs to be clearly stated that when a contract is flipped, the worker is protected — their wages stay the same, and that way they can continue to make increases. . . . And if they have a union, they need to be able to keep the same union. It shouldn’t be all of a sudden unions need to fight with one another to try and go after these workers because that leaves the workers vulnerable.”
Amanda Terfloth, 33, former temp worker
Issues: temp agency work, equal pay for equal work:
“For me and a lot of people, temp agencies become a substitute when you can’t get EI. You’re working contracts — the contract ends and you didn’t accumulate enough hours for EI, so you go to a temp agency and you just end up in this pattern where you’re going from temp gig to temp gig. You become very short-term minded not because you want to be, but if you think about all the future stuff you’ll go crazy.”
Jonathan Ozols, 30, restaurant worker and wage-theft victim
Issues: wage theft, enforcement of employment laws:
“I’ve never seen a penny. The officer overseeing my case was really good. But just in general I was like, OK thanks for basically kind of wasting my time. I’d like to see something with a little bit of teeth — even you know, a baby tooth. Right now, in a funny sense, it’s kind of like crime does pay. A legitimate cost-saving measure as it stands in the restaurant industry right now is to steal your employee’s wages. It works. ”