The fight for better working conditions in Ontario

My mother left her family farm in the Philippines to make money and work as a live-in domestic worker in Canada. She came here to make a better life for herself and her children. But, as hard as she worked, paying her bills and saving was always challenging.

As a labour lawyer engaged in workers’ issues in Toronto, I see my mother’s experience mirrors that of many service and cleaning workers in the GTA. The cost of housing has skyrocketed, while the wages of the workers who do much of the invisible work that our city relies on has stagnated.

This dynamic plays out every day. Since July, the Service Employees International Union-represented cleaners for Icon Condominiums in downtown Toronto have been locked out of their jobs over a labour dispute.

The cleaners earn between $14.50 and $15.25 per hour. Their employer, Luciano Janitorial Services, is pushing to cut paid sick days from four days to two and to cut contributions to health benefits.

The sad truth is that many workers in this sector are non-unionized and have no job security, sick days, or benefits at all. And without a union, these employees and socalled independent contractors have no power to improve their working conditions, putting them in dire straits.

According to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, for example, a minimum-wage worker in Toronto needs to work 79 hours a week to afford a one-bedroom apartment or 96 hours a week for a two-bedroom apartment.

Their plight might be invisible, but for the publicity surrounding unionization drives and campaigns that illustrate the growing inequality in our city and the rise of the gig economy, where workers like food delivery couriers, Uber drivers and freelancers are treated as independent contractors to deny them basic employment standards.

Recently, we have seen strides in gig economy workers banding together to assert their rights. In June of this year, Uber Black drivers unionized under the United Food and Commercial Workers Union in the GTA.

Uber, a U.S. multinational corporation worth billions of dollars, claims its drivers are independent contractors and not entitled to a minimum wage, employment insurance or other employee rights.

Like Uber, food delivery service provider Foodora claims its bike couriers are independent contractors and not employees.

From Aug. 9 to 13, the Ontario Labour Relations Board held a unionization vote with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and the couriers are awaiting the results. If successful, these workers will make up one of the first unionized app-based workforces.

Without government intervention to provide workers with higher wages, sick days and benefits for medications, dental and mental health care, the best way for workers in the service and gig economy to survive in Toronto is to unionize.