Labour ministry targets abusive employers
Annual enforcement blitz aims to prevent businesses from breaking the rules
Labour Minister Kevin Flynn is vowing to weed out the bad employers who take advantage of their workers.
The ministry is in the midst of an annual blitz with enforcement officers zeroing in on restaurants, janitorial services, security firms, business services, fitness and recreation centres, and the amusement and recreation industries.
“We want to get into those industries, we want to get into those businesses and tell them what the rules are. If they are breaking the rules, put an end to it,” Flynn told the Star on Wednesday.
He said the restaurant industry is one of the biggest offenders in terms of ignoring or giving lip service to the Employment Standards Act.
That includes not paying minimum wage or overtime, or not providing proper training.
He said he hears “horror stories” that include businesses asking peo- ple to come in for training and in the end there is no job and no pay.
“Those (employers) who are doing that know that is wrong . . . there (are) no ifs, ands or buts about that. They’re simply breaking the law.”
Those workers often taken advantage of are the young and temporary foreign workers. “Those are the people we want to reach,” Flynn said. “In Ontario, we are all workers and we expect to be treated the same.”
The minister said proper is training is paramount “because they say that the time a worker is most vulnerable in their entire life is the first few weeks of the very first job they have. Often times these are the entry level jobs.”
Last year in Ontario, 27 workers died on the job, down from 41in 2013.
“What we want to do is ensure that young employees — those who are entering the workplace for the first time — understand that if they are in an uncomfortable situation and they think they are being asked to do something unsafe, that they have the right to refuse that unsafe work,” Flynn said.
Flynn said employers who knowingly break the law will be charged.
“That not what we want to do at the end of the day but if we find people who are breaking the law that’s exactly what we will do,” he said.