Contracted translators must fight to get paid

Mississauga company calls allegations of non-payment for services ‘baseless’

Like so many who come to Canada hoping for a new future, Hamid Shakeri — a mechanical engineer fluent in English and Farsi — spent years fruitlessly searching for a job in his field.

At first glance, signing on to do interpretation work for million-dollar Mississauga-based company Able Translations seemed the next best thing.

But for months, Shakeri says he did not receive a single penny of the roughly $3,000 he was owed. And, it seems, he is not alone. Able Translations enjoys translation and interpretation contracts with both the provincial and federal governments.

But the company is failing to pay or delaying payment to some of its workers, court records and claims to the Ministry of Labour suggest.

Amid a slew of complaints from some of the province’s most vulnerable workers — often women and recent immigrants — the ministry is almost entirely hamstrung in its efforts to help them.

That is because Able Translations classifies its workers as independent contractors, a category that has absolutely no protection under the province’s outdated Employment Standards Act.

The company has had at least 30 small claims filed against it from across the GTA for non-payment of wages ranging from $340 to more than $20,000 since 2007. Sixty-eight claims were made to the Ministry of Labour against the company since 2008, but most of the claims were withdrawn or denied because the workers were not deemed to be employees under the Act.

In response to a long list of questions from the Star, Annabelle Teixeira, who operates Able Translations with her husband, owner Wilson Teixeira, said in an email that the allegations made by former workers were “baseless.”

“We continue to enjoy positive relationships with over 3,500 interpreters,” she said.

Following queries from the Star, the company announced in a website post Tuesday that it was launching “an immediate 90-day review of current invoicing procedures.”

Judy Lytle, a 57-year-old Mandarin interpreter from Cambridge, Ont., says she was owed more than $1,000 by Able Translations for work conducted in June. She says her efforts to recover her wages were met with delay from her employer. She finally received a cheque on Oct. 23, four months after completing her work for Able.

When she called the ministry to complain, she says she was shocked to learn she had no protection under the province’s employment laws. That means the only recourse for workers who are out-of-pocket is to spend their own time and money to take the company to court.

“When I called the Ministry of Labour, they know about (Able) but they couldn’t do anything because we’re not employees per se,” she told the Star. “But somebody needs to be able to do something.”

A sampling of the 30-odd claims filed against the company in small claims courts that were seen by the Star include one filed as recently as Oct. 19 and one claiming more than $21,000 in unpaid wages.

Several of the claims were settled by the company. In one statement of defence, the company denied the allegations made by the plaintiff and said a cheque had already been sent via registered mail.

In another, the company said it had “been experiencing delays in processing provider payments due to a number of unforeseen accounting difficulties beyond the company’s control.”

Several translators and interpreters who spoke to the Star also said when they confronted the company about unpaid wages, they were often told payment was delayed because of accounting problems or that their cheques were in the mail.

According to Shakeri, the company claimed for almost two months to have sent him his wages after he badgered them over non-payment. On Wednesday, following queries to Able from the Star, he finally received an email from the firm confirming his cheque had been delivered by express post. But Shakeri said the wait was unacceptably long.

“When I go for these assignments I have to pay for the fuel and some of these things are out of town. I have children that I have to support and I cannot do that properly,” he said.

The company continues to enjoy contracts with government agencies. Last year, Able secured a three-year contract with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) and has so far received $120,000 for its services.

Provincially, it landed a $55,864 contract with the Ministry of Finance and a $72,041 contract with the Ministry of Natural Resources in 2013-14. It also secured two interpretation contracts with the federal Public Prosecution Service in 2012 and 2013.

A public profile of the company compiled by Industry Canada lists several large private insurance companies as Able clients and says the company has total sales of between $1 million and $4,999,999 annually.

Current and former executives of the Able business are well-connected. Owner Wilson Teixeira is currently an appointed member of the board of directors for the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. From 2011 to the beginning of 2014, Peter Fonseca, the newly elected Liberal MP for Mississauga East-Cooksville and a former Ontario minister of labour, worked for Able Translations, including as a vice-president.

“The shame of it is that it’s probably women, racialized workers, immigrants who are doing very important work.” MARY GELLATLY PARKDALE LEGAL SERVICES

The bulk of the claims against the company came in 2014 and 2015.

In an email to the Star, when he was no longer with the company, Fonseca said he had no knowledge of the Ministry of Labour claims or court cases filed against Able Translations.

Because of Ontario’s outdated Employment Standards Act, there is little help available to the workers seeking their wages under the Act. Of the 68 cases launched against the firm with the Ministry of Labour, 59 were withdrawn or denied because Able’s workers were classified as independent contractors, not employees.

“This is a prime example of why we need to expand the scope of the ESA to cover workers like these,” said Mary Gellatly of Parkdale Community Legal Services.

“The shame of it is that it’s probably women, racialized workers, immigrants who are doing very important work — work they were probably pushed into because of barriers they experienced in the labour market.”

Meanwhile, Shakeri says he can only hope his fellow translators will simply be paid the money they deserve. “If I can get this company to stop doing this, that will be adequate for me.” Sara Mojtehedzadeh can be reached at smojtehedzadeh@thestar.ca or 416-869-4195. With files from Geoffrey Vendeville