‘I feel completely helpless’
For months, cancer survivor Nora Cumming has walked a financial tightrope as she waited for paycheques she says were late, erratic and short of funds
“She’ll get paid, but if she wants to make a big issue out of this, then there’s other alternatives like small claims (court). This is a private matter.” STEVE DAYNES EMPLOYER
It started with a sinking sensation, a premonition that something wasn’t right.
When 55-year-old single mother Nora Cumming started working as a Peterborough family’s nanny, she said she took it on good faith that “everything was professional.”
But, she said, payments soon became slow and irregular. Then she began to worry.
“I just got a really creepy feeling,” she said.
It’s now been a month that she’s been owed more than $1,500, she said. Her last paycheque was on July 1 — and it was incomplete, according to Cumming. She said late and only partial pay was a regular occurrence during her six months working in the Daynes household caring for their three children. Correspondence dating back to May shared with the Star by Cumming shows a series of gentle reminders and increasingly desperate pleas for regular pay.
“On Friday, you will owe me for two pay periods. I live alone, and when this happens, my finances go astray,” reads one email from early June. “I can’t carry my rent and utilities over, as currently, I have no backup juice, and my lottery ticket hasn’t been any good!”
The email ends with a happy face and a thank you.
Her employer, Steve Daynes, said Cumming will get her money after he “verifies” her hours. He said he didn’t receive her last invoice until mid-July and he is simply ensuring the bill is accurate.
“Other than that, she’ll get paid, but if she wants to make a big issue out of this, then there’s other alternatives like small claims (court). This is a private matter,” he told the Star.
In the meantime, Cumming, who is a thyroid cancer survivor, said she doesn’t know how she will pay her rent or her medication costs.
She said her three grown children try to help where they can, but are “just starting their careers in the world.”
Wage theft conjures up visions of workers being flat-out denied a paycheque, but the reality of wage theft is often drawn out and insidious — placing incredible stress on workers.
Workers’ rights advocate Deena Ladd said there are “many ways” it manifests itself.
“There’s the ongoing wage theft that goes on . . . all the time; every time (workers) get their paycheque, they’re not getting all the hours (they’re owed),” Ladd said.
“It’s amazing. Over the years, workers always give their employer the benefit of the doubt because they need that job and they’re being loyal. And the employer takes advantage of them again and again and again. It drives me crazy.”
The Star has reported extensively on the issue of wage theft, showing that even when employees successfully complain to the Ministry of Labour about unpaid wages, employers rarely voluntarily comply with orders to pay. Collection efforts have failed to return $28 million to victims of wage theft over the past six years, and less than 0.2 per cent of those found guilty of monetary violations have been prosecuted by the ministry. Even when workers do get the money they are owed, the wait can span years.
Unlike other jurisdictions such as California, Ontario employers don’t have to pay interest or damages on unpaid wages.
“That’s why we’re pushing for damages, interest paid, we’re pushing for stricter penalties and ways in which workers can make complaints earlier on in the process where their employment will not be jeopardized,” Ladd said.
Cumming’s boss said the employment relationship ended abruptly because she had performance issues about “instructions given.”
“Hours don’t just automatically get submitted when she leaves them on my counter and then all of a sudden a cheque appears,” Daynes added.
Daynes is the general manager of two temp agencies, the Staffing Connection and Level A Professional Group, which have offices that place workers in temporary jobs in a variety of industries such as construction and manufacturing throughout Peterborough and several other Ontario towns.
Cumming said she was hired directly by the family, not through the temp agencies — which have been the subject of 19 employment standards claims since 2014, Ministry of Labour records show. Two of those complaints are still processing; nine found violations and eight were either withdrawn by the worker or dismissed.
Daynes told the Star he had no comment on the violations, which he said were “unrelated” to Cumming’s concerns and said he was “happy to comply with employment standards.”
Cumming, who is a certified teacher and has spent many years as a substitute, recently filed her own complaint with the ministry after deciding to leave her job with the Daynes family at the end of July.
“I am disheartened by the treatment I am receiving,” Cumming wrote in her resignation letter.
“The pay schedule is erratic and I simply cannot keep this up. I have over $100 in late penalties as a result of late pay. I am not a retired teacher with a pension and this is my only income.
“I had cancer, which devastated my savings, and I am struggling to rebuild my life.”
Rebuilding, she said, will depend on recovering her wages — and finding another job before rent is due.
“I’m just absolutely astounded,” she said.
“And I feel completely helpless.”