Province steps up wage enforcement
Up to 175 officers to be hired to inspect workplaces that may not be abiding new wage
The Ontario government is stepping up enforcement to ensure employers are paying workers the new $14-an-hour minimum wage.
Labour Minister Kevin Flynn said Monday that up to 175 new employment standards officers are being hired to inspect workplaces that may not be abiding with the hourly increase from $11.60 that took effect Jan. 1.
“You can’t break the law in the province of Ontario; you have to pay the minimum wage,” Flynn told reporters at Queen’s Park.
“Unfortunately, it appears some employers are abandoning the spirit of this legislation and some may even be doing more than that,” the minister said.
“The stories we’ve all heard over the past week have not only been disappointing, but quite frankly they’ve made the premier, myself and others in this province angry,” he said.
That was a reference to the children of Tim Hortons’ co-founders reducing benefits to employees in response to the wage hike at their two franchises in Cobourg.
Ron Joyce Jr., whose father cofounded the coffee shop chain, and his wife, Jeri Horton-Joyce, daughter of Tim Horton, told workers they would no longer be entitled to paid breaks and would have to pay more for dental and health benefits.
The couple said the measures were to help their company cope with the jump in wages. Unlike independent businesses, franchisees cannot simply raise prices to offset higher labour costs.
Similarly, a Scarborough Tim Hortons outlet banned employees from accepting tips and stripped them of paid breaks in response to a $2.40-wage rise. The Great White North Franchisee Association, which represents Tim Hortons franchisees, says the minimum wage increase will cost the average outfit $243,889 a year.
Tim Hortons’ corporate parent has dubbed them a “rogue group,” the actions of which “do not reflect the values of our brand.”
Echoing Premier Kathleen Wynne, Flynn warned such “bullying behaviour will not be tolerated.”
“For the first time, the minister of labour can, by law, publish the names of employers who break the rules. This is something we are very willing to do,” he said.
“We’re also stepping up enforcement to make sure that all of the new rules are followed.”
The hope is that all complaints by workers can be resolved within 90 days. Flynn noted that calls to the ministry’s tip line, 416-326-7160 in Toronto and 1-800-531-5551, are up 30 per cent.
The additional enforcement staff will allow the Ministry of Labour to conduct more proactive workplace inspections — up to 10 per cent of Ontario businesses. As previously reported by the Star, those investigations have proven far more effective at recovering unpaid entitlements for workers.
Last year, the government’s rate of recovery when individual workers filed claims for stolen wages and other entitlements was around onethird, according to data obtained by the Star through a Freedom of Information request. Since 2013, this low recovery rate has resulted in some $38 million in missing wages for workers.
The recovery rate for proactive inspections was almost 100 per cent.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, long a proponent of the $15-an-hour wage, said she was hopeful “employers will follow the law” and pay workers fairly. But Horwath expressed concern about “loopholes the Liberals left in place” in the new labour legislation that could be exploited by unscrupulous employers by dubbing employees independent contractors instead of employees.
“That’s a big loophole that we tried to close with an amendment (to Bill 148) but the Liberals wouldn’t accept that,” she said in an interview.
“It’s unfortunate this year to see some of these measures being undertaken. It saddens me that workers, who should be getting the benefits of this, are still going to have to fight.”
Bill 148 does explicitly prohibit employee misclassification, and will place the onus on bosses to prove workers are not employees. With files from Sara Mojtehedzadeh