Labour report calls for expanding protection for workers in Ontario
A review of Ontario labour laws includes 173 recommendations, from equal pay for equal work to increased vacation entitlements.

TheStar.com
May 23, 2017
Robert Benzie and Sara Mojtehedzadeh

All Ontario workers should receive equal pay for equal work, regardless of their full-time, part-time or temporary status, according to a landmark report that’s the blueprint for upcoming labour reforms.

The 419-page Changing Workplaces Review released Tuesday makes 173 recommendations to improve the lot of Ontario employees.

Significantly, it says nannies, farm workers and dental, medical, legal and architectural professionals should be allowed to unionize; job protections and vacation and family leave entitlements should be expanded, and employers who cheat workers should face stiff fines.

Premier Kathleen Wynne said the government would be acting “very soon” on the recommendations.

“Stay tuned. It will be moving forward very quickly,” Wynne told reporters in Sudbury.

Labour Minister Kevin Flynn is poring over the findings of special advisers C. Michael Mitchell and John C. Murray and will announce “the important changes necessary” within days.

“Action is needed in order to ensure the benefits of our strong economy are shared by every Ontario family,” Flynn said in a statement.

“The people of Ontario have worked hard to build a province where workers and their families have the opportunity to prosper alongside business, and our actions will help to ensure a fairer future for everyone in our province,” he said.

“What is clear to me, and to our government, after reading the report, is that responsible change can ensure that every hard-working person in our province has the chance to reach their full potential.”

The review recommends the Employment Standards Act, the Labour Relations Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Act be streamlined into a beefed-up Workplace Rights Act.

It urges more Ministry of Labour inspections of workplaces, a confidential tip line to report scofflaws, whistleblower protection, and the gradual elimination of both the $10.70 “student minimum wage” for teens and the $9.90 liquor servers’ minimum wage. Each is lower than the $11.40 general minimum wage.

As well, part-time, casual, temporary and seasonal workers should be eligible for equal pay with comparable full-time employees, and the ministry would be able to regulate the scheduling of employees by bosses.

Progressive Conservative MPP John Yakabuski (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke) said he “was disappointed not to see a cost-benefit analysis of these measures included in the report.”

“We can’t be changing the labour laws in this province without knowing the impact on jobs and job creators. The best protections for workers are pointless if the workers don’t have a job to wake up to in the morning,” said Yakabuski.

The Ontario Chamber of Commerce echoed those concerns.

“An economic impact analysis is the only way that the Government of Ontario can protect jobs and workers against the unintended consequences that may come as a result of implementing these recommendations,” said the 60,000-member business lobby group.

Notably, the report did not call for mandatory two-week scheduling notice, a measure now implemented in some U.S. jurisdictions such as San Francisco, but said “scheduling regulation in some sectors, such as fast food and retail, should be a priority.”

It also said workers currently excluded from bargaining rights — “domestics, hunters and trappers, members of the architectural, dental, land surveying, legal or medical profession employed in a professional capacity, and agricultural and horticultural employees” — should be allowed to organize.

“In regard to agricultural and horticultural employees, it is possible that a limited exception might be warranted to exclude some or all persons employed on a ‘family farm.’ In addition, we recommend that certain restrictions could be placed on strikes and lockouts in respect of agricultural workers,” the review said.

“As with agricultural workers, we recommend that certain restrictions on strikes and lockouts involving members of these particular professions may be appropriate.”

Key demands from workers’ rights advocates included making it easier for workers to join unions, eliminating exemptions in current employment laws that mean some workers are not eligible for some basic rights, and ensuring temp agency, part-time and casual employees get equal pay for equal work.

Employees lose $45 million in potential earnings each week because legal loopholes exclude them from rights such as overtime pay, holiday pay, vacation pay and even minimum wage, a government-commissioned study for the review shows.

Right now, fewer than 40 per cent of Ontario workers are fully covered by the Employment Standards Act.

Advocates had also called for mandatory paid sick days, a measure the report stopped short of calling for. But it did suggest the repeal of an exemption that means small businesses don’t have to pay a single, job-protected unpaid sick day to employees.

They also urged the government to take steps to make schedules more predictable in the workplace, and to make more workers eligible for protection under existing employment laws by expanding the definition of “employee.”

As previously highlighted by the Star, critics say many workers are misclassified by their bosses as independent contractors, a category that has no protection under the act.

In response, the report recommended including expanding workplace protections to dependent contractors, people who operate independently, but rely exclusively on work from one company for their income.

Labour advocates have also called on the government to step up enforcement. Victims of wage theft across Ontario have lost out on $28 million over the past six years because the ministry failed to collect the money owed them by law-breaking bosses.

A Star investigation last year revealed that about one-third of workers’ stolen entitlements in Ontario are never recovered, which some critics blame on a lax enforcement regime that does little to deter violators.

The Ministry of Labour has taken steps over the past year to address the issue: since 2015, the number of law-breaking Ontario bosses facing prosecution has risen by more than 40 per cent.

The report urges dedicating more resources to active workplace inspections, expanding the ministry’s ability to act in the manner of a “law-enforcement agency,” and slapping fines of up to $100,000 on bad employers.

Prior to its release, the Chamber of Commerce warned reforms should not unduly limit businesses’ flexibility and economic growth, and called for “evidence-based” modernization.

“With respect to claims that there has been an unprecedented spike in the number of people holding multiple part-time jobs to make ends meet, the evidence is non-supportive,” it said, citing Statistics Canada data.

While the report acknowledged the increased pressure placed on businesses by globalization and technological change, it did not agree that the rise of precarious work across the province has been overstated.

Worker advocates argue the decline in work quality has been well documented in recent years, including in research conducted by McMaster University, which suggests that 52 per cent of jobs in the GTA are now insecure.