Canadian HR Reporter Weekly

2 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2018 CANADIAN HR REPORTER WEEKLY A recent case in Ontario involving unpaid wages — and a severe penalty — should have employers taking note, according to experts. e guilty party was Yuk Yee (Ellen) Pun, Toronto owner of the now-defunct Regal restaurant chain. She was found guilty of breaking Ontario employment laws after more than 60 workers were not paid $676,000 owed to them in wages, overtime and other compensation. As a result, Pun was sentenced to jail for 90 days and punished with $900,000 in fines. "It was a reflection of how disgusted the ministry was with the violation, and it's really bad — they're basically being ignored," said Sharaf Sultan, principal at Sultan Lawyers in Toronto. "And it seems that this business owner was also involved in basically defrauding other people. In this case, the signal was 'If (the ministry) doesn't respond in this case, what case are we going to respond in harshly?'" Such a strong ruling is rare, according to Annie Chong, manager of the payroll consulting group at omson Reuters in Toronto (publisher of Canadian HR Reporter). "Obviously, in this particular court case, it's an ongoing thing for a few years. And the number of employees involved, we're talking over 60 people. is is a very extreme-case scenario," she said. "It does send a very strong message. It also forces employers to look at and review their policies and their processes because they don't want to be in the situation where they're being levied fines and penalties, and jail time; I mean, 90 days — that's really extreme." Administrative errors Most of the time when employees aren't being paid prop- erly, it's due to an error, according to Daryl Cukierman, partner at Blakes in Toronto. "I don't think it's a relatively common thing, but when it happens, in my experience, I find it is often due to administrative error oversight; that perhaps something wasn't calculated correctly," he said. "ere's a lot of formulas under employment standards legislation for calculating vacation pay, for calculating holiday pay; there's specific formulas in terms of what gets captured, for example, in the definition of wages." And for those business owners that are informed by employees that an error was made, most "are generally very quick to remedy that." "And if they miscalculated something or didn't include something in a payment, once brought to their attention — if, in fact, the employment standards legislation requires that amount to paid — they will remedy that," said Cukierman. For those employees who feel they have a strong relationship with their employers, talking to them might be the best idea, instead of involving the ministry, according to Chong. "I've always advised (employees) that if they know the company is doing something that they're not supposed to be doing, maybe they're not aware of it. I've often advised them to get the information in order, download the information, the legislation, because everything's on the internet," she said. But ignorance of the law isn't a defence that can be used to shield small and potentially less sophisticated employers from possible prosecution. "A lot of these smaller businesses, they have accountants who look after their bookkeeping. And a lot Jail sentence, hefty fine for employer highlight importance of compliance Restaurant owner didn't pay money owed to more than 60 employees BY JOHN DUJAY Sign up for the Canadian HR Newswire today for free and enjoy great content from the publishers of Canadian HR Reporter. HR News at Your Fingertips THE LATEST NEWS THE BEST COMMENTARY DELIVERED WEEKLY FOR READING ON ANY DEVICE Visit www.hrreporter.com/ canadian-hr-newswire

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