Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER May 4, 2015 NEWS 9 Falling through the cracks Gaps in Ontario's labour laws, enforcement make labour market more precarious: Report BY LIZ BERNIER PART-TIME, low-paid, "perma- temp" or contract jobs. Last-min- ute work schedules. Safety viola- tions, bullying and harassment. Juggling two, even three, separate jobs to make ends meet. For many workers, these are the day-to-day realities. And Ontario — like other provinces — has seen an increase in the proportion of jobs economists deem "precari- ous," according to Deena Ladd, co-ordinator at the Workers Ac- tion Centre in Toronto. "When you look at national statistics, you're looking at about 40 per cent of workers in precari- ous forms of work, so I would say that that's absolutely very differ- ent from what it was 20 years ago. And I would say that precarious work has become more of the norm rather than the anomaly." In February, Ontario launched a Changing Workplace Review and public consultation on labour laws to examine the increase in non-standard work relationships, such as temporary jobs, part-time work and self-employment. It ap- pointed two special advisors to lead the public consultations. "Our government agrees with business and workers who want our laws to recognize the reali- ties of the modern economy," said Kevin Flynn, provincial minister of labour. "e special advisors will en- gage with Ontarians so we can ensure our workplace laws strike the right balance in the new world of work." ESA gaps e review is timely since gaps in Ontario's Employment Standards Act (ESA) laws and their enforce- ment are negatively contributing to the situation, according to a recent Workers Action Centre report, Still Working on the Edge. "When you fashion labour laws with the old-fashioned notions of one job in your lifetime, working directly for an employer in one workplace, obviously that's not the norm anymore. But our la- bour laws reflect that norm. So, as a result, we find that there is a lot of gaps in terms of covering new forms of employment," said Ladd. Temp agency work and part- time jobs have always existed, but more for the purposes of filling a maternity leave or vacation pe- riod, said Ladd. "That's no longer the case. Companies are using temp agen- cies to replace their permanent workforce, so you have 'perma- temps,'" she said. Now, there are workplaces where the vast majority of employ- ees are hired on contract through temp agencies or subcontractors. "Which means that the em- ployer, the client company, actu- ally has very little responsibility in terms of employment standards, statutory benefits, for those work- ers. So the laws don't adequately address that. So you have situa- tions where workers are working alongside each other making dif- ferential rates of pay and benefits because of who's hired them. You have situations where workers are afraid to speak up because their contracts can be let go at a mo- ment's notice," said Ladd. ere is also a long list of formal exemptions in Ontario's ESA, she said. "What we found in our research was that the lower your income, the more your likelihood was of being exempt from basic statutory benefits," said Ladd. "Employment standards… (are) supposed to establish a floor. So when you don't have that floor, when you have such large gaps, it's a real problem." ere's a growing number of people who might be legally clas- sified as independent contractors, but the terms and conditions of their work are such that they're actually falling below minimum PROACTIVE > pg. 21 Credit: Chris Helgren (Reuters) A worker affixes a road sign to a pole at the intersection of Bay and Adelaide streets in the financial sector of Toronto in July 2014.

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