Ontario’s Labour Minister is cracking down on agencies that supply temporary workers, including farm workers across southwestern Ontario.
Monte McNaughton says the province will be hiring more inspectors to crack down on labour trafficking.
“We are taking these steps to help vulnerable workers, mostly young people, women, migrant workers and newcomers from being exploited by unethical agencies,” McNaughton says. “No worker should have their movements tracked, no workers should have their passports taken away from them, and no worker should be sleeping on a straw bed. Simply put, no worker in a province as prosperous and fair as ours should be going to work in fear.”
Inspections by ministry officers have shown that there are a number of temporary help agencies in Ontario that are illegally paying people below the minimum wage and denying other basic employment rights.
“The underground activity they found makes millions of dollars off the backs of workers by not paying minimum wage, not paying holiday pay, and not paying overtime pay. They also found recruiters charging workers illegal hiring fees, then clawing back their pay.”
McNaughton says if the new legislation passes, temporary help agencies and recruiters will have to be provincially vetted and be able to provide a secure payment, so in the event of wage theft or illegal recruitment fees, the bond can be used to recover workers’ money.
According to 2019 stats from the WSIB, there were about 128,000 full-time workers employed by temporary help agencies across Ontario.
