(TORONTO – September 26, 2012) – An announcement last week
by the Ministry of Labour that it intends to strengthen the
Employment Standards Act by hiring 18 additional enforcement
officers was quietly followed days later by a decision to
lay off 19 staff doing investigative work.
On Sept. 17 the Ministry announced with considerable media
fanfare that it was hiring the additional 18 officers in a
bid to “protect” vulnerable workers from predatory employers
who fail to meet minimum standards of wages, hours of work,
paid holidays and other regulations under the Act.
Three days later, on Sept. 20, 19 employment standards
officers, known as ESO1s, were told they were out of a job,
victims of the McGuinty government’s attack on public
services as a weapon in its austerity agenda. Seventeen of
the 19 officers have 20 or more years of service with the
provincial government.
“This move has all the hallmarks of how the McGuinty
government goes about misguiding the public and distorting
the truth about the future of public services in Ontario,”
said Warren (Smokey) Thomas, president of the Ontario Public
Service Employees Union. “The Ministry said this was a
‘proactive’ move on its part to protect vulnerable workers;
I say it doesn’t move the yardsticks one inch forward in
protecting the workplace rights of employees.”
The duties of employment standards officers include
investigating complaints from workers, many of whom are new
Canadians and who come from minority groups, when their
employers fail to meet the requirements of the Act. Each of
the affected officers facing layoffs carries an average of
25 investigations at any one time. Under ESA regulations
they are required to clear a case within 40 days or pass the
file to a more senior officer, known as ESO2s.
“When you get past all the bafflegab coming out of the
Minister’s office what we really see is how the government
is eliminating that first level of investigation by punting
cases to other officers who are already overworked,” said
Thomas. “No matter how the Ministry wants to spin this, the
issue is that these changes do nothing to strengthen working
conditions for tens of thousands of marginalized workers
who already bear the cost of unethical and unscrupulous
employers.”
