Wages pending...maybe

In Canada, our labour laws extend to all workers, both in the public and private sectors. These laws include the maintaining of proper and safe working conditions, and ensuring that complete wages are issued. All workers, be they citizens, permanent residents, immigrants or temporary foreign workers, documented and undocumented fall under this protection.

Unfortunately, despite our laws incidents of abuse, including the withholding of wages still occur in Canada, and often in connection with temporary foreign workers.

Today on Redeye, a Vancouver radio show, host Jane Williams spoke with Erika del Carmen Fuchs from the Organizing Centre for Social and Economic Justice. Del Carmen Fuchs spoke about incidents of temporary foreign workers hired to work on construction projects for Olympic facilities who were denied vacation and overtime pay and, towards the end of their commissions, large portions of their regular salaries.

Over 200,000 temporary foreign workers come to Canada every year, often working in construction, agriculture, in-home care giving, and other service industries. The building of Olympic facilities in Vancouver brought in many of these workers in the last few years.

According to del Carmen Fuchs, 27 temporary foreign workers hired by construction and painting company RDM Hudson Enterprises were not paid sufficient wages for work done. The hours, according to workers, were usually long and hard, sometimes up to 12 hours a day, 6 days a week.

At first, workers were paid a base salary (not including overtime and vacation), and as time went on, pay cheques became less and less frequent. In the beginning workers were paid every two weeks, but that shifted to once a month, and eventually regular salaries were not paid at all. Workers received small advances of their pay, with the promise that the rest would come eventually, but it never did. Overall, more than $60,000 worth of wages is due these workers. Of the 27, 17 filed official complaints back in January, with no results yet.

Canada’s labour laws protect all workers, be they temporary or permanent, even including undocumented workers. Everyone working in Canada is entitled to the same rights regarding wages. Del Carmen Fuchs will continue to support these 17 workers, calling on the government to support these workers and ensure they receive proper wages for the work done. All Canadian companies need to be held accountable for the treatment of workers under the law!