Ontario to crack down on jobs agencies victimizing temp workers

Ontario to crack down on jobs agencies victimizing temp workers

Marisol Bobadilla, migrant worker: Protection of migrant workers

October 21, 2021

If passed, licence will be required of temp agencies and penalties to be imposed on businesses using unlicensed operators

By Veronica Silva Cusi
The Philippine Reporter

Ontario this week announced proposed legislation that aims to curb the illegal practices of recruitment agencies who prey on temporary workers, domestic or foreign.

The proposed legislation will require temporary help agencies (THAs) and recruiters to get a licence to operate. If not, they and businesses that use their services can face hefty fines. Temporary agencies and recruiters will be vetted before they can get their licence to operate.

“We’re shining a light on rule-breakers and sending a clear message: Breaking the law is not a cost of doing business in Ontario,” said Labout Minister Monte McNaughton in an announcement from Queen’s Park. “If you’re not following the rules, we can and we will shut you down,” he said.

The proposal came after Ontario noted that there are temporary agencies and recruiters that are paying below minimum wage and violating other employment rights.

Monte McNaughton,
Minister of Labour (Ontario)

Between 2020 and 2021, Ontario conducted inspections in workplaces, including farms, retirement homes, food processing, and warehousing facilities, where they noted non-compliance of employment rules. Some offences were around minimum wage, record keeping, misclassification, hours of work, public holiday pay, overtime pay, and vacation pay.

Violators could be required to pay back workers for illegal fees charged. But McNaughton said they could also face jail time.

Included in the proposal is to have an online database of recruiters.

The announcement is welcome news to kababayans, but the thorny detail is enforcement.

Marisol Bobadilla, an undocumented temporary Filipina worker, was ecstatic that the campaign that she and her co-workers initiated has yielded some results, albeit still a proposal at this stage.

Bobadilla came to Canada in 2012 legally to work at a lobster farm in Prince Edward Island. But she lost her status after a recruiter in Ontario failed to produce her work permit even after she has paid the fees.

She is one of the so-called Mushroom 4, a group of foreign farm workers who were allegedly duped by a recruiter into paying fees but did not get the work permit they were promised. Still, they continued working for the mushroom farm at reduced fees as the same agency allegedly underpaid them.

In 2019, the group and their supporters, including advocacy groups Migrante Ontario and Justicia for Migrant Workers, filed a lawsuit against the recruitment agency for alleged violation of the Employment Protection for Foreign National Act (EPFNA). The case is still pending.

The campaign for the Mushroom 4 victims is called Justice 4 Mushroom 4 (J4M4). The campaign calls for “better protection to all migrant workers in the province.”

“Malaking achievement [iyan] sa aming (This development is a big achievement in our) campaign,” said Bobadilla in a phone interview with The Philippine Reporter. “Ito talaga ang hinihingi natin – na ma-license ang mga (This is what we’ve been asking for – to require license for) recruiters at (and) employers so that they can be monitored if they are abusive to foreign and temporary workers.”

She said that even though the proposed legislation will not benefit her, she is just the same happy that there is hope that future temporary foreign workers won’t go through the harrowing experience she and others like her have gone through.

If approved, the licensing will start in 2024, said the Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development.

“Tuloy pa rin ang campaign (the campaign continues),” she said, against illegal recruiters and exploitative employers.

“Kailangan kong gawin ito. Sa karanasan ko, alam ko ang hirap na dinaan [ng mga biktima ng illegal recruiters]. Magiging paulit-ulit pa ang marami pang magiging biktima. (I needed to do this campaign. Based on my experience, I know the difficulty [of being a victim]. There will be more victims in the future.),” she said, adding that even in the Philippines, she was a victim of illegal recruiters twice.

“Yun ang reason kung bakit gusto ko ikampanya ito. Kahit di mag-benefit sa akin, inilaban ko ang mga rights naming manggawa kasi isa ako sa naging biktima (That’s the reason why I want to work on this campaign. Even if I don’t benefit, I am fighting for the rights of workers because I was a victim.)” she said.

“It is a welcome development,” said Mithi Esguerra, program coordinator of Migrants Resource Centre Canada (MRCC), of the announcement by the Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development. “Because kahit papano may recognition nitong matagal na sinasabi ng mga migrant workers (Somehow, it has been recognized what migrant workers have been saying all along — that) that recruitment agencies are taking advantage of them.)”

MRCC is a non-profit service agency that works on cases of migrant workers. Among the complaints they have been hearing from their clients are recruiters charging fees, like so-called “membership fees,” to get a job. Fees can range from a few hundreds to several thousands of dollars, depending on whether the migrant worker is already in the country or not.

Another tricky issue in the implementation of protection is the gathering of evidence to support the complaints. Esguerra said it is a big burden for workers to be providing proof of alleged violations. She said this task is too tedious for workers who only want to continue working to be able to send remittances to families abroad.

And then there’s the question about the “dedicated team of workers” who will be hired to crackdown on temporary agencies and recruiters who are exploiting and trafficking workers.

Esguerra said hopefully, this team is trained on the Employment Standards Act (ESA) and the EPFNA, which have been in place to protect temporary workers.

The “announcement sends a clear message to anyone who still thinks they can break the rules that time is up. This legislation would, if passed, be the toughest of its kind in Canada – ensuring every worker in Ontario has unprecedented protection today and, in the years to come,” said McNaughton in a statement.