Employers stealing from low wage workers: study
With a recession that’s seen thousands of workers replace well-paying jobs with ones at or near minimum wage, is it time to boost minimum wage rates?
According to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, roughly 5 per cent of Canadians works for minimum wage or less. But a great many more work for only a few cents more than the minimum, CCPA maintains.And, students aside, most of these are displaced adults trying to support their families, or older workers looking to supplement their pension.
Although minimum wage levels have increased in some provinces, the pace of change is nothing short of glacial.
Earlier this month, New Brunswick raised its minimum wage to $8.25 an hour, making B.C. the lowest paying province at $8 an hour. Nunavut has the highest minimum wage at $10, followed by Ontario at $9.50 (scheduled to hit $10.25 in March) and Saskatchewan at $9.25.
What’s really hard to swallow though is how such low-wage workers seem to be routinely denied even this measly stipend.
According to a new study, the average low-wage worker is regularly cheated out of as much as 15 per cent of his pay cheque by employers who pay less than minimum wage, refuse overtime pay, require off-the-clock work, or prevent workers compensation claims – all of which is illegal.
More than two thirds of the workers surveyed had experienced at least one pay-related violation within the previous workweek, the study says.
76 per cent of workers who had worked overtime were not paid the overtime rate, as required by law. And more than two thirds of workers entitled to lunch breaks had either not received them, had them shortened or interrupted, or had simply continued to work through their break.Tell us: Is the minimum wage reasonable? Have you ever been stiffed this way?
Posted by: Charles | Oct 11, 2021 3:47:53 PM
Unfortunately, this article is completely true. I'm a retail manager and I can tell you that companies treat their employees (especially American companies) like dirt. They lie and steal from their employees all the while knowing that so long as they don't do anything too major you won't sue them but by stealing twenty dollars here and fifty dollars there they can save millions to pay to their overpaid CEOs. Companies need to be reminded that your sales people are what make a company successful. Treat them well and your company will succeed. Stop overpaying CEOs who are only concerned with the next quarter and concentrate on long term company health.
And customers need to get it through their skulls that retail employees are not slaves and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, the same as you would expect to be treated at your job. Just because you're behind a counter doesn't mean that your a lesser class of human being.
Posted by: Dave | Oct 12, 2021 4:42:35 AM
I have been at both ends... Great paying and low paying. Oh yes I got screwed by both no overtime no lunch all that. Now the new thing is contract workers so they dont have to pay any benefits and all the rest of the shit that goes along with it. With a raise on minimum wage the prices seem to go up with it. McDonalds raised all there prices to coincide with the last minimum wage increase, Tim Hortons just raised all thiers as well. Large companies continually get major tax breaks when they owe millions the government forgives them. The auto sector wants billions in bailout money. Let them die stop giving them the money they want. If the canadian government would buy every canadian a home in this country they would save much more money then bailing out all this big companies. They should source this country instead of outsourcing for work. Close the doors no more immigrants keep our jobs local. Take care of ones own and then if there is any left maybe help elsewhere. Get tougher on crime.... geez you can take a life in this country and stay out of jail or get a minimal sentence months to just a few years... But now if you walk into a bank and point a gun and don't hurt anyone but just take some money you are going to jail for at least 10 years.... Go figure. Canadians are to passive they need to fight for what they believe in! Oh we need to tax this and that and we just sit back and take it and we all say oh well what are we gonna do. Last year I had a meagre income of 35000 and i lost almost 10000 just in taxes and then to spend it i had to pay taxes on that as well. WOW viva canada!
Posted by: jack | Oct 12, 2021 8:00:26 AM
I doubt raising minimum wage will help at all. I've noticed that everytime its been increased, we see an increase in the cost of living, goods, services. The price of popcorn at a movie theatre that I first worked at for 4.50 an hour 10 years ago has doubled. So has the minimum wage. So, is it really inflation that is the cause, or the increase in wages and available wealth that businesses see as a justification to raise their own prices to match.
I've also noticed a sharp increase in the number of foreign workers who are now holding alot of these minimum wage jobs. Jobs that I, a college educated native Albertan, have applied to and similiarly dismissed. Having been told that they already filled the position after first meeting the management. One look at me and suddenly the position(s) are filled and nothing is available. Oddly enough, the "Now Hiring" sign remains in the window, and the advertisements contiune. Nothing against foreign workers, and new canadians, but I have met several and formed good friendships with a few, and the stories I hear from them regarding work is very discouraging. Extra hours, Double shifts with no overtime (conviently placed shifts where you work an evening till 11.59pm then required to return to work for the next morning shift), odd accounting errors, increased "fees" for equipment and uniforms, and my favorite the "early start time".
Once, my employer threatened to remove breaks all together from employees who contiunely arrived "Late" for work. Late for work was 15 minutes prior to the stated start time of your shift, in which you were required to do additional tasks prior to actually working. You were not eglible to recieve pay for the extra time.
Posted by: Jack | Oct 12, 2021 8:17:12 AM
Thanks Dave for bring up contract workers!
This is an absolute joke of a system here in Alberta. Even during a recession and hiring freezes across the board, recruitment and employment agencies are expanding! Companies now are prefering cheap expendable and replacable staff that can be FIRED without cause or justification at a momments notice. They are not required to pay benefits, pension plans or even offer employment perks such as share options, profit sharing etc. They are more then willing to pay a third party company 30% more then what the actual employee is earning. So a 15 dollar an hour job is really 24 dollars an hour rate with that third party company sitting on its arse collecting 8 dollars an hour.
I've been at it for nearly 5 years, with little or no option because the amount of available jobs and the long process it seems to find a job is suddenly outweighed by the fact that you have bills to pay and no way to pay them except to take a job quickly through the employment agency.
Safety standards go out the window, consideration for the employee goes out the window. At one place of employment i was ridiculed for booking time off weeks ahead and still refusing to come in on my normally unscheduled day off to work. I was also constantly threatened with termination if i failed to toe the company line. Once there was a fire in the building and the following day I questioned the safety measures and asked for a review/update on the procedures. My request was forgotten three times and finally answered 6 months later by the boyfriend of a manager. This same place finally did terminate me after the manager bungled up a major account by failing to staff the appropriate number of employees to handle the shift. When a crisis hit, those on shift were not able to cope with the number of issues that arose and everything went downhill from there. I was terminated because I was the shift lead for that crisis, and the person who repeatively warned management that more staff was required for that particular shift, especially if a crisis happened. Being a contract employee, I was expendable, and I spent 8 months unemployed.
The government meanwhile contiunes to be oblivious to these practices.
Posted by: Mary | Oct 12, 2021 10:22:55 AM
There are a number of factors at work in all this. Increasing minimum wage will do one of two things. 1. Send many companies packing for places overseas where they can pay even less than half what they pay out now. Or 2. Send them packing to Indian Reservations in Canada where they can do what they like to their employees because it's Federal land and no provincial regulation will matter there as the provinces do not have jurisdiction on Federal land. I used to work for just such a company which routinely bullies its employees into doing work not associated in any way with the job description. It claims to pay out a bonus for such work, but those bonuses are often withheld. If one attempts to not do this extra work (since a bonus is supposed to extra, right?), one is subject to disciplinary action by management. They routinely fire any employee who has been there for a period in excess of 2 years, and so the turn-over has been high. In five years, they have gone through 14,000 people, but can barely maintain a complete staff of 300. They continually lay off and fire people while at the same time holding training classes to bring in even more (government grants pay for training). They're allowed to get away with this because they call it 'company restructering' - and that is apparently acceptable. But that's just that one company.
A company generally moves into an area when it can receive enough government grants and free taxpayer money to do so. Rents then get jacked up as landlords see an easy buck to be made. When a landlord cannot increase rents on existing structures, he gets a loan and a grant to build more apartment buildings for which he can charge whatever rents he thinks the market can possibly bear above and beyond any of the other places he has, simply because these are new. Increased rent costs means people struggle just as hard to meet the rents as they did before the companies arrived in the first place. The average worker is no further ahead. Our governments provide grants often covering five years of employment to companies as an enticement to get them to come. The worker not only tries to meet those rents, but is also paying into those grants to those landlords and employers through their taxes. So the average worker, through his government, is paying his employer to stiff him at work and paying his landlord to stiff him at home.
The bottom line here is basic human greed. People will abuse other people to get as much of the pie as they can for themselves. Corporations are run by people. By law, corporations are to be viewed as if they were individuals; but this is outdated and flawed. Corporations as entities have no soul, no conscience, no understanding of the difference between right and wrong, and no imagination. The people running them do; but the people running them can protect themselves from the guilt that might come from purposely unethical business practices by saying, "It was a corporate decision." Perhaps it's time we took a hard look at the laws that allow corporations to be viewed as individuals, since corporations seem to have such an easy time avoiding responsibility for what is done in their name by the people who make these corporate decisions.
We also need to look at the current economic paradigm as it's taught in our universities and practiced in our economic centres - that is the one of unlimited growth. There can be no such thing as unilimited growth in a contained and limited world. Yet every time a profit marker stops growing, alarm bells ring and the panic rhetoric begins to sound. We need to do a complete change of our Western economic system to one built on sustainable economies, rather than the current (and harmful) one of growth economies. Limits should be placed on just how much profit should be allowed to be made by companies, wherein when a company reaches a certain profit number, that company must then be able to prove that it has done all it can to take care of its workers and the environment in which it operates or it will have to give up in taxes the amount it has made above that profit number. No corporation should be enticed into an area with taxpayer money, and no company should be allowed to leave the country of its origin without heavy fees being levied for the privilege and without proving that it has first made every attempt to train and hire people from within its country of origin to fill those places. Training can still be government supported, but no other government money should be given to corporations.
There is so much more that could be said than can be listed here in a 'brief' comment. There will obviously be much disagreement and no little fear, especially when anyone feels their ability to get rich is threatened. But no one human being has any right to hurt another human being. No one has the right to get rich at another's expense. Will any of this discussion mean anything, really? Probably not. Humans have exploited other human beings since before agriculture was discovered. It will likely never end. Does that mean we stop trying? No. We can't stop trying because then we'd stop hoping. And a man without hope has nothing left.
Posted by: dianne | Oct 12, 2021 10:56:37 AM
As a partner in 2 small home based businesses(renovation construction & food service) I have found that if I pay well over minimum wage, I can get very good people but the major problem is to get the persons that I have contracted to pay as they seem to feel that they do not have to pay their contracted prices because they seem to be slightly bent(crooked) which tells me that I must be much more careful in taking on contracts without a very large up-front deposit As I can still hold my head above water most of my income goes to cover wages to my help and necessary expenses to do these jobs
(IS EVERYBODY BUT ME CROOKED)
Posted by: redman | Oct 12, 2021 12:39:08 PM
who can be honest today when it comes to money just take a look at the crew that is runing the show today there freinds are doing real good and the rest of us are paying for it plus they are making so much money it is just greed at its best and they are the ones who tell us how much money they think we can live on with a wage that is just small change to them and we get no benifets at all and after 6 years at our jods we don,t get a pensionfor life to so hey everybody out there you cannot win there are to many of them telling you what to do so be like the sheep just follow the herd and wait to be eaten
Posted by: Dave | Oct 12, 2021 1:43:19 PM
Yahoo! After seven years working as a supervisor I finally made it back down to just above minimum wage. I now have the luxury of running the operations for 16 cents more per hour than the new min wage hires with 2 less staff than normal. the best excuses are ""corporate is not giving enough hours"; "there are 2 different wages for part time and full time"; and the best one "head office has frozen increases" I used to make at least $2.50 more per hour than the staff I supervise and now thanks to the min wage increases I make LESS than some of them. The min wage increase has helped nobody except new hires who start at a higher rate of pay. It penalizes the long term workers because they have to pay for the higher min wage by forfeiting any pay increases regardless of performance, not to mention the higher rate of theft & robberies because the business has slashed staff to bare minimum at night. I should also note that this company has posted multi-million dollar quarterly profits. All hail the shareholders! Do they realize that they are getting wealthy from the work of their neighbors & friends who slog at these retail & food service jobs every day.
Posted by: Shefrajoy | Oct 12, 2021 2:28:19 PM
I am a Canadian living in the Netherlands. I understand all that you are talking about when it comes to mimimun wage . Things are about the same here and all over the world. No matter where you live if the minimum wage goes up so does all the products that you normally buy every week. Then you also have more tax taken off your wage. So what do you gain. Not much I think. I live in one of the most expensive countries in the world and believe me , if there wasn't two of us working we wouldn't make it. Over two dollars a litre for gas, and all the taxes we pay 19% on products. So I think we just have to let the greedy get greedier and put your best foot forward and hope that it all equal out in the end
Posted by: exBMO | Oct 12, 2021 2:52:14 PM
Companies cheating employees out of rightful pay happens all the time. I used to work at BMO Bank of Montreal and when I quit I was told that their pension didn't start from your hire date but from an arbitrarily chosen date weeks afterward. In my case I was robbed of my pension that I had worked for four years to be a part of. Though I had originally been told by their HR department that the start date was the hire date they changed this when they needed to pay out. Can you imagine how many employees BMO has where they have taken a few weeks off of an employee’s pension? In a company that has 30,000 employees and has been in business for almost 200 years this has to amount to millions of dollars cheated from employees.
Posted by: Adam | Oct 12, 2021 2:54:47 PM
My staff get paid more than I do, they get overtime and vacations. My customers are driving new cars, have vacation homes. My car is 8 years old, I put in longer hours, take on more work so I can pay my businesses' bills, keep my staff employed, increase their wages or they will go elsewhere.
You want to discuss labour laws, I can bring in a new employee, spend time training them, spend money sending them on courses, and they can quit with no notice. If they've worked for me for more than 3 months I have to give them at least a weeks written notice.
Mark says "I'm sorry to say but in order to survive financially in Canada you need to make $15 - $17 per hour to be self sufficient ..." Sorry Mark, I make less than $12/hour (that's based on a 40 hour work week) survive financially, you just have to know how to balance your money. And remember for each $1 your wage goes up it actually costs your employer at least $1.20 more in statutory benefits and even more if they offer other benefits.
Posted by: redman | Oct 12, 2021 5:17:35 PM
employer, truth, canada, do this do that or else no smoking are you talking on your phone where are your papers sheep you will not do it your way your under arest you have no rigths so shut up fool
Posted by: redman | Oct 12, 2021 5:19:43 PM
say the truth rich people you just love stupid people thats why your rich
Posted by: Stoob | Oct 12, 2021 6:16:33 PM
I work for a unionized company and still have to fight for basic labour rights. Mid to top level managers continually try to cut corners to save a buck. I understand the reasoning behind some of the things they do, but hey, you can't just go and break the law because it serves your immediate purpose! I know they have been entertaining the idea of breaking our union because we are a thorn in their sides but it doesn't have to be that way. We (the unon) have always offered to work with the company when problems arise but their attitude just sucks. They have chosen a confrontational style of management over one where there is posative encouragement; where everyone is pulling together. A recent change in management has not improved the atmousphere at work; it's actually gotten worse. When we offered to freeze the union contract for another year while the economy rebounds and they accepted, then responded with cuts to our hours as well as hiring more managers at a quarter million a pop. Its to the point now that we have more managers than workers that actually do work for billable hours. What a cluster $%&@!
Posted by: chad | Oct 12, 2021 7:19:45 PM
ur all a bunch of tools, read the labor laws they are somthing anyone working in canada must know.
If ur employer hangs ur job over ur head and u cant quit or u dont want to get fired or layed off cos u refuse unpaid overtime the government protects u, and no employer can make u sign away ur overtime rights.
why u might ask, the bloody government wants the taxation u fools!!!!!!!!!!
Its simple document ur over time on ur time card, ur work hours have to be documented by law and the employer has to keep them for 7 years, if u dont want to make waves with ur company keep records then when ur in a better situatin to change jobs or u get layed off or fired then take ur clame to the labor board they will get ur money back for u free of charge and the employer will get heavy fines and get hit with tax evastion. keep a coply for ur time cards for every day u work you bloody tools.
Posted by: Roy Carpenter | Oct 12, 2021 8:06:39 PM
i am finished working but serve on a co op board of directors and put many hours into it as i am president of the board,this is all done for free of course,we do pay just about all our works more than the min wage,it only new workers that get payed min wage and after 3months get an increase,that is why we do not have a lot of turn over,we also over benefits.Min wage in newfoundland since june is $10.00 an hour thats not really to bad for first time workers stocking grocery shelves,and small mom and pop stoes are finding it really hard to even pay this min wage now,that is why we are seeing more and more of them closing up,hope we are still in bussiness for a long time to come but min wage as to stop somewhere,but we do start at $10 bucks an hour and raise after 3 months,so looks like we are not as bad as some other provinces,Regards Roy
Posted by: s | Oct 12, 2021 9:15:42 PM
everybody is getting away with it these days except hard working slaves like us even the labour boards wont help us temporary workers are getting abused canadians are being abused all because of the government's lax attitude towards violations namely a weak labour minister and complacent provincial ministers, conservatives like this because it gives them a tight grip on power, you either comply or you starve a total sadamistic approach in politics with some carrot at the end of a stick and we'll pull their wagon forever just like saddam did the simmilarities are striking, no the cons are not more humane they would go to unimmaginable extremes even if we dont let them, they created reccession through their carelessness, did you have enough money to buy into those stocks that slumped which harper said are a buying opportunity, I dont think so, nobody has money wreckless wreckless and they will stay that way but Saskatchewan had a boom in the midst of this and u know y NDP recession proof
Posted by: MK2 | Oct 25, 2021 4:11:42 AM
It's definatly wrong to cheat workers out of their wage but if you don't want a minimum wage job go get a better paying one. I mean these job are low paying becuase they don't involve too much interaction. Like working at a gas station, especially at night. Also even most fast food places pay above minimum wage. I am in BC and even KFC was saying they have staarting wages of $1025 an hour. I only make 12.50 at the grocery store I work at though I have room to make more and I get an almost $1000 X-mas bonus but still. Just budget better
Posted by: pissed off in fort mcmurry | Oct 25, 2021 3:56:40 PM
Oh where to start I worked for a company in fort mcmurry I broke my leg and was told I could not take one day off this is after when i broke my leg I was not taken to hosp. for 7 hours as I was working on site and they took me to a medic center where I layed there for 7 hours then in a pick up truck took me to another medic center so they could drug test me then back in a pick up truck to drive 40 min to the hosp there i was put in a boot for 8 weeks then told dont you dare take one day off So as a good girl I am I did want they wanted they started retraining me having a trainer sware at me treat me so bad I would go home evet night crying then told that I was not smart for this new job so they threw me into another job witch I had a boss sware and yell at me would be little me in a room of people till I wrot a few letters to the head person just to be told well if you cant handel this then you shouldnt work here and the min. I was better they made my life hell till one day I was told that they would not move me and that I was done working for the company then when i got my papers it said I quit my job what a joke oh ya and when you go to the gov.to fight you are wasting your time they dont care and all this for shit pay and this company is still doing this to other workers and will keep doing this as no one cares we are robots we work we give alot of our money to taxes and then our money is spent any way they feel fit even if we dont agree and the gov. knows we have to work so there for they dont care where we work they know the taxes will get paid so we can buy them new cars and trips and what ever else they fill fit while we can barley feed our kids pay our bills and watch people live in the streets and starve but we can send money to other countries while we cant even take care of our own they need to help the poor and the middle class we all should stand up and tell the gov. and our boss that we will no longer be there robots but we have to stand togather in numbers till we do we all will be shit on if we are sick of this maybe we should do somthing about it stand up
Posted by: Brent | Nov 24, 2021 9:22:21 AM
I work for a union company. Sure there is some downfalls to a Union, but the positive out ways the negative. Unions fight for Billion dollar company's to pay a decent wage and not get away with screwing the employee. I worked for a non Union German run company for 9 years. I made $14.00 hr. But the guy who was from Germany with the same qualification as me made $21.00hr. tell me that's fair!! and it wasn't my performance ether. Just there way of saving money and cheating.