Employers Push Limits

This letter is in response to RDW’s letter regarding waving goodbye to unions. Unions are not obsolete due to the employment standards laws. Those laws have absolutely no teeth. If an employer knows certain aspects of the law, then they can work around it.

I previously worked for such an employer. The employer expected all of us to work whenever he wanted, without paying us overtime when we should have been. We asked him about this and he said that he was exempt from paying overtime because we were a High-Technology company.

There happens to be certain OT exemption clauses in the labour code, which didn’t actually apply to our company. But none of us employees knew any better, though we didn’t really believe him. Eventually his story changed and he started saying that he had applied for an exemption and this is why we didn’t get overtime. Well, I finally checked into this and found it to be a bold faced lie.

None of us employees wanted to say anything or go to the labour board over these infractions because it could cost us our jobs. Now I’m sure you are saying, “Well that would be illegal!!”. I’m sure it is, but do you think that would have stopped him. On top of that I’m sure there are ways for companies to find out that you snitched out your previous company and they most likely won’t look at you as the hero of the shop.

When I finally went to part ways with this company I gave my notice. My final day didn’t fall on a regular payday so I asked for my check. By the code I should have received the check within 6 days. Well when 6 days came along I did not get my check. I went and asked him why not. He told me he didn’t want to. I told him I’d take it to Employment standards. He told me to go ahead, so I did. I called them and they told me to pick up a package from the government agent, fill it out, hand it to the employer, if he doesn’t fix the problem within 2 weeks of that, send it to them.

What the hell is the point of having that law if they can just hold my check until the last minute and then just before anything happens give me my check and get away free? I found out later that he knew this and that is why he told me to go to Employment standards.

Well, now I work in a union. Though I don’t fully agree with some of the union methods and tactics, I still feel safe knowing that I’m not going to get screwed by some greedy, selfish employer. Now I just have to worry about getting screwed by the government, but that’s a whole different letter.

K.V.