A final vote on Premier Ford’s plan to repeal two paid sick days and freeze minimum wage is expected to take place at Queen’s Park on Wednesday.

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By Sarah Mojtehedzadeh

Removing workers’ right to two paid sick days and replacing them with unpaid emergency leave is “more progressive” for workers, Conservative MPPs said Thursday at a testy committee hearing for proposed new labour legislation.

Bill 47, which aims to undo numerous recently enacted measures including two paid sick days, equal pay for equal work, and a scheduled minimum wage bump to $15 in January, passed its second reading earlier this week and is now before the Finance and Economic Affairs committee.

By Doreen Nicoll

The Ford government have set in motion changes that will significantly add to the financial stress for women, including those looking to leave abusive relationships

The Raise the Rates Coalition is holding a rally outside Premier Doug Ford’s family business, Deco Labels, on Saturday (November 17), at 1 pm, to protest Bill 47, the Making Ontario Open For Business Act. Among other cost-cutting moves, the proposed legislation will repeal a planned $1 increase in minimum wage. That’s in addition to the Ford government’s decision earlier this fall to cut in half a long-awaited rate increase to already massively underfunded Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Payment programs.

While Bill 47 takes away hard-won protections for marginalized and racialized workers, the coalition says it’s women who stand to lose the most.

That’s because women comprise the bulk of part-time workers, says Pam Frache, coordinator of the Fight for $15 and Fairness Coalition, one of the groups organizing Saturday’s protest. The bill also removes equal pay protections. While employers are still prohibited from paying women less than men, the bill removes the right of employees to request employers review their rate of pay or provide a response in writing on the reasons why they may be receiving unequal pay.

Regarding women in the workforce, Frache says, “Maintaining a sub-poverty minimum wage and paying women less than their full-time counterparts exacerbates an already unequal situation.”

The Ford government’s proposed changes will also make it more difficult for female-dominated workplaces, like home-care services, to unionize.

Bill 47 maintains provisions brought in by the previous Liberal government providing up to 17 weeks of leave for victims of sexual assault or domestic violence. Those provisions include five days of paid leave, time that is generally used to go to doctor’s appointments, get legal assistance, find new housing, find child care and to access a variety of services for themselves and their children. But the bill repeals 10 days of job-protected leave for personal and family illness.

London West NDP MPP Peggy Sattler, the party’s former women’s critic, points out that for women escaping violence, “if her job is insecure and doesn’t pay enough to lift her out of poverty, she may still feel forced to stay in the abusive relationship.”

Research shows that women are far more likely to fall into poverty after leaving a relationship than men. Too often women are afraid to leave or are forced to return to their abusers because they can’t afford rent, child care, food, clothing and other basic necessities.

With most women’s shelters operating over capacity due to a lack of affordable transition and permanent housing, the added burden of insufficient income makes it all the more difficult for women to leave and remain out of abusive relationships. Now Ford and his government have set in motion changes that will significantly add to that financial stress for women.

Read the NOW Toronto full story

By Sarah Mojtehedzadeh

Ontario is the only province in Canada to have a minimum wage for young workers that is lower than the minimum wage for adults — and Grade 12 student Taamara Thanaraj isn’t happy that a scheduled increase to that rate may soon be frozen.

She was one of a group of 30 students who gathered under drizzly skies at Yonge and Bloor Sts. Friday to protest Bill 47, provincial legislation that, if passed, will result in significant rollbacks to labour protections recently enacted including increases to the general minimum wage and the subminimum wage for students.

By Joelle Kovach

Dave Smith to host grand opening Saturday on Water Street

A protest is expected outside Conservative MPP Dave Smith's constituency office on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. over workers' issues such as the halted minimum wage hike.

The protest is being organized by the Ontario Federation of Labour, although it's expected to also include retirees from General Electric who developed cancer from exposure to workplace toxins.

Sue James, a GE retiree and health advocate, said she's been trying to get a follow-up appointment with Smith since he met with the retirees for the first time, in August.

"We want a face-to-face with Smith, who seems to be avoiding us," James said on Friday.

The protest will coincide with the grand opening of Smith's office – which he calls the Action Centre – at 1123 Water St. near Marina Blvd. in the city's north end.

Smith announced in October it would be a barbecue, and he'd offer free hotdogs and burgers.

He wasn't available for an interview Friday. When asked via text how he felt about the protest, he wrote that he will feed anyone who comes to his event.

"We want to encourage everyone who comes – including the protesters – to bring mitts, scarves and hats to donate to Brock Mission and Youth Emergency Shelter," he wrote.

The Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) stated on social media Friday that the protest was organized in objection to the provincial government's treatment of workers.

The government proposes not to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour in January as planned by the previous Liberal government, for instance, and to cancel the two paid sick days that workers now get.

The government has also made cuts to the WSIB premiums, the OFL points out – and that concerns James because many GE retirees are seeking compensation for cancer developed from working with toxic chemicals.

James and a group of retirees – many of them sick with cancer – first met with Smith in August to ask him to help them advocate for compensation.

He said at the time he'd do research and update them on his findings in early September, but James has not been able to set a follow-up appointment.

She's spoken to Smith's staff a few times this fall, she said, but they've told her there's no point meeting because he has nothing to report.

"You really do feel he's pushing you aside," James said. "He really should be interested in his constituents and what's important to them."

When asked on Friday to respond to James's assertion that he's brushing off former GE workers, Smith responded (in writing) this way:

"We have an open house tomorrow and everyone is welcome to come."

Read The Peterborough Examiner full story

By Kim Champion

Members of Fight for $15 and Fairness and the Ontario Federation of Labour had issues they wanted to discuss with Elliott

Workers rights activists met with Newmarket-Aurora MPP and Deputy Premier Christine Elliott on Tuesday during constituents’ week to plead their case that paid sick days are essential to public health.

As well as advocating for a $15-an-hour minimum wage and safe workplaces, members of Fight for $15 and Fairness and the Ontario Federation of Labour wanted to discuss with Elliott, also the province's health minister, the consequences of taking away paid sick days.

The local groups are fired up over the Ontario government’s move to repeal much of the former Liberal government’s Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act, also known as Bill 148. The Ford government’s Bill 47, Making Ontario Open for Business Act, would, if passed, freeze the current minimum wage at $14 an hour until 2020. 

Personal emergency leave, currently consisting of two paid days and eight unpaid days of protected leave annually for each worker, would be replaced with the right to three sick days, two bereavement days and three family responsibility days annually — all unpaid. Employers could once again require a doctor's note for time off.

“Paid sick days are essential to public health, especially coming into the too often deadly flu season,” $15 and Fairness spokesperson Jessa McLean said in an email. “Allowing employers to demand sick notes would be a burden on the already overcrowded health-care system and contribute to the hallway medicine that the Progressive Conservative government has vowed to end in Ontario.”

McLean's request for a meeting was acknowledged by Elliott in early October when the deputy minister was confronted by protestors in Aurora as she made her way into a local chambers of commerce event. Elliott told them she would be happy to meet.

The group delivered a petition that had more than 500 names on it from Elliott's northern York Region riding to maintain worker protections in Bill 148.  

“We presented hundreds of signatures from her constituents and we asked MPP Elliott to pledge to vote to withdraw Bill 47,” McLean said. “And she would not.”

The delegation who met with Elliott included McLean, Dr. Jesse McLaren, an emergency room doctor who shared his view that people turning up in the ER seeking doctor's notes for employers were a drain on public health resources, and CUPE Local 905 chief steward Katherine Grzejszczak, who shared her beliefs about fair scheduling, precarious employment and the positive outcomes of elevating labour standards across the board.

“Elliott acknowledged that the Health Ministry had not been consulted on Bill 47, which includes changes that will have obvious impacts on public health,” McLean added.

Meanwhile, Newmarket Chamber of Commerce CEO Tracy Walters said in a previous interview the Ford government’s new labour bill would "take off some of the pressure (small businesses) have been feeling on Bill 148 and the speed of the changes. Reducing the red tape burden will be welcomed."

While Walter said many local businesses support modernizing labour laws — and many already pay their employees above the minimum wage and for personal emergency days —  Bill 148 brought in changes too quickly and without consultation.

"It was too much, too soon," she added, "and actually caused more red tape." 

In a media release announcing the regulatory and legislative changes to come with the expected passage of Bill 47, Elliott said: “This new legislation will help bring more jobs to communities like ours and create a better environment for businesses to grow. During the campaign, we heard that doing business in Ontario was becoming increasingly unaffordable, and Bill 148 imposed unnecessary costs on Ontario job creators. That’s why we’re cutting red tape and taking concrete measures to create jobs and make sure Ontario is open for business.”

~With files from Debora Kelly

Read the Barrie today full story

By Fernando Arce

The Ford government's plan to eliminate paid sick days and reduce access to personal emergency leave has far-reaching implications for the health of every resident in Ontario

While Doug Ford’s Making Ontario Open For Business Act (Bill 47) is ostensibly about helping businesses, a coalition of labour activists and health professionals see it as a public health crisis in the making. 

Calling it a “massive step backward for health care in Ontario” during a press conference at Queen’s Park on October 30, Dr. Danyaal Raza, a family physician with the Department of Family Medicine at St. Michael’s Hospital and member of the Decent Work & Health Network, says the bill “has implications for the health of every resident in Ontario.” 

The Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act, passed by the previous Liberal government in 2017, granted two out of the seven paid sick days that had been lobbied for by groups like the Fight for $15 and Fairness coalition, the organizers of last week’s press conference. But the Ford government wants to eliminate paid sick days altogether and reduce access to personal emergency leave. 

If passed, workers will be forced to parcel out their personal emergencies into a total of eight days of “personal emergency leave” (down from 10) all unpaid and divided into three categories: sick leave (three days), family responsibility leave (three days) and bereavement leave (two days).

Deena Ladd, a coordinator with the Workers' Action Centre, says Ford's bill should be renamed the "Making Ontario Open For Sickness” bill.

When asked about the rationale for eliminating paid sick days, the Ministry of Labour offered in an email response to NOW that “these eight days... would be in line with Alberta and British Columbia, and could be taken without fear of termination.” 

But as studies have shown, paid sick days can make a crucial, sometimes even fatal difference, when workers choose to stay home or work through their sickness.

“A lot of specialists don’t have availability in the evening, so having sick days allows patients to get to those appointments during the day,” says Raza. Employees without paid sick days also tend to get fewer flu shots, mammograms, pap smears and blood pressure checks.

The changes proposed by the Ford government mean that Ontarians will be at greater risk of contracting diseases when workplaces become inundated with sick workers unable to afford a day off to see their physician or get well. Raza says schools could soon follow when sick children are forced to attend because their parents or guardians can’t stay home with them.

Two years ago this scenario came to pass, with tragic consequences, when two-year-old Jude – described by his mother Jill Promoli as an otherwise “perfectly healthy child” – succumbed to influenza B, which had begun with a fever the day before. His sister had first caught the bug in her kindergarten class. Said Promoli at last week’s press conference: "One sick child came to school, and basically, it became an entire classroom full of sick children."

The Ford government’s legislation is also reintroducing employer-mandated sick notes. As CBC News reported, it was the Retail Council of Canada president Diane Brisebois, one of the main lobbyists for the bill, who claimed workers were abusing their privileges by faking illness.

However, studies in New York City and San Francisco, where employees receive between five and nine paid sick days, suggest fears about widespread abuse by employees are unfounded.

Raza says “most workers took three or fewer days off. And a quarter of workers took no time off at all. We’re learning from experiences of other jurisdictions.” 

Ford claims the bill is about finding “efficiencies,” but Raza says there is nothing cost-effective about it. 

“If the government is interested in making health care more efficient, then Bill 47 is in complete contradiction to that goal.”  

Read the NOW Toronto full story

By James Hopkin

Representatives from a number of local unions stood with the Sault Ste. Marie and District Labour Council in front of Sault Ste. Marie MPP Ross Romano’s constituency office Tuesday to rally for workers' rights.

Bill 47 - also known as the Making Ontario Open for Business Act - will scrap the planned $15 per hour minimum wage and reduce the number of sick days allotted to workers.

The minimum wage in Ontario will also be capped at $14 per hour until fall 2020.  

USW 9548 president Cody Alexander - who also serves as second vice-president for the labour council - says Romano has been silent in the Sault since the provincial election.

“We need to get the message to Mr. Romano that this is not acceptable, and that they need to stand for workers, as opposed to find ways to work them to death,” Alexander said.

Members of OPSEU, United Steelworkers and the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario stood with the local labour council outside Romano’s Bay Street office, hoping to speak with the local MPP.

Romano’s office told SooToday that Romano is currently participating in a series of roundtable discussions in Thunder Bay, which were booked about a week ago.

“Doug Ford seems to take offence to the working class people, and he seems to want to continue to put money in big business’ pockets while not being concerned with the actual people that make the big business their money,” Alexander said.

The Ford government has stated that the repeal of Bill 148 will cut red tape and encourage business investment in part by scrapping the minimum wage hike.

Alexander says that he’s aware of the “fear mongering from the Ford government.”

“I haven’t seen any evidence of that,” Alexander said. “As far as what we’ve seen, it’s doing better for business, because people have more money to spend.”

“Many of the people that are making the minimum wage are also consumers, so having more money in their pockets is better for business all around.”

Alexander told SooToday that the labour movement has been fighting to stop precarious work for decades, and for awhile it felt as though gains were being made in that fight.

“A lot of these gains that we made with Bill 148 were long overdue,” said Alexander. “The minimum wage was one those that should’ve been increased yearly but it wasn’t, so as far as I’m concerned, the $14 an hour is less than what they should’ve been making anyways at minimum wage.”

Read the Soo Today full story

By Alison Braley-Rattai

Ontario’s Conservative government recently tabled the Open for Business Act (Bill 47). Bill 47 proposes to repeal the changes to Ontario’s workplace laws introduced by the previous Liberal government under Bill 148.

The purpose of Bill 148 was to increase fairness for workers, particularly those precariously employed, while balancing the interests of employers.

It was three years in the making and informed by a panel of two workplace law experts, which twice toured the province to hear from hundreds of witnesses before tabling its 419-page final report. By contrast, Premier Doug Ford’s government claims to have spoken with “dozens” of employers and unions prior to introducing Bill 47.

The purpose of Bill 47 is to “bring jobs and investment back to our province” and to increase “opportunities” for workers. One needs to look harder for any mention of fairness for workers or the creation of decent jobs, although the government claims to wish to “protect” workers. At the end of the day, however, Bill 47 will do none of the above.

The economic sky isn’t falling

By far, the most controversial aspect of Bill 148 was the increase in the minimum wage, from $11.60 to $14 in January 2018, with another scheduled increase to $15 set for January 2019. Bill 47 freezes the rate at $14, with an “annual inflation adjustment” as of October 2020.

Notably, the Ontario Conservatives have opposed every raise in the minimum wage since at least 1995, when they froze wages for eight years. They opposed this one as well, predicting rampant job loss. They were wrong.

In July, Ontario’s unemployment rate hit an 18-year low, with notable jobs gains in the hospitality sector, an industry among those most affected by Bill 148. Bank of Canada economists have said no evidence indicates that Bill 148 caused any general economic downturn.

The reality is that raising the minimum wage on its own has no net effect upon employment figures. The reason is simple: There are too many other factors at play. But that hasn’t stopped the government’s wrongful claim that Bill 148 has crippled the economy.

Bill 47 decreases fairness at work

While doing virtually nothing for job creation, Bill 47 will decrease fairness for workers.

For instance, Bill 47 repeals the provision giving workers the right to refuse work with less than 96 hours’ notice. Such notice is important for those with child/elder care issues, or indeed other jobs, to make appropriate arrangements.

Bill 47 retains the provision to pay workers for three hours if they are required to show up to work but are then not required to work for three hours. However, workers who are on call but are then not required to work will no longer have the same right to three hours pay. It also repeals the right to three hours pay if a scheduled shift is cancelled within 48 hours.

In the name of “flexibility,” employers retain the authority to make scheduling decisions that they believe best suit their bottom lines, while virtually all the risk for such decisions flows to workers.

Employers are not encouraged to make careful scheduling decisions, since they will no longer bear even the minimal responsibility of guaranteeing three hours pay in most instances. Meanwhile, last-minute scheduling changes wreak havoc on the lives of workers and their families.

Even the tepid provision requiring employers to consider requests for a change in schedule or work location in good faith, by providing reasons for a refusal of any such request, is now gone.

Precarious workers and temp agencies

What’s more, Bill 47 reintroduces an incentive to create piecemeal, precarious work. The proliferation of employment agencies — many fly-by-night — and the intense vulnerability of those employed through them has been well-documented. So too have the health impacts of precarious work for certain demographics that make up a large percentage of the precarious workforce.

The Liberals’ Bill 148 made it less attractive for employers to rely upon a casual, precarious workforce by removing distinctions in pay that were based upon “employment status.” The fact that a worker was hired through a temp agency or worked part-time hours could not be the basis for differential pay.

Because precarious work is often gendered and racialized, this provision had the added effect of reducing distinctions indirectly related to gender and race as well.

Bill 47 reintroduces pay distinctions based upon employment status.

What about balance?

The government claimed it was introducing Bill 47 to repeal those parts of Bill 148 “that are causing employers the most concern and unnecessary burden.” Evidently, this government suffers from an inability to prioritize since virtually all of Bill 148’s numerous changes are on the chopping block.

Undoubtedly, the various political parties will adopt various stances on policy issues. What is lacking from Bill 47 is any semblance of balance. Rather than use a scalpel to excise those aspects causing “the most concern,” the government used a fish-hook to gut the bill almost entirely. What little is left provides fewer benefits to workers.

But perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Bill 47 was the manner in which the Conservatives greeted its introduction in the legislature: standing and clapping while proposing to repeal basic protections for the most vulnerable workers.

Such displays transform the slogan of a government “for the people” into Orwellian doublespeak.

Read The Conversation full story

By Muriel Draaisma

'Decent work is an education issue,' union leader tells reporters at Queen's Park

An Ontario government bill that aims to roll back labour reforms would make life more difficult for precariously-employed university and college students, staff and faculty, says an NDP MPP.

Chris Glover, A Toronto MPP who serves as the Official Opposition's universities critic, urged the provincial government to immediately withdraw Bill 47 on Monday.

The bill, dubbed the Making Ontario Open for Business Act, would repeal a planned minimum wage hike to $15 — an increase set to happen in January 2019 — while cancelling two guaranteed paid sick days for all Ontario workers. The Progressive Conservative plan has already passed first reading and is likely to be approved due to the government's majority.

"The students in our colleges and universities in Ontario, already faced with the highest tuition fees and highest debt levels, are potentially facing much higher costs for going to school," Glover told reporters at a Queen's Park news conference.

According to Statistics Canada, undergraduate students in Ontario paid more than $8,000 in tuition fees, the highest average in the country, as of the 2016/2017 academic year.

Other speakers said the bill will add to the financial insecurity facing college and university staff and faculty, many of whom work contract-to-contract with no health benefits or pensions.

According to Glover, more than half of university faculty members and more than 75 per cent of college faculty members are part-time, temporary contract workers.

Glover called the bill an attack on their rights.

Previous gains to be lost, union reps say

RM Kennedy, chair of the college faculty division at Ontario Public Service Employees Union, which represents more than 40,000 faculty and staff at colleges, agreed, saying: "Decent work is an education issue."

Labour reforms introduced by the Liberal government, under 2017's Bill 148, were "a good start," Kennedy said. 

"For part-time support staff, many of whom are also students, paid sick days and a livable wage are needed to make ends meet," he said. "For contract college faculty, the equal pay raises that were achieved with Bill 148 have been life-altering."

These gains will be lost with the new legislation, he added.

"Students go to school so they can get good jobs, but the vast majority of faculty teaching them, ironically, do not have good jobs," he said.

"Thousands of Ontario college workers are looking at cuts to the improved wages, which they have only had a few months to experience."

The bill is "a step in the wrong direction," according to Kimberly Ellis-Hale, chair of the contract faculty committee of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations, which represents 17,000 professors and academic librarians at 29 faculty associations. 

Ellis-Hale said she has been working on 12-week contracts for most of the last 21 years. She said most contract faculty do not have desks to call their own, health benefits or pensions, or job security. Living contract to contract is extremely stressful, she added.

"We should be making progress in addressing fairness for contract faculty, not rolling back reasonable and essential elements to improve workers' rights," she said.

"If the premier is really here for the people, the hard-working, front-line people, and is truly committed to helping people like me make ends meet, then he should withdraw Bill 47." 

Bill to weaken learning conditions, grad student says

Hamish Russell, an international graduate student at the University of Toronto and a member of Canadian Union of Public Employees, told the news conference that post-secondary students and workers juggle many jobs, high rents and demanding course loads.

The bill will not only erode working conditions, it will also weaken learning conditions, he said.

Read the CBC News full story