The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal has agreed to accept complaints filed by the United Steelworkers (USW) on behalf of a group of temporary foreign workers from a Tim Hortons in Fernie, B.C., the union announced July 10.
The USW said the group of workers approached them last year and alleged that their employers had made them pay back a portion of overtime pay they had earned. The workers alleged that the employer had driven them to the bank and waited while they cashed their paycheques and then made them hand back the amounts in cash.
After investigating the allegations, the union retained legal council and applied to the human rights commission on the workers’ behalf.
This decision for the tribunal to hear the complaint is significant, USW Western Canada director Stephen Hunt told Business in Vancouver, because the human rights commission doesn’t often get involved in cases like this. It also means there is a way for the workers’ voices to be heard, he said, explaining they really have no other protection.
“These are workers who are not Canadians, who are not British Columbians and who are really vulnerable, and the significance is the system works,” Hunt said, pointing out that this is not going to be a fast fix. “It identifies a lot of problems with the system itself.
“You are bringing in low-skilled workers to do a job and they are subject to significant exploitation, and the only safeguard they have currently is to come to a union like the Steelworkers and then have a third party file complaints on their behalf.”
This is not the union’s first time speaking out about temporary foreign workers.
“We had exposed the problems with temporary foreign workers with the HD Mining file and RBC in Toronto where Canadians were being forced to train temporary foreign workers to replace them,” Hunt said. “I think we started to be known as a union that was looking out for stuff like this, and that is why the workers at Tim Hortons approached us.”
