Page 17 - Best Magazine Summer Edition 2019

Here is the problem. RTL Service seemed to have received payment from their clients to pay out foreign workers’ wages, and instead of paying foreign workers’ wages in full, RTL Service seemed to have collected payment and fees for the related businesses (accommodation and transportation), after which they payed whatever was left to foreign workers, as wages.
Legal Challenges
The supply chain of foreign workers is complex, and usually includes different related businesses or operations inside and outside Canada. Each of these operations are controlled by Canadian laws, for example, Ontario’s Employment Protection for Foreign Nationals Act, 2009 (EPFNA).
To answer who the employer is under different laws may be challenging. A recruiter and its client may be treated as one employer for the purpose of EPFNA, while a temporary help agency is an employer for the purposes of Ontario’s Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA), together with its business client who is jointly liable and ultimately responsible for complying with the ESA.
And, even though a business represents itself as a temporary help agency (and liable under the ESA), the business may be liable as well under EPFNA. This would happen when operations fall within the four corners of what a recruiter is for this Act, namely, a person who finds an individual for employment or a person who finds employment for an individual.
Consequently, the laundry list of things that these operations must do or not to do to comply with which law, will shift based on its true operations: is it a recruiter? Is it a temporary help agency? Or is it a client?
Complete Rigorous Checks
Canadian clients doing business with similar recruiters as RTL Service, would begin to complete rigorous checks before retaining these services. The Georgian Bay Hotel, one of the Ontarian business who inadvertently dealt with RTL Service, said that it has severed all ties with the recruiter and that it is reviewing its “standards around contractual agreements ... with particular emphasis on fair treatment of workers.” A similar position was taken by the Blue Mountain Resort who also dealt with RTL Service.
Stay vigilant and engage with foreign workers’ recruiters (and temporary help agencies) that: (1) satisfy your questions about immigration and employment compliance; and (2) have a healthy and wealthy workplace legal infrastructure in place.
THE BEST MAGAZINE SUMMER 2019
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