#temporary workers

A Mississauga-based worker says a temporary help agency billed him $30,000 for leaving a low-wage job placement early, months after the provincial labour board ruled the company was prohibited from doing so.

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The Mississauga-based worker did not pay the fee stipulated by FDM and instead filed an employment standards claim. While that claim is currently being investigated, the ministry says it does not have the “authority” to enforce the labour board’s order requiring FDM to change its employment contracts, according to correspondence reviewed by the Star.

In a series of letters to the labour ministry this summer, Parkdale Community Legal Services lawyer John No said the clinic had been contacted by a “number of recent or current FDM employees” with complaints about their contract — even after the labour board ruling.

“FDM is making a mockery of the OLRB and the Ministry of Labour by refusing to remove the fee provisions in the employment agreements,” No’s letter says.

The national strike by 49,000 United Auto Workers (UAW) workers against General Motors that started on September 15, 2019, is the biggest strike in the country since a two-day walkout against GM by the UAW in 2007. 

Workers are angry that even though the company has made record profits–$35 billion in the last three years–it won’t give an inch when it comes to workers’ demand for equal pay for all auto workers.

“[The] Department of Agriculture’s failure to prepare the nation’s farmers for climate change. Of the USDA’s $144 billion budget... just 0.3 percent is dedicated to helping farmers adapt to the increasingly volatile climate conditions.”

“As farming in the U.S. continues its decades-long descent into an industrialized system rife with inequality, Americans are still focusing on the American farmer of old. ... With the passing of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, Congress introduced a subcategory for agricultural workers to the H2 visa program, a vehicle for businesses to import cheap, temporary labor that had been around since 1952. The 1986 legislation marked the creation of the H-2A worker, and fundamentally shifted how farms in the United States operate. ... The living conditions for many of these workers are unsafe and overcrowded. Their wages ... ultimately amount to paltry annual salaries when compared to the strenuous nature of their work. Agriculture easily owns the highest fatality rate among all American industries. ... As a result of an entire industry and government being lined up against them, just 2.1 percent of agricultural workers are part of a union.”

“American employees in the agricultural industries make up just 1.4 percent of the U.S. workforce, and those numbers don’t appear to be jumping anytime soon. ... [A]n industry that is increasingly being built atop exploited foreign labor, that ignores basic science, and which continues to absorb tremendous subsidy money distributed to relatively few people, and rarely the ones actually working the fields.”

The New Republic, October 17, 2019: “American Farming Runs on Exploitation,” by Nick Martin

Like when am I supposed to buy groceries? I can only get a few non-spoilable before I go to work and carry them with me.

Meanwhile early shift makes me depressed af due to the sleep deprivation but at least after work is still half of the day available to do whatever.

The Dutch government, employers, and trade unions want to give workers more certainty in the labor market. They, therefore, agreed to make permanent contracts the starting point, ban zero-hour contracts, and provide temporary workers with fixed contracts more quickly. It will also be compulsory for self-employed and freelancers to take out disability insurance so that they have a safety net if they fall ill. The rules for temporary contracts are becoming stricter. After three consecutive temporary contracts at the same employer, the employer can only give another temporary contract after five years instead of six months. That must put an end to revolving door constructions, in which workers endlessly go from temporary contract to temporary contract. On-call workers will receive a fixed basic contract stating the number of hours for which they are scheduled as a minimum.