Posted on 11/14/2023 3:17:37 AM PST by Squawk 8888
Ontario is planning to explicitly ban unpaid trial shifts for restaurant and hospitality workers, while also strengthening rules against deducting employee wages in the event of customer theft.
The latest proposed changes are set to be announced today by Labour Minister David Piccini ahead of legislation expected to be tabled this afternoon that contains a host of new labour laws.
Piccini says that while it is already the law that employees must be paid for all hours worked, unpaid trial shifts are still happening as part of the interview process in some restaurants, so the practice will be specifically prohibited.
Similarly, Piccini says labour laws already prohibit employers from deducting wages due to lost or stolen property, but new language will specifically ban it in instances of dine and dash or gas and dash.
(Excerpt) Read more at cp24.com ...
I will agree that employers should not hold employees responsible for dine and dashers. To some extent, I’m sympathetic about the trial shift, just because ending it is going to make it more difficult for marginal people to find employment.
In my line of work I would routinely test prospective employees on software packages using real-world applications. But the results of these tests were useless to me except to the extent that they measured the capabilities of the prospective employees. That’s why they weren’t paid for the work they did.
If, on the other hand, I had taken the results of these tests and used them in our company operations, I would have felt obligated to pay these people even if the law didn’t require it.
Agreed—something limiting it to a maximum of three shifts together totaling a maximum of six hours, or alternatively one can be terminated in the first 12 hours of employment without any liability on the part of the employer might be a better compromise.
While I agree with you that it would be nice, you have to consider the economics of each job. Marginal people don’t have easy time finding jobs in the first place. They are continually losing their jobs because there is something missing within themselves and most employers have very little tolerance for errors on part of these low level employees. That’s just reality.
With software programmers, because the demand is so high, they can almost commit a murder and be convicted and many software companies will try and find a way to keep that employee, whereas on the marginal side of employment, an eyebrow raised the wrong way can be enough to lose your employment because you are so easily replaceable.
If I owned a restaurant or turnkey business, I can practically fire the entire staff every day and still have employees because they are lined up dropping applications every day. You have to go above board to avoid a poor reputation amongst programmers because there is always a job for them somewhere with better conditions and better employment opportunities, so you have to go above board to keep your people for as long as you can. That’s just not the case at the bottom of employment. The employer on the bottom doesn’t have to give two blinks about his employees because he always can replace anytime he wants.
On the bottom, we want to encourage employers to keep employees, so it’s better that we wink a bit at the regulations on that end of the business.
Last time I did a trial shift I was paid for it; that’s SOP among the best-run bars & restaurants here.
Labour laws almost always lag behind best practices, so any business that needs compulsion isn’t worth working for- they usually never turn a profit.
Since the 1950s here there has been the option of training pay- below minimum wage for a maximum of 24 hours after hiring.
Here in Toronto that has never been an option because the best servers compare notes about the best employers. If you need to go through a pile of applications you’ll never get a good hire while a pro can get a new job at a good spot within a matter of days.
You always get what you pay for.
I like this
I’m not in the software industry. I’m usually testing applicants for administrative support positions on basic Microsoft applications like Word and Excel, or marketing staff on publishing software like InDesign.
I thought “probationary periods” solved this problem. You paid the worker for their work during a trial performance period and, if it didn’t work out, you parted ways. Did liberals kill probation, too?
Bad employers create & perpetuate the problem.
Perhaps a school that trains such employees would help.
I agree that most kids out of high school today do NOT know anything & have NO WORK ETHIC.
I understand. However, you have to understand that marginal employees would otherwise be unemployable if you forced the hand of these businesses to pay from the word go. The more expensive you make employees, the more likely that busnesses will be limiting themselves to experienced employees.
Then you’ll be paying for the welfare of these marginal people instead because they can’t get their foot door at all to at least try.
The more expensive you make employees, the more likely that busnesses will be limiting themselves to experienced employees.
Right. Let's have employees start at an hourly wage of $0 -- because we can't make them "expensive" for employers.
Then you’ll be paying for the welfare of these marginal people ...
That's even better. Let employers pay them no wages because they're going to get welfare anyway, WTF? LOL.
Uhhh....duh
I’m just telling you the effect on marginal employees. The lower on the economic chain you go, the easier it is to replace people.
If you want nearly 100% unemployment rate for marginal people, demand that the employment regulations be strictly enforced, with severe punishments for employers who break the labour code.
Now, what are you going to do with all these marginal employees who have been priced out of work because employers will not hire them?
Here in Ontario, if you’re on welfare it pays to work part-time. The first $300 each month is yours to keep, anything above $300 is taken off the cheque at 50 cents on the dollar. Welfare for a single is ~$600; it is possible to take home $1200 before losing the cash benefit.
Volunteer work is almost as good. Accepting a volunteer position means $250 up front, plus $100/month while working as a volunteer.
The problem is that with most social service agencies in the USA discourage “marginal workers” from improving their marketability. Where I live, the first step back to productivity is a package of incentives to do volunteer work. Google “Ontario Works”- that’s what used to be called welfare and it’s been in place since the 1990s.
I agree with the idea of workfare. If a person has no skills, it should be expected that he get some in exchange for support. If they are underskilled, lets find ways to help them get skills that can improve their income.
I can tell you that the reason why those, who earn incomes, don’t want that is because they want to keep people locked out of their ability to better themselves to keep out competition.
That’s why, for example, why we demand people take out large loans and years of their life to acquire something marketable instead of enabling them to get the same skills on weekends or in the evening or a portion of their education through reading textbooks and watching Youtube videos, or something.
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