While IWC support the WSIB’s approach to align Temporary Employment Agency (TEA) rates with the rates of their clients’ classes, the Clinic details in its second submission why the proposed modification to create an exception for “clerical labour” is not appropriate…
Injured Workers Community Legal Clinic
411-815 Danforth Ave
Toronto, ON M4J 1L2
November 16, 2022
WSIB Consultation Secretariat
200 Front Street West
Toronto, Ontario
M5V 3J1
Sent by email to: consultation_secretariat@wsib.on.ca
Dear Consultation Staff,
Re: Temporary Employment Agency Rate Setting Consultation
Injured Workers Community Legal Clinic is a legal aid clinic with a province-wide mandate. We have specialized in the area of workers’ compensation since 1969. As a legal aid clinic, our services are provided without charge to people with little or no income. In addition to legal advice and representation, our mandate includes community development, public legal education and participation in law and policy reform.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the proposed policy. We support the WSIB’s approach to align Temporary Employment Agency (TEA) rates with the rates of their clients’ classes. However, it is our position that the proposed modification to create an exception for “clerical labour” is not appropriate.
In our previous submission, we cited the research showing how the growth of TEAs has negatively reconfigured labour markets. Employers are motivated to use TEAs to provide their workforce because of reduced wages and WSIB rates. TEA workers perform the most dangerous work for low wages and no benefits with few protections. Furthermore, research shows how TEA workers are at greater risk of occupational disease and accidents compared to permanent workers, due to less training, little familiarity with the workplace and the propensity for their exposure to more dangerous working conditions. In short, employers outsource workplace injury risk to TEAs.1 Other employers are compelled to take on TEA workers to keep up with their competition. The TEA industry is producing a ‘race to the bottom’ for working conditions and wages. The first purpose of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act stated in section 1 is to promote health and safety in workplaces. Given the documented impact of the TEA industry this is not a class of employers that merits consideration for special policies to sustain artificially low WSIB rates.
The WSIB’s proposed exemption is an invitation for “clerical work” to become the Trojan Horse of TEAs, supplying most labour under the blanket category of “clerical”. There are no steps proposed for the WSIB to confirm that the workers are actually performing clerical work, nor are there proposed consequences for a TEA or a client where the TEA supplies “clerical labour” to a client that uses the workers in non-clerical work. These are for profit companies that will naturally take these opportunities to minimize costs and maximize profits. In short, this proposal lacks an audit and enforcement mechanism and establishes financial incentives for TEAs and their client employers to characterize work as clerical.
According to the Ontario government, there were 2,257 TEAs provincially operating in 2021, employing well over 100,000 full-time workers. This is a significant number of workers. Meanwhile, due to a lack of resources, the WSIB is only able to complete a few hundred annual audits of all workplaces in the province. We applaud the excellent work of the Compliance Department at the WSIB. However, even if there were audit and enforcement mechanisms in the policy, the Department, it does not have the resources to adequately review and enforce this new proposal for “clerical workers” to ensure that TEAs and their clients are providing accurate information to the Board.
In closing, we strongly urge the Board to align TEA rates with the rates of their clients’ classes, with no exceptions for “clerical work.” There is no reason to defer this issue further.
Thank you for considering our submission.
Sincerely,
INJURED WORKERS COMMUNITY LEGAL CLINIC
per:
John McKinnon
Executive Director
- MacEachen, Ellen, et al, “Workers’ Compensation experience-rating rules and the danger to workers’ safety in the temporary work agency sector”. Policy and Practice in Health and Safety. Page 77-79. [↩]
Download IWC submission on Temporary Employment Agency Rate Setting (clerical work exemption)