{"id":288337,"date":"2025-10-09T04:33:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T04:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/288337\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T04:33:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T04:33:12","slug":"ofl-workers-pay-the-price-as-fords-conservatives-slash-employment-law-enforcement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/288337\/","title":{"rendered":"OFL: Workers pay the price as Ford\u2019s Conservatives slash employment law enforcement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Ontario Federation of Labour issued\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.globenewswire.com\/news-release\/2025\/10\/08\/3163668\/0\/en\/OFL-Workers-pay-the-price-as-Ford-s-Conservatives-slash-employment-law-enforcement.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">this media release<\/a>\u00a0on GlobeNewswire on Wednesday, October 8, 2025.<\/p>\n<p>TORONTO, Oct. 08, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) \u2014 While Doug Ford extends his summer with ice cream bar press conferences instead of sitting in the legislature, workers are paying the price with gutted court enforcement of their basic employment rights, according to data from the Ontario Court of Justice.<\/p>\n<p>Charges under the Employment Standards Act (ESA) have dropped by 90 per cent over the past ten years, as found by an analysis by the Ontario Federation of Labour and Data Shows.<\/p>\n<p>Over 1,500 charges were laid under the ESA in 2015 \u2013 compared to only 150 from April 2024 to March 2025.<\/p>\n<p>And of those 150 charges laid last year, 25 per cent were withdrawn as courts crumple under backlogs and cases get tossed for time delays. Under the Supreme Court\u2019s Jordan limits, charges delayed within the Ontario Court of Justice for 18 months must be dropped.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDoug Ford works hard at distraction, and we pay the price as working people. Ontario unions fought hard for workplace laws so that you get paid, you get vacation pay, and you get overtime,\u201d said OFL president Laura Walton.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Ford government is essentially ripping the floor from underneath workers\u2019 feet, by not enforcing basic employment standards in court. His government is on its seventh iteration of the\u00a0Working for Workers Act, and yet he\u2019s failing to protect the most basic of employment standards laws. Doesn\u2019t he know the sequel is always worse than the original?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The ESA sets out minimum wage rates and workplace rules such as vacation and holiday pay, overtime rules, a ban on employers stealing tips, and a prohibition on wage theft.<\/p>\n<p>It applies to almost all workplaces, setting a floor under every individual or union employment contract. But they are not rules if they are not enforced.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Ford government is busy meddling with speed cameras. Meanwhile, he\u2019s taken his foot off the pedal when it comes to prosecuting employers for offences like not paying wages or stealing tips. It\u2019s clear where his priorities are, and it\u2019s not with workers \u2013 especially those working precarious jobs where wage theft is rampant.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tparkin.substack.com\/p\/ontario-workers-pay-for-ford-pcs?r=3vi4b4&amp;utm_campaign=post&amp;utm_medium=web&amp;triedRedirect=true\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Further information<\/a>\u00a0on the collapse in Employment Standards Act court enforcement is reported by Data Shows.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Media Contact:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Jenny Sellathurai<br \/>Director of Communications<br \/>Ontario Federation of Labour<br \/>jsellathurai@ofl.ca | 416-894-3456<\/p>\n<p>ss\/COPE343<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ontario Federation of Labour issued\u00a0this media release\u00a0on GlobeNewswire on Wednesday, October 8, 2025. TORONTO, Oct. 08, 2025&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":288338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,420,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-288337","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-jobs","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115342344488425906","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}