The B.C. Employment Standards Tribunal has acknowledged the trucking industry is one of the largest underground economies and international human trafficking rings in the country, according to the Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA).
Recently, CBC reported on a worker from India, Harminder Singh, who said he paid $25,000 to obtain a job at a truck repair facility in Richmond, B.C., and was then shorted wages. The company was forced to pay him more than $115,000 after the Tribunal ruling.
“The horrific immigration and employment situation that Mr. Singh and his family had to experience, is experienced by countless of people coming to Canada each year who want to work in the trucking industry,” said Stephen Laskowski, president and CEO of the CTA.
“CTA has been trying to end this treatment of workers in the trucking industry, but our voice has mostly fallen upon deaf ears in government. Unfortunately, Mr. Singh’s story is one of thousands that is occurring in the trucking industry across Canada.”
The CTA alleged a vast network, including immigration consultants, driver training institutes, job placement firms and trucking companies, exploit foreign workers. In many cases, the scheme charges a worker a ‘head tax’.
While Singh’s employer had to pay him back wages, it was only fined $4,000 for violating the Employment Standards Act.
“Since 2016, the Canadian Trucking Alliance has been compelling governments at every level to enact meaningful enforcement against labor rights violators and protect the rights of workers in Canada – both foreign and domestic,” said Laskowski. “The Government of Canada, specifically ESDC and Immigration Canada, need to end this abuse of foreign labor, protect workers and human rights, and in doing so clean up the trucking sector that is rife with these abuses.”
“For nearly a decade the BC Trucking Association (BCTA) has been calling for significant, sustained improvement of enforcement for all labor and safety regulation in the trucking industry,” added Dave Earle, president of the BCTA. “Mr. Singh’s experience should never have happened, and it’s not unique. It is far past time for governments at all levels to get serious about eliminating exploitation and abuse of workers.”
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