Temp agencies pose `significant challenges´ to compensation board, internal audit shows
(The Star Toronto Raptors)

Temporary help agencies “create significant challenges� for the provincial worker compensation board and are more likely than other Ontario employers to break the law, according to an internal audit obtained by the Star.The findings were the result of a “compliance intervention� strategy conducted by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board from 2013 to 2016, and were released to the Star under freedom of information laws. The audit found that temp agencies were significantly more likely to misreport their payroll to the board, and more likely not to pay mandatory insurance premiums.Employers are required by law to report their payroll, which is then used by the compensation board to calculate how much employers owe in premium payments. These premiums are used to fund benefits paid to injured workers across the province. While overall employer compliance with WSIB audits in Ontario was 77 per cent, the audit found that only 38 per cent of temp agency employers followed suit.The board also found that some 871 temp agencies closed between 2013 and 2016 — and that 51 per cent of them were audited before shutting down. But some appeared to subsequently reinvent themselves: the audit found that 25 per cent of new temp agencies opening during the same period shared “similar tombstone information� with previously existing agencies. Ellen MacEachen, a professor at the University of Waterloo who has conducted extensive research on the temp agency sector, said closing down and reopening under a different name allows temp agencies to avoid potential fines or penalties from the compensation board. “Basically, temp agencies can be very invisible businesses. They can use a cellphone and run it out of their kitchens. They kind of fly under the radar,� she said.“It all fits with things that we’ve been seeing for a long time.�Read more:This temp worker was being strangled by a machine. Her co-worker didnR ...