There was a time in Ontario when workers could be fired for being sick, could be terminated for not taking a last-minute shift and routinely lost thousands of dollars to wage theft.The year was 2017.Itâs a set of circumstances that north Etobicoke resident Abdullahi Barre calls âunacceptable.â âOur community elected Doug Ford,â he said. âBut we did not support freezing the minimum wage and repealing Bill 148.âPremier Ford calls the recent labour reforms a âjob killerâ and the Ontario Chamber of Commerce has called on the Progressive Conservative government to eliminate them â warning of a â$23-billion cost challengeâ to businesses. The bill was enacted by the previous Liberal government after a two-year labour law review concluded Ontario had âtoo many people in too many workplaces who do not receive their basic rights.âResearch conducted for the review found a province where 1.6 million workers did not have a single unpaid, job-protected sick day. Where workers lost $47 million to wage theft over six years, of which just $19 million was ever recovered by the government. Where workers had almost no protection against erratic scheduling. And where employers were prosecuted in less than 0.2 per cent of cases where they were found guilty of monetary violations.âWhat Bill 148 did was start to make our basic rights a little bit stronger,â said Deena Ladd, of the Toronto-based Workersâ Action Centre.At a mosque on Rexdale Blvd. backing onto an industrial zone buzzing with transport trucks, not all Ford supporters agree with plans to scrap it.Imam Abdirahman Hassan said he voted for Ford, whose man-of-action reputation needs little burnishing in this neighbourhood.âThe appeal was when he said âIâm standing for the people,â â said Hassan. âWith the difficult situation that the community is facing, I said to myself, maybe he is the rig ...
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