The Law of Work
  • Home
  • About
  • Professor David Doorey
  • Osgoode Hall LLM
  • Books
  • Guest Contributors
  • Useful Links
    • Archive
  • Home
  • About
  • Professor David Doorey
  • Osgoode Hall LLM
  • Books
  • Guest Contributors
  • Useful Links
    • Archive
The Law of Work
Law of Work Archive

City of Toronto Violates ESA, Ordered to Pay Employees $5 Million in Back Wages

by David Doorey April 5, 2011
written by David Doorey April 5, 2011

Politicians these days like to make big promises to cut public sector pay.  It’s politically popular to cast all public sector workers as lazy, overpaid deadweight.   In Toronto, a Mayor got elected in no small measure because of his promise to attack City employees.  Often this narrative is directed at the governments’ unionized workers, but nonunion workers are not exempt.   In 2009, the City of Toronto council (under Mayor Miller) decided they would prefer not to pay some $5 million in  annual bonuses required by the employment contracts of its nonunion, managerial employees.  So the Council canceled the payments.  The employees filed an employment standards complaint.  The employees won, and now the City needs to pay the bonuses.  Here is a Toronto Star piece discussing the decision.
Here is the Employment Standards Officer’s decision
The key to the decision is the fact that “wages” (section 1 definitions) in the Employment Standards Act includes any “monetary remuneration payable by an employer to an employee under the terms of an employment contract, oral or written, express or implied”. In other words, a term of the employment contract requiring payment of a bonus becomes enforceable under the ESA, since Section 11 requires employers to pay “all wages” to employees.
The manager’s contracts included a requirement for the employer to pay a performance bonus of up to 3% for 2008 if employees met some benchmark performance standards for the year, subject to the City approving the budget for that year the bonuses would be paid (2009).  In this case, the employees earned the bonuses for the year 2008, and the Council approved the 2009 budget in March 2009.  Thus, the preconditions in the employment contract for payment of the bonus were satisfied, and the bonuses became due.  The attempt by the City to later (in April 2009) rescind the bonuses was illegal and a breach of the employment contract and the ESA.
In the Star piece, Councillor Peter Milczyn is quoted as follows:  “It was removed after they had earned it, and we knew at the time that it was a problematic decision.”  If the employer knew the decision to cancel the bonuses was problematic, why did they go through with it?  Politics, I presume.  Miller was trying to look like he was taking action on public sector wages, and the decision did manage to defer these costs til now.
Mayor Ford, for all his whining about overpaid City employees, has approved a 2.25% raise for these same managerial employees.  There’s no great secret  why Ford and his gravy-cutting buds on Council are now sucking up to the nonunion City employees.  Next year, when Ford locks out garbage collectors,  child car workers, and other city administrators, guess who will be expected to work ridiculously long hours picking up the slack and answering angry phone calls for “taxpayers”?  You got it:  the nonunion managers.
What do you think employee morale is like at  the City these days?

1 comment
0
FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmail
David Doorey

Professor Doorey is an Associate Professor of Work Law and Industrial Relations at York University. He is Academic Director of Osgoode Hall Law School’s executive LLM Program in Labour and Employment Law and a Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program. Professor Doorey is a graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School (LL.B., Ph.D), London School of Economics (LLM Labour Law), and the University of Toronto (B.A., M.I.R.).

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

previous post
The Annual "Sunshine List" Fuss
next post
Do Corporate Tax Cuts Create Jobs?

You may also like

This Blog Entry is About the Lunacy of...

July 21, 2019

A Cross Country Update on the Card-Check versus...

October 3, 2018

The Folly of Not Voting to Strike in...

September 16, 2018

Unifor Posts Photos of Replacement Workers as Gander...

September 10, 2018

A Wrongful Dismissal Case and the Absence of...

August 29, 2018

China Said to Quickly Withdraw Approval for New...

August 27, 2018

The Latest Hot E-Commerce Idea in China: The...

August 27, 2018

The Trump Administration Just Did Something Unambiguously Good...

August 27, 2018

Unstable Situations Require Police In Riot Gear Face...

August 27, 2018

Trump’s War on the Justice System Threatens to...

August 27, 2018

Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 338 other subscribers

Follow Us On Social Media

Twitter

Latest Tweets

David J. Doorey🇨🇦Follow

Law Prof. Talking #labor & #employment #law #Gig to the masses. Alpaca ❤️ @YorkUniversity @OsgoodeNews @LSELaw @LWPHarvard @Jacobin @OnLaborBlog https://t.co/5V9r8VPHsh

David J. Doorey🇨🇦
Retweet on TwitterDavid J. Doorey🇨🇦 Retweeted
AnthonyForsyt10Anthony Forsyth@AnthonyForsyt10·
3h

If you missed my ⁦@RMIT⁩ lecture on Tuesday here is the text with a recording to follow … Legislating to Rebuild Worker Power: The Industrial Relations Reforms We Need from the Albanese Labor Government - Labour Law Down Under ⁦⁦@RMITCoBL⁩ https://labourlawdownunder.com.au/?p=1042

Reply on Twitter 1560086376703750144Retweet on Twitter 15600863767037501444Like on Twitter 156008637670375014412Twitter 1560086376703750144
TheLawofWorkDavid J. Doorey🇨🇦@TheLawofWork·
7h

Old law school friend now works as a lawyer in the Office of the JAG. She is doing basic training, getting crazy fit. I wasn’t aware these lawyers must basically go thru basic training.

Imagine if there was a fitness test for labour and employment lawyers?

Reply on Twitter 1560028418015522817Retweet on Twitter 1560028418015522817Like on Twitter 15600284180155228178Twitter 1560028418015522817
TheLawofWorkDavid J. Doorey🇨🇦@TheLawofWork·
7h

You’ve seen this article?

Adrienne Cuoto, ‘Clothing Exotic Dancers with Collective Bargaining Rights’, 2006 38-1 Ottawa Law Review 37, 2006 CanLIIDocs 63, <https://canlii.ca/t/2913>

ryan white@ryandwhite12

One of my COVID projects has been working on a history of the Canadian Association of Burlesque Entertainers, the only case I am aware of in which dancers sought unionization in Canada - so I will be watching this carefully (it is rare and exciting) https://twitter.com/grimkim/status/1559995539999031297

Reply on Twitter 1560023264759615499Retweet on Twitter 15600232647596154991Like on Twitter 1560023264759615499Twitter 1560023264759615499
Load More...

Categories

  • Alberta
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Australia
  • British Columbia
  • Charter of Rights and Freedoms
  • Childcare
  • Class Action
  • Climate and Just Transition
  • Collective Bargaining
  • Common Law of Employment
  • Comparative Work Law
  • competition law
  • construction
  • COVID-19
  • Diversity
  • Employee Classification
  • Employment Insurance
  • Employment Regulation
  • Europe
  • Financial Industry
  • Fissured Work
  • Freedom of Association
  • frustration of contract
  • Gig Work
  • Health and Safety
  • Health Care
  • Human Rights
  • Immigration
  • Interest Arbitration
  • International Law
  • Labour Arbitration
  • Labour Economics
  • Law of Work Archive
  • Legal Profession
  • Manitoba
  • Migrant Workers
  • Minimum Wage
  • Nova Scotia
  • OLRB
  • Ontario
  • Pension Bankruptcy
  • Privacy
  • Public Sector
  • Quebec
  • Real Life Pleadings
  • Saskatchewan
  • Scholarship
  • Sports Labour
  • Strikes and Lockouts
  • Student Post
  • Supreme Court of Canada
  • technology
  • Transnational Law
  • Uncategorized
  • Unions and Collective Bargaining
  • United States
  • Videos
  • Women and Work
  • Wrongful Dismissal
  • Home
  • About
  • Guest Contributors
Menu
  • Home
  • About
  • Guest Contributors
  • Legal Scholarship
  • Useful Links
  • Archive
Menu
  • Legal Scholarship
  • Useful Links
  • Archive

2020. Canadian Law of Work Forum. All Rights Reserved.