Topic
CONTEST: Share your local faves, win $2,500 in prizes! What!?
$10 million class action suit says contract terms weren't respected, a claim management denies.
Who got flipped? Diner chain recruited 50 workers from Philippines.
Debate rises over how to lower abuse, and whether to make staying easier.
Thousands in BC lack the full time, decent paying jobs they seek. Walk a mile on their treadmill.
Ten key ways working in this province changed in the Campbell era. First of two parts.
Denny's Restaurants, the iconic North American all night diner famous for its Grand Slam breakfast, is at the centre of a multi-million dollar class action suit filed in Vancouver earlier this month on behalf of more than 50 foreign workers brought to Canada from the Philippines.
The suit alleges that recruitment agents acting for the Canadian firm Northland Property Corporation (which is the exclusive western Canadian franchisee for the U.S.-based Denny's Corporation) charged workers up to $6,000 each for placing them in the Canadian jobs and required them to pay for their own transportation costs to and from the Philippines. Both expenses, the suit claims, should have been borne by the employer.
The workers also say they have not always received the 40 hours of paid work each week they were promised. On the other hand, the filing claims, when these workers are required to put in overtime, they are not paid the legally required higher rate. The class action document also claims that Denny's workers who complained about paying recruitment and travel fees or who questioned why they were not receiving the full weekly shifts and proper overtime pay they had been promised were threatened with punitive job loss and being sent back home.
The class action document also says that Denny's ("on their own behalf on through their agents,") coached employees to lie to investigators from the provincial Employment Standards Branch during a 2010 probe into the restaurant's labour practices.
None of these claims have yet been tested in court, and Denny's spokespeople denied any wrongdoing by the firm in an interview with the Tyee.
Temp workers 'highly vulnerable': lawyer
Charles Gordon, one of the Vancouver lawyers acting for the Filipino workers, told The Tyee that he believes this is a very important case, not just for Denny's employees but for all temporary foreign workers in Canada.
"The Temporary Foreign Worker Program has created a highly vulnerable group of employees, who, up to now have had no real way of enforcing the terms of the program. The federal government expects workers to enforce the law on their own. A 'do it yourself approach' is not adequate when it comes to workers rights," he said.
In 2009, Canada admitted 178,640 temporary foreign workers, with 14,484 of these admissions from the Philippines, according to Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Over 44,000 foreign workers were admitted to B.C. that year.
No one coached to lie: Denny's CEO
Asked about the allegation that workers had been coached to lie to Employment Standards Branch investigators, Bobby Naicker, CEO of Denny's operations in Canada, adamantly rejected the claim.
"Quite the contrary," he said in an email. "We asked the employees (through the management teams of the restaurants) to fully co-operate with the officers of the Employment Standards Branch."
Naicker issued a press release on January 18 laying out the company's combative response to the class action suit and its claims of worker rights abuse. In the release the CEO insists:
"These employees are a valuable part of our team and the suggestion we have treated them unfairly is not correct," said Naicker. "We look forward to responding to these allegations in court."
Alleged $6,000 fee hard to pay: organizer
According to Jane Ordinario, a member of the grassroots advocacy group Migrante, which is assisting the Philippine workers in their class action suit, over 50,000 of the approximately 250,000 temporary foreign workers now residing in Canada are from the Philippines. Ordinario, who came to Canada herself from the Philippines in 1990 as a live-in caretaker, the workers who come from overseas to do restaurant work are even more vulnerable than the women like her who come to do live in care work for Canadian children and seniors.
Northland Properties Corporation, parent company of Denny's in Canada and named in a $10 million suit by foreign temporary workers, was founded in 1963 by Bob Gaglardi, son of Phil Gaglardi who was highways minister in the B.C. Socred government from 1952 to 1968.
"Flying Phil" as Gaglardi was nicknamed for his fast driving and frequent flying ways, was driven from office by a scandal involving family use of a government jet.
Northland Properties Corporation is a privately held company, still controlled by the Gaglardi family, whose $1.31 billion wealth in 2010 made it the fourth largest family fortune in BC and the thirty-ninth largest in all of Canada. Northland holdings include the Sandman Hotel chain and Moxie's Classic Grill restaurants and Shark Club sports bars as well as 37 Denny's franchises across western Canada and a newly opened Denny’s in Newcastle, England.
In 2007 and 2008, Tom Gaglardi, Phil's grandson and Northland's current CEO, was a key figure in a high profile court case involving ownership of the Vancouver Canucks. His hockey involvement continues with his role in the ownership group for the Kamloops Blazers.
The Vancouver Sun's Vaughn Palmer reported on January 22 that Tom Gaglardi is a member of the "20/20" group, a team of prominent business figures backing Kevin Falcon's run for leader of the provincial Liberal party. The group is chaired by Ryan Beedie, Gaglardi's partner in the thwarted attempt to acquire control of the Canucks. -- T.S.
"We think that anyone who comes to Canada to work should be eligible to apply for permanent resident status," Ordinario told The Tyee. "Temporary foreign workers contribute to EI and to the CPP but never get to collect any benefits. In 2008, for example, temporary foreign workers contributed $303 million to the EI fund."
Ordinario said that the $6,000 recruitment fees allegedly exacted from Denny's workers represented a huge amount of money for workers who could expect, in Manila, to make an average wage of $4.35 a day.
The Denny's class action seeks $10 million in lost wages, recruitment and travel costs and punitive damages for the foreign workers, who were brought to Canada under the controversial Temporary Foreign Workers Program. This federal program, which critics say leaves the workers imported into Canada highly vulnerable to employer abuse, allows employers to import workers from overseas, binds the workers to the importing employer, restricts the amount of time a foreign worker can remain in Canada and prevents all but a few of those brought in under the program from applying to remain as permanent residents.
'Shocked by suit': Denny's CEO
Denny's CEO Bobby Naicker is confident that the class action suit will not be successful.
"We were shocked and concerned when we learned of the class action suit," he told The Tyee. "It caught us off guard. But we are comfortable we have done the right thing."
Naicker said that Denny's had a 95 per cent renewal rate among temporary foreign workers who chose to renew their employment with the firm when their original contract ran out. He pointed to the existence of a Denny's staff member whose job responsibilities include helping foreign workers settling into Canadian employment.
"We help them get accommodations, social insurance numbers and health care," he said. "We're not obligated to do all this stuff, but we do it. We even help new arrivals find churches and ethnic grocery stores."
Naicker said that the average wage for Denny's employees, none of whom are unionized, is $11.50 an hour in B.C.
Deborah Gagnon, vice president of operations for Denny's Canada was on speaker phone when The Tyee spoke with Naicker. Gagnon is named in the class action suit documents as the Denny's management figure who fired temporary foreign worker Alfredo Sales for asking about overtime pay and travel expenses. But Gagnon told The Tyee that she did not recognize the name and denied that she had ever fired a worker for making such inquiries.
Alfredo Sales, reached by phone in the Philippines, said he remembers Gagnon very well. He told The Tyee that he had come to Canada as a contract worker under the temporary foreign worker program in November of 2008, working as a supervisor at the Broadway Denny's in Vancouver.
'I had big dreams'
"I had big dreams when I came to Canada," said Sales. "I wanted to work and share my skills. I thought Denny's would be part of those dreams, but Denny's has integrity issues. Once I learned that I shouldn't have been charged $6,000.00 to get my job, and once I saw how sometimes I wouldn't get a full 40-hour week, and once the people at Service Canada and the Employment Standards Branch told me I should get the money I paid for travel back, I sent an email to Ms. Gagnon in June of 2010. She booked an appointment with me on August 10 and I thought she was going to accommodate me. But instead she fired me."
Sales said that Gagnon told him "the company didn't need my services any more, even though I had a contract until November. I was devastated, crying and praying. So I want to make a stand. The company tried to terminate me so other foreign workers wouldn't stand up to them."
Sales said he then spoke with the provincial Employment Standards branch.
"I was informed of ESA sec. 83 that an employer may not terminate an employee who is pursuing his right under the employment act. Deborah acted on behalf of the company for a breach of contract to my understanding," he told The Tyee in an email.
Sales said that after intervention by the provincial Employment Standards Branch, Denny's did pay for his return air fare and dealt with the issue of unpaid overtime, but the company has not paid him for the money he would have made if he had been allowed to work out the term of his contract, or for the $6,000.00 he was improperly required to pay the employment agency in the Philippines.
"Deborah was offering $2,600 as settlement for the breach of contract which I refused and didn't accepted for the very reason that it was way below than the remaining three and a half months pay of the duration of my two-years contract," Sales said in his email.
Denny's has brought 200 workers to Canada
The Denny's management team told The Tyee that their firm had been participating in the Temporary Foreign Worker program since 2006, and had brought in approximately 200 workers from offshore during that time, 50 of whom worked in B.C. restaurants. Denny's Canada currently employs about 2,600 workers across western Canada, they said. Naicker said that Denny's had paid air travel expenses for four temporary foreign workers to return to the Philippines so far.
The labour attaché for the Philippines Consulate in Vancouver, Bernardino Julve, told The Tyee that he had not been following the Denny's case. He confirmed that under existing inter-government agreements and local law, temporary foreign workers should not be required to pay recruitment fees to get a Canadian job, and should have their travel costs paid for return Philippines/Canada travel.
"We don't have jurisdiction in B.C.," Julve said, "but if companies in the Philippines aren't following policy, we could take steps. We have not been approached about this matter." ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
16
Login or register to post comments
Dan the socialist
2 years ago
Sons a bitches eh? Pardon my
Sons a bitches eh? Pardon my language but this is outrageous and I will never eat at Denny's ever again even though denny's may or may not of been directly involved, however i can not support a business that does not keep a close eye on things like they should.
$6000 recruitment fee? How do you pay that back at 11.50 an hour when one has rent, food an dother bills in the most expensive city in Canada? This sounds more like slave trading...I am outraged!
It is sickening it is 2011 and human beings are still exploited on this planet...
We saw this same crap with the Canada line, foreign workers brought in to work for peanuts and treated like garbage.
These guys should try and unionise like some of the Starbucks, Kentucky fried Chicken, A&W's and White Spots etc have done. I think some/a lot of the restaurant/food industry is one area that really needs unions.
TYEE MODERATOR'S NOTE: Just a reminder that the allegations are unproven in court. Best to precede a comment like this with something like... 'If these charges prove true, then...'
snert
2 years ago
Temporary Foreign Workers Program.
Restaurants should not be allowed to use this program, period.
If they can't get local workers to perform the task then they should either raise their wages (and prices, if necessary) or get out of business.
As for the Temporary Foreign Workers Program, there should be better ground rules established as to just who pays for what when travelling from the home location.
See ya later Denny's. Not.
Van Isle
2 years ago
With the unemployment we
With the unemployment we have now what in hell do we allow guest workers at all? If we don't have trained Canadians to do the job, the problem is simple; train Canadians 1st, before we allow ANY foreigners in. I'm with Dan on this one, me and my family are no longer going to be visiting Denny's any more.
dunngy59
2 years ago
Foreign Workers
Funny how,when supply and demand economics affect costs, big business wants government help,by circumventing the rules that would normally apply to Canadian citizens.If the food wasn't a good enough reason not to patronize this business,then this is the
only one you need.
Fiat lux
2 years ago
All the multinational
All the multinational "foreign investor" Denny's and the rest of these minimum wage, part timer, chickenshit outfits are doing is trying to become "more efficient" in today's economic terms, by stealing from the workers and the public and paying more and more to executives and shareholders.
Taught in our universities as the benefits of "competitive globalization" and "cost cuttings".
Just ask our distinguished PM, Stevie, who has a Masters in the racket and claims "prosperity" is up during his regime.
He, and the rest of the so called "economists", should have seen and worked in Canada in the 50s and 60s, when people were making decent wages, one breadwinner per family was enough, everybody could afford to buy and own a home.
"Wealth creating foreign investors" weren't allowed to buy up and control this country and the predecessors of the Chinese communist millionaire class were running around in blue pyjamas with Mao's Little Red Book in their hands, instead of buying up the West End with Canadian money from their slave labour factories, and "investing" in the Tar sands.
Ed Deak.
on ways to pleasure
2 years ago
Foreign Workers! why?
koodos,snert!
this 'Foreign Workers' business smell corruption - in any country-,and for a developed country like Canada,with its own unemployment, shoud not exist. This would eliminate the extortion of 6 gran from the desperate and low breaking by the greedy.
We have enough jobless-diploma missing folks,who should be filling these jobs. Sertainly, we are not short of Phillipino people with Canadian pasport to work here.
frank2
2 years ago
I'd hope MPs would
I'd hope MPs would investigate this to find out how on earth Denny's could get temporary foreign workers at all. Canadians ARE available, though not necessarily at the sub-poverty level wages apparently offered by Dennys. I will dine there no more.
Transport_nation
2 years ago
At so many levels we are
At so many levels we are seeing more and more guest workers being landed. I'm with Jane Ordinaro, once a worker arrives here they should be able to make an application to stay as a landed immigrant.
These workers are highly exploitable. In the case of the Philippines they export labour the same way we export logs or coal or any other commodity.
The agency business in Manila is very structured. They run on connections and exist on fear of blacklisting. So if you want to work you must keep your mouth shut. This former employee of Denny's, Alfredo Sale, will probably never pick up an overseas job again due to blacklisting.
He can appeal to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, and further appeal to the Dept. of Labour and Employment, but its a mugs game and he would be so bound up in red tape and no real evidence that its hopeless.
The only way to deal with this is to make sure employers like Denny's know that you know!
Last summer I drove to Toronto. I was way up in northern Ont in a little town called Dryden. Two Filipina's were at the counter of the Petrocan. I asked them what they were doing in the middle of no where. The reply, "we are everywhere".
Everywhere indeed.
Lets support them and help them.
Doug Alder
2 years ago
Last Time
Last time I ever eat in a Denny's. Time to throw the Conservatives out of office (federally and provincially) and replace them with greens and/or NDP who will at least look out for Canadians first, and by Canadians I don't mean multi-national corporations.
In the US in Vermont the state legislature there is aiming for a federal constitutional amendment that denies personhood to corporations. We need to pursue the same thing here.
Lemec
2 years ago
Counter point
With all due respect to all the opinions posted I need to offer this perspective from someone who actually works in the food industry. Firstly, the temporary foreign worker program was set up due to a "Real" shortage in several industries and most notably in the food industry. Not because entrepreneurs wanted to maximize profits. I lived through the "boom times" when you couldn't find a Canadian to fill a restaurant job for love nor money. Having said that, it is the same program that stipulates that when the "good times" are over (as evidenced by current economic conditions) , if hours must be cut back, Canadians have priority over foreign workers. I think most would agree to this as making sense. Also, the notion that restaurant operators can just start charging $20 bucks or higher for a burger to pay food service workers better wages is not financially realistic. Consumers simply will not pay. Get your facts straight before condemning hard working small business operators who are thankful for the foreign workers who likely saved their business from going under when no one wanted the jobs offered.
Frank
2 years ago
Lemec
Bull, there's lots of people that are unemployed and under-employed and would be happy to work at any job paying a decent wage.
The problem is you don't want to pay a decent wage and believe the government should help you out of your supply and demand problem.
If you can't make a go of it without exploiting desperate people then you shouldn't be in business.
$6 sucks and so does $8.
For anyone believing there's a shortage of labour go ahead and run a few basic "work wanted" ads on places like craigslist and vancouverjobshop and so on. If you get a single response I'll be very surprised.
vancurber
2 years ago
Lemec
Even during the most heated period of time, there were plenty of workers available, especially for something simple like working at Denny's. Maybe they weren't ideal employees. Maybe they had a shady past. Maybe they weren't all that attractive. Maybe they were just starting out. But they were available. If good times don't help people get a hand up, no times will. We expect to cut welfare and unemployment rates but then don't want to hire these people either. It's disgusting.
Snowrunner
2 years ago
Rules
@Snert
"As for the Temporary Foreign Workers Program, there should be better ground rules established as to just who pays for what when travelling from the home location."
There are.
The only cost the worker should have to pay is the $150 processing fee to the Government.
Travel costs (read, how you get to the country) is up for you to negotiate, but $6000 is excessive, no airplane ticket will be that expensive. Whoever did the hiring for Dennys either must have gotten a promotion from the company to essentially find free money and workers or pocketed it themselves.
Snowrunner
2 years ago
Foreign Workers
"this 'Foreign Workers' business smell corruption - in any country-,and for a developed country like Canada,with its own unemployment, shoud not exist."
That is a very simiplistic view of the realities of the world.
Firstly, a rule of thumb is that there is a "natural level of unemployment" which is around 5%, this includes people like stay at home parents, disabled etc.
Then there is the reality that only a certain part of the population can work anyway, highschool/ university students usually aren't considered in the workforce, neither are the retirees.
"This would eliminate the extortion of 6 gran from the desperate and low breaking by the greedy."
No it wouldn't. They would just get them in under the radar without giving those workers any kind of legal protection. Just because you make something illegal doesn't mean it won't happen anymore.
"We have enough jobless-diploma missing folks,who should be filling these jobs. Sertainly, we are not short of Phillipino people with Canadian pasport to work here."
1. How do you think they got here?
2. How many people with a degree can you see volunteering to work for a job at Denny's (or any other similar job)?
Having this program IS good, because it allows people who are exploited by their employers to actually have some legal recourse. If they'd be here illegal nobody would care and the employer essentially just gets a slap on the wrist anyway.
And yeah, I came through the Foreign Worker program too and eventually became a PR through the Canadian Experience Class. But: I am not from Asia but from Europe and in a high-tech field, but even there it comes down to "know your rights". the reality is that most HR departments have zero understanding on how this program works. I have worked a senior HR worker at a large multinational consulting company through the process of obtaining the WP, that's where the REAL problem lies.
Frank
2 years ago
Snowrunner
You make a common mistake concerning the "natural rate of unemployment"
Your math suggests that a 5% natural rate of unemployment means 95% of the people are working. They aren't. The employment numbers usually sit around 68% and so the other 32% are not working, and that includes your stay-at-home parents, retirees, students.
If you read up on the "natural rate of unemployment" you'll find its a supply-side economic theory that says the only way to reduce unemployment below the "natural level" is by letting inflation rise. Nothing to do with the unemployed. What the "natural rate of unemployment" is is a policy goal.
And nothing to do with stay-at-home parents or students or retirees, all of whom are not considered to be in the workforce.
People with degrees do apply at places like Denny's. We'd like to think they don't but they do. Again, run some fake "work wanted" ads and see what you get in response. Its illuminating.
homegrown
2 years ago
And I don't trust
And I don't trust businesspeople why?
Here they go again doing the very thing that makes them so odious (well, not all of them, but . . . ) and this is the kind of people who support the unLiberals? Yuck!