Wage fixing and no-poach agreements will be criminalized in Canada.
A worker is in charge of the store's capacity.
The photo was taken by Davidkawai.
A Liberal Member of Parliament woke up on his birthday in 2020 and wrote an email.
On June 13, 2020, Canada's top three grocery chains simultaneously canceled their $2-per-hour "hero pay" bonuses for front-line workers.
On a basic level, it was outrageous. "I was just angry."
The subject line of the email was "I'm giving notice of this motion today."
A change to the way Canada protects workers from wage suppression was made last week after a two-year chain of events.
On June 15, 2020, the House of Commons industry committee was asked to summon grocery executives to explain why they slashed bonuses.
The Liberal Member of Parliament is Nathaniel Erskine- Smith.
Adrian Wyld took this photo.
The top executives from each of the three chains appeared before the committee and said they had been in contact with one another before cancelling the hero bonuses.
Sarah Davis said she sent an email to her competitors to let them know she was making a decision. Metro CEO Eric La Flche called executives at other chains to find out when they were going to cut bonuses. The companies made their own decisions on hero pay.
The business is booming, according to Erskine. Mr. La Flche is reaching out to his competitors to ask when they can cut wages.
La Flche disagreed with that again.
The rest of the questions will be left to the Competition Bureau.
During a Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology meeting on front-line grocery store workers as seen on a laptop computer, he spoke.
The photo was taken by Davidkawai.
The Competition Bureau didn't investigate. When employers collude to fix wages or agree not to hire each other's staff, the Competition Act does not consider it to be a crime.
Collusion between businesses to lower the cost of inputs isn't always a bad thing for consumers If independents pool their resources to get a better deal on ingredients, their customers could benefit from cheaper retail prices.
The bureau was able to go after wage- fixing in civil cases, but first it had to prove that the behavior hurt competition Boswell said that proving that is not a low threshold. The House of Commons industry committee asked the government to add wage- fixing and no-poach agreements to the list of criminal offenses.
The federal government has been following the rules. There are a number of Competition Act amendments in the spring budget bill. The bill received royal assent on June 23 and includes a change that will make it illegal to fix wages. The amendment will come into effect in June.
The new rules will change how Michael Kilby advises employers on labour issues. He used to tell clients that the bureau could only pursue wage- fixing in civil cases and that there were no real penalties associated with it. Employers found guilty of wage fixing or no-poach agreements could face unlimited fines, jail time, and class action lawsuits.
Kilby said that this isn't a little stick or a slap on the wrist. This is a huge liability.
This isn’t a little stick, or a slap on the wrist. In the worst case, this is huge liability
Michael Kilby
According to Kilby, the ban on wage-fixing and no-poach agreements will apply to franchisors of the same brand. Rules that forbid them from stealing each other's staff can sometimes be applied to those franchises. Tim Hortons used to have a no-poach clause. In older agreements, the coffee chain doesn't enforce the clause.
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce argued against the criminalization of no-poach agreements, saying that if they don't have to worry about losing employees to other restaurants, they can spend more money on training.
They're a business at the end of the day. Mark Agnew is the chamber's senior vice-president of policy and government relations. If there is a risk that the folks that they are hiring could be poached, then that is a deterrent for them to invest this into my employee training.
Vass Bednar, an advocate for competition reform in Canada, said the franchise model shouldn't mean "you can have your cake and eat it too."
Bednar said, "You can pretend you're an independent business operator, you can buy into this model, and we'll make sure that we'll suppress the wages of your workers." Maybe you should have to compete for talent in order to attract and retain it.
Two years ago, he wasn't anticipating all this debate. He didn't think the hearing with the grocery executives would be a turning point when he wrote that email. He was surprised to hear that CEOs communicate with each other.
I was not the only one. There were colleagues who were frustrated and shocked at the hearings. That led to a much more serious discussion about wage fixing.
The email address is jedmiston@postmedia.
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