Tell the NDP to Enforce Employment Standards!
Socialist Alternative, alongside groups like the Worker Solidarity Network, recently waged a campaign in BC for ten paid sick days per year for workers in the face of the ongoing COVID pandemic, in the end, winning five. This partial victory represents an incremental step toward a truly fair and just society, but it is nonetheless a significant improvement in the lives of BC workers, and a hard-won concession from employers.
But like the minimum wage, or the eight-hour day, or regular meal breaks — all won despite tooth-and-nail resistance from the bosses — the right to five paid sick days was enshrined in BC’s Employment Standards Act, not out of generosity, but reluctantly, in response to the demands of an organized working class. And it follows that all of these hard-fought victories count for little if employment standards are not actually being enforced in BC, since flouting them is often in the bosses’ best interest.
Under capitalism, and absent enforcement, workers’ rights exist in name only.
Unfortunately, this essentially describes the situation in BC ever since the provincial Liberals swept to power in 2001 and proceeded to downsize the Employment Standards Branch (ESB) — the government agency responsible for enforcing workers’ rights. By 2011, they had reduced the ESB by over 50 percent in terms of both its budget and enforcement staff and had closed eight of its regional offices (there are only eight in the province today), leaving it a shell of its former self, unable to launch proactive investigations. And to make matters worse, the Liberals also made it more administratively difficult for workers to file complaints, reducing the number the ESB received by two-thirds between 1998 and 2004. In the wake of this assault on workers’ rights, an employer “culture of non-compliance” with employment standards prevailed in the province: in the gig sector, for example, it became routine for bosses to misclassify their employees as “contractors” to skirt the Employment Standards Act; and in just the last few years of the Liberal’s reign, between 2013 and 2017, employers made off with an estimated $14.9 million in wages stolen from BC workers.
To their credit, the BC NDP have reversed this deplorable trend since coming to power in 2017. They have expanded the ESB’s budget and staff. And, in addition, they have also legislated small but significant improvements to the Employment Standards Act. As well as conceding the five paid sick days, for example, they have also created the Temporary Foreign Worker Protection Act, barred 16- to 18-year-old workers from certain dangerous jobs, and introduced legislation to recognize the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on September 30 as a statutory holiday. These are positive developments, and they stand in stark contrast to the legacy left by the provincial Liberals.
But a damning report published in 2022 by the BC Employment Standards Coalition makes clear that the NDP still needs to do more to protect workers’ rights – much more. In fact, according to the report, which is unambiguously entitled Justice Denied: The systemic failure to enforce employment standards, the ESB is still so underfunded (budget: $14 million) and understaffed (employees: 158) that 80 percent of workers in the province still effectively have no rights at work. In addition, the report:
- cites evidence that many worker complaints are still being systemically suppressed;
- shows that the ESB still usually takes over half a year to resolve worker complaints, and sometimes takes years to resolve them (and justice delayed is justice denied);
- points out that the ESB still does not have the resources it needs to investigate employers proactively, which according to the BC Law Institute, is essential to combating the prevailing culture of employer non-compliance with employment standards; and
- recommends at least doubling the ESB’s current $14 million budget.
In the ESB’s current state, in other words, it is clearly unequal to the task of adequately enforcing employment standards in BC. Even under the NDP, justice is still being denied to BC workers.
And the NDP is well aware of this: it was acknowledged by the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services in its 2023 Report on the Budget Consultation, which recommended boosting funding to the ESB to address its “unacceptable” wait times and the still-widespread misclassification of employees in the gig sector. And there is no question that the government has more than enough money on hand to do this: the $14 million funding boost the BC Employment Standards Coalition is recommending is a drop in the bucket of the nearly $6 billion surplus the NDP is currently deciding how best to spend.
When the government announces the 2023 annual budget on February 28, therefore, BC workers will find out exactly how much Premier David Eby’s NDP really cares about them. Will it put its money where its mouth is, and back up its modest expansion of workers’ rights with adequate enforcement? If not, this expansion — like five paid sick days — will continue to exist as little more than pretty pieces of paper from the perspective of many working people.
Investing in the enforcement of workers’ rights should be a no-brainer. There is certainly no argument for simply trusting employers to respect workers’ rights of their own volition — to do this is to leave the foxes guarding the henhouse. In some sense, it is actually unfair even to employers to leave them in this position, as capitalist logic forces them to choose between violating that trust on one hand and being outcompeted by less scrupulous competitors on the other. In the end, workers’ rights will inevitably be trampled. As long as BC workers labour under capitalism — an inherently exploitative system — any rights they win must be vigilantly defended.
That’s why Socialist Alternative has again partnered with the Worker Solidarity Network, supporting their Justice Delayed is Justice Denied campaign to push for more funding to the ESB, and the recommencement of proactive investigations of employers. And it is not too late to sign the petition! Add your name to show BC workers some love, and to show the NDP that voters care about workers’ rights and want them enforced.
Many of the victories the working class has won through tireless class struggle depend on tempering the exploitative nature of their bosses, after all. Until BC workers finally own the factories, forests, fields and offices in which they toil, the Employment Standards Branch must be sufficiently funded.
