Contract Workers Denied Basic Rights

I have talked about the independent contract worker vs employee issue here and here . It's a threat to workers everywhere. Here in Ontario there are rules governing who is an employee but these rules are often bent and are in dire need of fine tuning. If the minimum wage is indeed raised to $10.00 per hour, employers can avoid giving this benefit (and any others) to their workers by labelling them "contract workers", a tragic semantic dodge.

Contractor. Subcontractor. Independent owner. Self-employer. Franchisee. Under these and other job arrangements, many low-pay Ontario workers in the service sector – mainly women, recent immigrants and visible minorities – are being denied minimum wages and other basic employment rights by employers evading labour-protection laws.
Under the province's Employment Standards Act, minimum standards protect an employee's rights: statutory holidays, overtime pay, minimum wage, vacation pay, work breaks, termination pay. The catch is, you have to be deemed an "employee."
At the end of the working day, the wages of many so-called self-employed or contract workers can amount to as little as $4 an hour, half the legal minimum in Ontario. More...