Unions can help bring attention to a problem, but they can’t solve it on their own
Matthew Olsen, who lives in Montreal, says that when he was in school, he made money by writing on his own. But even though the work kept him going for three years, he knew he would have to leave soon.
Managers at his preferred digital platform, which is based in the United States, didn’t always tell him and other regular contractors what was expected of them, he said. They also made frequent changes to pay schedules, which left them without a stable paycheck.
And what’s worse, Olsen said, is that he felt as though he had no one he could turn to for help.
Olsen, who is 25 years old, said, “I can look online as much as I want, but it’s still hard to figure out what protections you have.”
He is part of a growing group of Canadian workers who are considered contractors, freelancers, and gig workers. All of these types of workers have different ways of working with their employers and often have few or no worker protections. The federal government says about 10 per cent of Canadian workers were classified as gig workers in 2020, up from 5.5 per cent in 2005.
Advocates and workers like Olsen say that more protections, more awareness, and stricter enforcement are needed to protect the rights of the growing number of Canadians who do this kind of work as it becomes more common.
“More and more Canadians are going to end up in situations like this,” said Olsen, who now works as a painter on a contract basis and likes that he can talk to his boss “face to face” and that his shifts are more consistent.
“More people will end up in bad situations if they don’t know their rights and how businesses are supposed to treat their employees or contractors.”
Where do workers go for help
Lindsay Zier-Vogel, a freelance grant writer and author who lives in Toronto, said that she has been regularly taking on clients since 2020. She said that most clients have paid, but there have been a few times when clients got “vitriolic” when a grant application didn’t work out and didn’t pay her at all.
The Mendocina It was It was Writer S A a Writer It But The Sheratona It I was a an an an an a The It. Zier-Vogel said that if the person hadn’t come forward, she would have had to take the hit and lost the time and hundreds of dollars in wages.
She said, “It’s a lot of work, and I don’t have the means to keep going after the money.”
Nora Loreto, president of the union, said that it’s common for these types of workers to eat the cost of their work instead of trying to get what’s owed, which can mean anything from badgering clients for payment to taking them to small claims court. This could be true for people who have clients or contractors outside the country or who don’t have any assets in the country.
WATCH: The number of gig workers is on the rise:
Loreto said that’s why the union, which has about 200 members, is trying to get more attention so people will know it exists. It wants to help freelancers and their clients settle disagreements and put an end to job misclassification, which is when workers are wrongly seen as contractors when they should be seen as employees.
Loreto said that these workers especially need a union that can “go to bat” for them at a time when layoffs are common in industries that use freelance workers, like the media, communications, and creative sectors.
Loreto said, “It means that there are a lot more freelance workers and a lot fewer salaried workers with health benefits and stable jobs.”
“But we can’t handle it on our own. I mean, this is where we need really strong labor laws, better ways to make sure they’re followed, and an end to misclassification.”
Unions can make advocacy stronger: lawye
Canadian provinces have long struggled with defining and outlining the different types of workers, said Michael Lynk, an associate law professor who specializes in labour at Western University in London, Ont.
The federal government is currently deliberating over years worth of consultations with people in the labour sector on plans to implement more protections for gig workers. Employment and Social Development Canada was asked for comment by CBC News, but they didn’t get back to them in time for publication.
Lynk said that workers should be able to get together more easily and that labor laws should be enforced more.
“We probably need to give employment standards offices in provincial or federal ministries of labor across the country more investigative power,” he said.
Lynk also said that making it possible for unions to exist throughout the workforce could help balance the “lopsided seesaw” between employers and workers, both in the gig and freelance economy and in other places.
“In this … economy, employees really only have rights that are measurable by their collective voice as opposed to their scattered individual voices,” he said.
Lynk said that while the federal government is in charge of about 10–12% of the Canadian workforce, he hopes it will still be able to change things in the provinces.
“The law is really just playing checkers, while corporations are playing chess with the help of technology,” he said.