{"id":8767,"date":"2025-04-17T13:59:55","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T13:59:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/?p=8767"},"modified":"2025-04-28T14:00:33","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T14:00:33","slug":"bc-employment-standards-tribunal-highlights-out-of-control-underground-economy-and-labour-trafficking-in-trucking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/bc-employment-standards-tribunal-highlights-out-of-control-underground-economy-and-labour-trafficking-in-trucking\/","title":{"rendered":"BC Employment Standards Tribunal Highlights Out-Of-Control Underground Economy and Labour Trafficking in Trucking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The BC Employment Standards Tribunal recently shined a light on how the Canadian trucking industry is home to one of the largest underground economies and international human trafficking rings in Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As reported\u00a0by CBC<\/a>,\u00a0a\u00a0worker from India who claimed he was shorted wages and had to pay $25,000 to obtain a job at a truck repair company in Richmond, B.C., has been awarded $115,574.69 by the B.C. Employment Standards Tribunal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe horrific immigration and employment situation that Mr. Singh and his family had to experience, is experienced by countless of people coming to Canada each year who want to work in the trucking industry,\u201d said Stephen Laskowski, President & CEO, of the Canadian Trucking Alliance. \u201cCTA has been trying to end this treatment of workers in the trucking industry, but our voice has mostly fallen upon deaf ears in government. Unfortunately, Mr. Singh\u2019s story is one of thousands that is occurring in the trucking industry across Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The growing labour abuse scam<\/a> in trucking involves a vast network, which includes immigration consultants, driver training institutes, job placement firms and trucking companies. In many cases, the scheme charges a worker a \u2018head tax\u2019. In the case of Mr. Singh, the head tax was $25,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Mr. Singh was awarded all back payments he was entitled under the Employment Standards Act, the sad reality is that the violator of Mr. Singh\u2019s labour and human rights was only assessed a total of $4000 dollars in fines for eight separate contraventions of the Employment Standards Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSince 2016 the Canadian Trucking Alliance has been compelling governments at every level to enact meaningful enforcement against labour rights violators and protect the rights of workers in Canada \u2013 both foreign and domestic,\u201d said Laskowski. \u201cThe Government of Canada, specifically ESDC and Immigration Canada, need to end this abuse of foreign labour, protect workers and human rights, and in doing so clean up the trucking sector that is rife with these abuses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2023,\u00a0a UN expert sounded the alarm<\/a>\u00a0of contemporary forms of slavery in Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor nearly a decade the BC Trucking Association (BCTA) has been calling for significant, sustained improvement of enforcement for all labour and safety regulation in the trucking industry,\u201d said Dave Earle, president of the BCTA. \u201cMr. Singh\u2019s experience should never have happened, and it\u2019s not unique. It is far past time for governments at all levels to get serious about eliminating exploitation and abuse of workers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The BC Employment Standards Tribunal recently shined a light on how the Canadian trucking industry is home to one of the largest underground economies and international human trafficking rings in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8768,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,28,17],"tags":[2490,312,31,203,1999,1448],"class_list":["post-8767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-admin-tax","category-labour-hr-driver-shortage","category-news-releases","tag-bc-employment-standards-tribunal","tag-bcta","tag-driver-inc","tag-immigration","tag-labour-abuse","tag-underground-economy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}