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‘Modernising’ Employment Standards? Administrative Efficiency and the Production of the Illegitimate Claimant in Ontario, Canada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Mary Gellatly ,
John Grundy ,
Kiran Mirchandani ,
J. Adam Perry ,
Mark P. Thomas  and
Leah F. Vosko
Mary Gellatly
Affiliation:
Community Legal Worker, Parkdale Community Legal Services
John Grundy
Affiliation:
York University, Toronto
Kiran Mirchandani
Affiliation:
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto
J. Adam Perry
Affiliation:
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto
Mark P. Thomas
Affiliation:
York University, Toronto
Leah F. Vosko
Affiliation:
York University, Toronto
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Abstract

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In October 2010, the provincial government of Ontario, Canada enacted the Open for Business Act (OBA). A central component of the OBA is its provisions aiming to streamline the enforcement of Ontario’s Employment Standards Act (ESA). The OBA’s changes to the ESA are an attempt to manage a crisis of employment standards (ES) enforcement, arising from decades of ineffective regulation, by entrenching an individualised enforcement model. The Act aims to streamline enforcement by screening people assumed to be lacking definitive proof of violations out of the complaints process. The OBA therefore produces a new category of ‘illegitimate claimants’ and attributes administrative backlogs to these people. Instead of improving the protection of workers, the OBA embeds new racialised and gendered modes of exclusion in the ES enforcement process.

Keywords

J710J780J880Employment standardsenforcementlabour market regulationneoliberal racismOntarioprecarious work
Type
Symposium
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 22 , Issue 2: Minimum Labour Standards and Their Enforcement , July 2011 , pp. 81 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2011

Footnotes

1

Alphabetical authorship reflects equal contribution.

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