Latest news with #LabourMinistry
CTV News
2 days ago
- Business
- CTV News
Toronto private college, director fined more than $400,000 for failing to pay wages to 14 employees
A private college in Toronto and its director are each facing significant fines for failing to pay almost $185,000 in wages owed to 14 employees. In a May 28 court bulletin, the Ontario Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development identified the business in question as Ontario International College Inc./College International De L'Ontario Inc., located at 16 Wellebourne Cres. in Toronto. The workplace of the corporation's director, Anchuan Jiang, is 3550 Victoria Park Ave. in North York, it said. According to the ministry, Ontario International College Inc. 'failed to comply with orders to pay wages,' which was issued by an employment standards officer (ESO) under section 103(8) of the Employment Standards Act, 2000, which is an offence under section 132 of the Act. It further said that Jiang failed, as the corporation's director, to comply with a director order to pay issued by an ESO under section 106 of the Act, which is an offence under section 136. The orders to pay the unpaid wages were issued between October 2019 and October 2020. However, the corporation did not comply, nor did it seek a review of the orders to pay, the ministry said. The ESO then issued a direct order to pay to Jiang, who also did not follow through with the order, nor did he apply for a review. At that point, the ministry took the corporation and its director to court for failing to comply with the respective order to pay were both convicted on March 28 following guilty verdicts on all counts in the Provincial Offences Court in Toronto. Justice of the Peace Ruby Wong fined Ontario International College Inc. $270,000 and its director, Anchuan Jiang, $140,000. This amount does not include the owed wages. The court has also imposed a 25 per cent victim fine surcharge on the defendants, as required by the Provincial Offences Act. This surcharge will go to a special provincial government fund that helps victims of crime. Dave Simpson and Alexsis Qi served as the provincial prosecutors for both cases.
CTV News
3 days ago
- Business
- CTV News
Toronto private college, director fined more than $400,000 for failing to pay wages to 14 employees
A private college in Toronto and its director are each facing significant fines for failing to pay almost $185,000 in wages owed to 14 employees. In a May 28 court bulletin, the Ontario Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development identified the business in question as Ontario International College Inc./College International De L'Ontario Inc., located at 16 Wellebourne Cres. in Toronto. The workplace of the corporation's director, Anchuan Jiang, is 3550 Victoria Park Ave. in North York, it said. According to the ministry, Ontario International College Inc. 'failed to comply with orders to pay wages,' which was issued by an employment standards officer (ESO) under section 103(8) of the Employment Standards Act, 2000, which is an offence under section 132 of the Act. It further said that Jiang failed, as the corporation's director, to comply with a director order to pay issued by an ESO under section 106 of the Act, which is an offence under section 136. The orders to pay the unpaid wages were issued between October 2019 and October 2020. However, the corporation did not comply, nor did it seek a review of the orders to pay, the ministry said. The ESO then issued a direct order to pay to Jiang, who also did not follow through with the order, nor did he apply for a review. At that point, the ministry took the corporation and its director to court for failing to comply with the respective order to pay were both convicted on March 28 following guilty verdicts on all counts in the Provincial Offences Court in Toronto. Justice of the Peace Ruby Wong fined Ontario International College Inc. $270,000 and its director, Anchuan Jiang, $140,000. This amount does not include the owed wages. The court has also imposed a 25 per cent victim fine surcharge on the defendants, as required by the Provincial Offences Act. This surcharge will go to a special provincial government fund that helps victims of crime. Dave Simpson and Alexsis Qi served as the provincial prosecutors for both cases.
Global News
3 days ago
- Business
- Global News
B.C. minimum wage to rise by 45 cents on June 1
British Columbia's Labour Ministry says the province's lowest-paid workers are getting a pay bump as of Sunday. It says the minimum wage will increase from $17.40 to $17.85 an hour. The ministry says the 2.6 per cent increase also applies to pay rates for resident caretakers, live-in home-support workers, live-in camp leaders and app-based delivery and ride-hail services workers. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy The government says it has made regular, gradual increases to the minimum wage to provide certainty for workers and predictability for businesses. It says this is the fourth year of the government's ongoing commitment to tie annual minimum-wage increases to inflation. The ministry also noted that hand harvesters will see the 2.6 per cent pay jump on Dec. 31 instead of June 1 to ensure crop producers don't need to make the change in the middle of the harvesting season. Story continues below advertisement It cites Statistics Canada data saying there were about 130,000 workers in B.C. who earned minimum wage or less in 2024.
Hans India
24-05-2025
- Business
- Hans India
Govt ratifies interest rate on PF deposits at 8.25 pc for FY 2024-25
New Delhi: The Centre has ratified the interest rate on employees' provident fund (PF) deposits at 8.25 per cent for FY2024-25 -- the same as the previous fiscal. In February, the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) announced to retain the interest rate on employees' provident fund deposits at 8.25 per cent for FY25. The decision was taken by the EPFO's Central Board of Trustees at a meeting in the national capital. The Ministry of Finance has now cleared the rate of interest on employees' PF at 8.25 per cent for FY25. A notification from the Labour Ministry has also been sent to the retirement fund body this week, according to reliable sources on Saturday. The interest rate on EPF for 2024-25 is set to be credited into the accounts of the EPFO members. The EPFO had earlier increased the interest rate on EPF for its 7 crore members to 8.25 per cent for 2023-24, from 8.15 per cent in 2022-23. Meanwhile, EPFO added 14.58 lakh net members in March, and an increase of 1.15 per cent in net payroll additions compared to March 2024. The PF organisation enrolled around 7.54 lakh new subscribers in March 2025, representing a 2.03 per cent increase over February and 0.98 per cent (year-over-year) growth compared to the previous year in March 2024. According to the Labour Ministry, the growth in new subscribers can be attributed to growing employment opportunities, increased awareness of employee benefits, and EPFO's successful outreach programmes. A noticeable aspect of the data is the dominance of the 18-25 age group, as 4.45 lakh new subscribers were added in the 18-25 age group, constituting a significant 58.94 per cent of the total new subscribers added in March 2025. Further, the net payroll addition for the age group 18-25 for March was approximately 6.68 lakh -- reflecting a growth of 6.49 per cent from the previous year in March 2024.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Yahoo
The world's most dangerous country for trade unionists
In July last year, Jesús Cometa was shot at as he was driving through the Cauca Valley in southwest Colombia. Gunmen on motorbikes pulled up alongside his car and sprayed it with bullets. Mr Cometa escaped uninjured but his bodyguard was hit. "He still has a bullet lodged in his chest," he says. Mr Cometa is one of thousands of trade unionists who have been attacked in recent years in Colombia which, by some measurements, is the most dangerous place in the world for organised labour. The Cauca Valley is home to the country's sugar industry, and he is a local representative of Sintrainagro, Colombia's largest agricultural trade union. "When you take on these roles in the union, you lose your social life," Mr Cometa says. "You can't just go and hang out in a crowded bar, or on a street corner, because you never know when you might be targeted. "Your family suffers too because they know that they're also targets." Colombia country profile Colombia's wind farms bring promise and pain for indigenous group Targeted attacks on Colombian security forces leave 27 dead in two weeks This is a problem with a long history. In his ground-breaking novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Colombia's Nobel Prize-winning writer Gabriel García Márquez famously highlighted the massacre of workers on banana plantations in the country in the 1920s. The Labour Ministry says that since the early 1970s, well over 3,000 trade unionists have been murdered in Colombia. And even though the nation is more peaceful than it once was, the attacks continue. "For many years now already, unfortunately, Colombia is the deadliest country in the world for trade unionists and for trade union work," says Luc Triangle, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), a global umbrella organization based in Brussels. Every year the ITUC publishes a survey of the atrocities carried out against trade unionists around the world. Its most recent edition covers the year to the end of March 2024. It found that in those 12 months, 22 trade unionists were killed for their activism around the world. Eleven of them were murdered in Colombia. "Generally, these are targeted murders," Mr Triangle says. "They know what they are doing. They know who they want to murder. "It's not targeting the big bosses of the trade unions or the leaders. They are targeting in small villages people that are doing active trade union work. "Between 2020 and 2023, we recorded 45 murders in Colombia. In 2022, 29 murders. It's less violent than it once was, but it's still very violent, certainly if you compare it with other countries." Why is this happening? Fabio Arias, the head of Colombia's largest trade union federation, the CUT, says it is all part of Colombia's long and complex civil conflict, which pitted left-wing rebel groups against right-wing paramilitaries, drug traffickers and the Colombian state, and which still rumbles on in some parts of the country. "The trade union movement has always been linked to the parties of the left and unfortunately the many right-wing governments we've had in Colombia have always claimed that anyone who is a leftist is a guerrilla, a terrorist," Mr Arias says. "And once you've established that, then people feel justified in attacking them." He says the attacks on workers are also linked to Colombia's illegal economies, notably the cocaine trade and illegal mining. "If you look at where these attacks are happening, it's in the departments of Cauca, Nariño, Putumayo, Arauca, Norte de Santander and Caquetá, because that's where the biggest coca plantations are, and where the illegal mining is." It is not clear who is carrying out these killings and who is ordering them. Some trade unionists blame the private sector, saying businesses, desperate to stifle any attempt by workers to organize, are paying armed groups to carry out these atrocities. They point to the fact that threats and attacks tend to spike at times when businesses and unions are in wage negotiations. But as many of the attacks go unpunished, it is difficult to know who exactly is to blame. "In the Cauca Valley there are so many different armed groups you never really know who's behind the attacks, who's carrying them out, who's ordering them," says Zenón Escobar, another sugar cane worker and local representative of Sintrainagro. The threats in the Cauca Valley are not limited to the sugar industry. "In 2007, I was in a van, and guys drew up next to us on a motorbike and asked for me, and then opened fire," recalls Jimmy Núñez, the leader of a union that represents street traders in the regional capital Cali. "My colleague who was sitting next to me was killed, and my wife was injured. In 2010 they attacked me again, on the road between Cauca and Cali. "They opened fire on my car. In 2012 we were attacked in a shopping centre in Cali and one of us was killed. And in 2013 my family had to leave Cauca due to threats. "In this country social leaders and trade union leaders are killed every day." BBC Business Daily - Why is Colombia so dangerous for trade union officials? The government says it is doing what it can to protect trade unionists. Colombia's president, Gustavo Petro, heads a left-wing administration that is broadly sympathetic to the country's workers. In 2023, it took a step towards redressing the past by formally recognizing the trade union movement – collectively, and for the first time – as a victim of Colombia's conflict. That gives victims a greater chance of having their cases investigated. "We consider this as an important step to recognize the violence against trade unionists in Colombia, which was not the case before," says Luc Triangle of the ITUC. He also says foreign companies with operations in Colombia must do more. "If I were the CEO of a multinational, I would question my activities in Colombia," he says. "There is a huge responsibility for multinational companies. They cannot have a nice code of conduct, and at the same time remain silent when trade unionists are killed. "That's not acceptable. Global companies and foreign investors in Colombia must step up." Additional reporting by Immie Rhodes. Is the US finally on track to build a high-speed rail network? Deported gang members get second chance at call centre The record-breaking tunnel being built from Denmark to Germany The Canadians and Danes boycotting American products
