Taking Workers’ Rights Seriously: Private Prosecutions of Employment Standards Violations

• Main Author: Kent Elson
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Windsor 2008-10-01
• Series: Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice
• Online Access: https://wyaj.uwindsor.ca/index.php/wyaj/article/view/4549

This paper examines private prosecutions as a tool to challenge the state’s inadequate enforcement of employment standards. In Ontario, poor enforcement of employment standards means that there are no costs for non-compliance, that orders to pay wages are typically not fully paid and that vulnerable workers are left unprotected. Private prosecutions are one tool that could be used by private actors to fight these problems. Historically, private prosecutions have been used where there is a gap in government enforcement, most recently to bring environmental offenders to justice. Privately prosecuting employment standards violations would continue that tradition and would promote compliance through the stigma of criminal proceedings, and by conveying the message that employment standards violations are crimes. This paper discusses the gaps in the enforcement of employment standards in Ontario (section II), explains how private prosecutions can help and how this fits with the historic use of private prosecutions (section III), and describes how private prosecutions of employment standards could be easily implemented (section IV).