The website ontariojobs.com assures one searching for work that you can “find thousands of great jobs and employment information”. Hamilton specific sites such as employmenthamilton.com offer to “provide skills training and financial support to help workers find jobs in high-demand occupations”.

And our government’s politicians try to appease us by telling us about the decreasing unemployment rates they have brought about. What they aren’t telling us is what kinds of work are “in high demand”.

On December 24, 2009 a scaffolding platform collapsed at a Toronto site run by Metron Construction Group, plunging five workers to the ground thirteen floors below. Aleksey Blumberg, 33, Vladimir Korostin, 40, Fayzullo Fazilov, 31, Aleksanders Bondarevs, 25, were all killed. Dilshod Marupov, 22, was seriously injured in the fall. 

The accident resulted in criminal charges against Metron, its President, Joel Swartz, and two supervisors, and prompted a panel review of Ontario's Workplace Health & Safety system.

On October 25, 2010 "Bill 68 Open for Business" was passed by the Ontario government, changing basic employment standards for workers. As the bill's title implies, it wasn't passed to give workers better protections against our bosses. Instead, it changes the law so that businesses are "open" to run however bosses please. We workers, on the other hand, face even more closed doors than before when trying defend ourselves by using the law.

The Crime Wave No One Talks About

BY ALEX DICEANU

On October 13, 2010 a group of 10 people walked into the offices of local business Global Air Care. Together with a former Global Air Care employee, they demanded the company pay over one thousand dollars in unpaid wages. As happens to thousands of workers in this city, the company is claiming their door-to-door salespersons are self-employed and therefore not entitled to any wages or rights under the Employment Standards Act.