SPRINGWATER NEWS AUGUST 17, FOR AUGUST 20 2009

Students who are employed by the Ontario Government over the summer months are being cheated. They found out with their first pay cheques that vacation and holiday pay they had been promised is not being paid to them.

This means that students, who work statutory holidays, as they are required to in provincial parks, for example, will receive no extra pay beyond their hourly wage. At least half of the government's student workforce in the summer earns Ontario's minimum wage, $9.50 an hour. The Ontario Public Service Employees Union has issued brochures and documents about this issue on behalf of the students. OPSEU points out in its literature, that students making minimum wage working for the government actually earn less than they would at Wal-Mart or MacDonald’s.

About 3400 high school, college and university students are employed by the Ontario Government each year. Ads placed by the Ontario Government in the spring listed the hourly rate, plus 8.16 per cent in lieu of holidays and vacation pay. Now the McGuinty Government is denying the students the 8.16 per cent which will shortfall students between $400 and $600 each. That represents the equivalent of one month’s rent, 20 per cent of a semester’s tuition or the cost of text books for one semester.

It is unbelievable that at a time when Dalton McGuinty can reward his friends with un-tendered contracts to write $25,000 speeches for E-Health executives, that Ontario Government students are being cheated out of their vacation and holiday pay. These young men and women signed contracts in May, which said they would get vacation and holiday pay, only to have the government subsequently send out a memorandum rescinding the payments. It is only fair that they be paid accordingly.

I plan to raise this issue in the Ontario Legislature in the fall.  I am calling on the Dalton McGuinty Government to treat all student employees of the Ontario Government with the fairness they deserve and expect.