Emerald Taxi told to pay $27,000 in wages owed, fines

The B.C. Employment Standards Branch has ordered Emerald Taxi to pay out nearly $27,000 in back pay and fines with roughly half the total to go to a cabbie for the hours he spent behind the wheel while earning less than minimum wage.

Lloyd Pedersen is to receive $13,482.78 for hourly wages owed plus $5,844.33 for vacation pay and additional pay for working statutory holidays and overtime as well as interest.

Emerald Taxi was also hit with 10 fines of $500 each, adding up to $5,000 and a further

$3,070.04 in back pay to be distributed to six other employees, most of it for unauthorized deductions and foregone vacation pay.

In all, the sums add up to $26,668.80.

The order was issued August 28 by ESB delegate Shane O'Grady who disagreed with management's claim that Pedersen was a contractor who sub-leased one of Emerald's cabs.

While drivers are paid 45 per cent of the fares they take in, O'Grady noted in part that through its dispatch system, Emerald is responsible for which drivers receive fares.

"Additionally, there is no indication that any of the drivers invested any of their own money in the business which could have caused a potential for risk/loss. This supports a finding that it is Emerald, rather than the drivers who control opportunities for profit and loss, a control that is indicative of an employer/employee relationship," O'Grady wrote in the determination.

Accordingly, O'Grady found Pedersen was entitled to earn the minimum wage for all hours worked as well as time-and-a-half for overtime and working statutory holidays as spelled out in the Employment Standards Act.

"I made probably on an average five or six dollars an hour," Pedersen said. "And now they owe me eighteen thousand and six hundred some dollars, so I'm just getting even with them."

O'Grady also found Emerald's practice of deducting "taxi charges" related to when an employee used Emerald's service to travel to and from work breached the Act after management failed to produce paperwork showing employees had agreed to the arrangement.

While Pedersen came out the big winner financially, it was also a moral victory for Mitch Boudreau, who had been in a prolonged battle with Emerald over the same issues.

Through the ESB, Boudreau said he won a $1,600 pay out but only after some difficulty getting the branch to take up his case. Boudreau said he was also restricted to claiming for six months rather than from the day he started which would have resulted a pay out in the range of $10,000.

The turning point came in May 2019 when the provincial legislature passed legislation that, in part, scrapped a requirement that, with the help of a so-called "self-help kit," employees had to confront their employer about an issue before filing a complaint with the branch.

"You basically had to do their work for them, but now you don't," Boudreau said.

The ESB also hired more staff to conduct employer audits and investigations.

By August 2019, the new process was in place and Boudreau filed another package of complaints on behalf of Emerald's employees. An investigator took up the case but by then, Boudreau was no longer working for Emerald saying he had been fired after filing the initial complaint.

"I was dealing with the investigator in Vancouver and he said 'I need information that you can't give me and it'd be nice if there was somebody I can talk to who still works there," Boudreau said. "I talked to Lloyd and Lloyd agreed to talk to him."

By December 2019, Pedersen had filed a formal complaint and the ball started rolling. One other employee also filed a complaint but then backed out after reaching an arrangement with Emerald.

Pedersen stuck with it and no longer works for Emerald, saying he was forced out by the end of the month. But he few regrets.

"I was on a mission and I proved that they're doing it wrong and that's why they got their fines," he said. "So I'm happy that I nailed them."

In contrast to the Labour Relations Board, which adjudicates disputes between employers and unionized staff, the ESB enforces labour standards for non-union workplaces.