New York fast food worker: 'I think I deserve to eat lunch'

[Posteritatis]

9. It's a bit better on my side of the border, but not by too much

One of the big problems - both in the US and here, I think - is that a lot of people have just internalized the rather incorrect version of how things are when it comes to employment. There very much are laws governing the workplace, both in my life and in that of the employee in the OP, but far too many people don't know about them at all, or accept it because they grew up taking for granted sketchy employment practices. When they do know about the protections they have, they usually don't know much about them, and also assume that there'll be retaliation without recourse if they say anything. (Sometimes that's true, but it often isn't.)

I've seen people push back when they actually know some of the rights they have, mostly with obviously over the line stuff like wage theft or egregious safety violations, but they have to know those rights are there first. I made a point of reading the Labour Standards Code for the province - which is well beyond what I think people should have to do, since there's much more concise explanations out there - and I've still gotten blindsided at my current job by things I assumed were okay only to find out later were not.

I've done that, have a good education, and enough financial security that I can take the risk (or "risk&quot of calling out management if they do something wrong. Even then it can be daunting, and I'll miss things I had the right to speak on. What chance does someone have when earning less than eight bucks an hour in a part time job for a large franchise that's definitely more abusive of their rights? It's not okay; work needs to be done to get the employers to better know the rules, yes, but it's at least as important that the employees know their boss is usually quite regulated as well.