Temporary Agency Workers - Whose Employees Are They?

• Author: Paul Wearing
• Profession: BA (Hons), MPA, LLB. Barrister & Solicitor
• Pages: 31-34

• 31

CHAPTER SIX

Temporary Agency Workers —

Whose Employees Are They?

What You Should Know

Until amendments to the Employment Standards Act, 20001 in 2009,

there was confusion and litigation over the question, whose employees

are temporary agency workers? The amendments sought to clarify th e

identity of the true employer of temporary agency workers. T he law now

mandates that temporary workers assigned to a client of a temporary help

agency are employees of the temporary help agenc y.2 But despite the

statutory declaration in the Employment Standards Act, 2000 that tempo-

rary workers supplied by an agency are the employees of the agenc y and

not the business that they are assigned to, the Ontario Labour Relations

Board will in all likelihood consider temporary agency workers assign ed to

a business to be employees of an employer targeted in a union certif‌ica-

tion application for the purpose of determining the number of employees

in a potential bargaining unit.

The employer-employee relationship between the temporary help agency

and the temporary worker continues regardless of whether the worker is

on assignment working for a client of the agency or not. Employment

ends only if the agency terminates the employment relationship or if the

worker quits. Temporary workers have the same rights as regular em-

ployees, including termination pay, public holiday pay, overtime pay, and

hours of work protection. The temporary help agenc y is obligated to provide

a copy of an Ontario Ministry of Labour publication to the assignment