By Ethan Ready

Employment Standards

Emerald Taxi to appeal Labour Board decision after former driver awarded 19k

Sep 22, 2020 | 12:29 PM

A former cab driver in town has won a settlement that will see $19-thousand go his way.

Lloyd Pedersen took to the Provincial Labour Board when he claimed he wasn’t being paid minimum wage or holiday pay, with Emerald Taxi claiming their drivers were contracted out rather than direct employees of theirs.

“I showed him in the Labour Board contract that taxi drivers get paid minimum wage. I showed it to him. He said ‘well you’re a contractor’, and I said that I’m not a contractor, I’m an employee. He said ‘no, you’re a contractor’. I said he was totally wrong, I said look, it says all taxi drivers must be paid minimum wage. He said they go by Emerald rules.”

However, the president of Emerald Taxi says the company only charges a monthly fee for the driver’s use of the dispatch system and operates as an overseeing ‘banner’ to the directors who contract out the drivers.

“We call them independent owner/operators. We have a written agreement with those people before they work. Emerald Taxi just provides them with the dispatch,” explained President of Emerald taxi, Balraj Bhangoo.

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Further explaining the operations fo the company, Bhanjoo states the company has nothing to do with the payment of its drivers, stating that responsibility falls on its independent owners/operators.

“They create the revenue, they take the revenue home, they do their deductions. They hire their own employees. I don’t hire employees for them. They pay those employees and Emerald Taxi doesn’t see any money generated by those people.”

However, in documents provided by Pedersen himself issued on August 28, 2020, Employment Standards found that Emerald was not playing by their rules, resulting in a decision that will see Pedersen get $19,000 in unpaid wages, overtime, as well as holiday pay.

“The law’s the law,” said Pedersen. “Let’s face it, there’s a lot of businesses here in town that are struggling, that are hurting, but they pay their staff properly.”

Bhangoo insists that the money owed to Pedersen will not be paid out by Emerald Taxi, rather, it will come from Pedersen’s director in which he was employed by while driving for Emerald, Rajender Parmar. That is if Emerald Taxi ends up losing their appeal of the decision.

“He was employed by Mr Parmar. All of the money he generated, he gave it to Mr Parmar. All fo the money, if Mr Parmar owes Mr Lloyd, it’s coming from Parmar’s pocket. And he’s dealing with it.”

Bhangoo even says Parmar does plan to appeal the labour board’s decision.

As per the report issued by Shane O’Grady, the delegate of the director of employment standards, a series of administrative penalty fines were also laid down against Emerald Taxi.

Bhangoo insists all drivers currently under the banner of Emerald Taxi make at least minimum wage, with just one saying otherwise.

Including Mr Pedersen, there are seven individuals listed as being entitled to contravened wages and interest in the determination document issued by the Director of Employment Standards.