People can comment to province until July 7

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Ben Li likes his job. But Li's a temp, so the local company where he does accounts receivable is not the one that pays him.

Li's employer is the temp agency that got him the job.

A permanent job would mean benefits and maybe a raise. But the company's agreement with the agency says Li has to quit the agency and wait a year before the company can hire him or it must pay a penalty.

To the Riverdale man, that means the temp agency's right to protect its business comes at the expense of his right to a job. Li arrived in Canada eight years ago and like many immigrants, he said, he's been stuck in temporary jobs since.

"I never thought I would become a slave in this country," Li said last month.

The temporary employment industry - once a niche market supplying office workers for a few days or weeks - now provides 700,000 Ontarians with work assignments that, increasingly, can last months or even years.

The province said it is investigating "certain practices of some temporary agencies (that) may be negatively impacting" people who work for them.

Inviting comments on these practices until July 7 (e-mail them to tempagencyempl@ontario.ca), the government is considering changing the law on employment agencies.

It knows there are temp workers "whose rights are being abrogated, who are not getting the protections they deserve," Ontario Labour Minister and Scarborough Centre MPP Brad Duguid said last month.

To make its decision on changes, the ministry is working with advocacy groups for workers and the business community.

"If employers are treating workers fairly, then they have nothing to worry about," Duguid said.

The Scarborough-based Workers Action Centre takes credit for the review, which it calls a first step in "addressing realities" of a labour market that uses temps to create "a second tier of workers," said Deena Ladd, temporary work consultant for Workers Action Centre.

Often, she said, workers feel vulnerable when speaking out on temp agency practices and in many cases, they will get called later and told their assignment is over.

Ladd said her group agrees with Li that temp agencies getting a cut of workers' hourly pay should not demand a fee when client companies want to hire them.

"We're saying we shouldn't have profit made on stopping people from getting access to permanent work."

Temp work may be on rise, but there's no evidence it is replacing full-time work, said Steve Jones, national president and chair of government relations for the Association of Canadian Search, Employment and Staffing Services, which represents 80 per cent of the industry in Canada.

Hiring temps is a way for companies "to hedge against the uncertainty of their businesses" and to be competitive, he said last month.

In an interview, Jones added there should be a legal ban on any fees charged to job-seekers for a promise of employment (as opposed to a cut of their earnings).

No "pure" employment agencies charge a "placement" fee, he suggested, since they are already challenged to find enough skilled workers for positions.

But Jones acknowledged there are organizations in Toronto charging for placements. These "look, smell and taste" like employment agencies but are not, including immigration consultants and companies in the "employment consulting" business, he said.

The government is considering changes to an "elect-to-work" status, which often results in temp workers not getting paid for public holidays. Temps become "elect-to-work" if they can turn assignments down "without any negative consequences."

The ministry says it appears "many" temp agencies consider all their employees elect-to-work even when they are not, while Jones said that happens "just occasionally."

Kelly Tom, who did temporary work for five years, said for the first three he was told his job would be in jeopardy if he fought for holiday pay. Then he took a temp agency to small claims court and won.

"It was something like $300, but it wasn't the money," said Tom, a Bloor West Village resident who was taken by the Workers Action Centre to meet Duguid in February.

Until Tom quit temp work, he said, he had to take assignments all over, including one in Scarborough it took him nearly two hours by bus to reach.

Tom said like many workers, he felt if he turned an assignment down, he wouldn't be offered another.

"They have you at their mercy," he said.