New Brunswick Becoming a Leader in the Disability Sector

New Brunswick is one of the first provinces to change legislation to ensure people living with disabilities are not paid sub-minimum wage for their work.  

On Nov. 1 the province made amendments to the Employment Standards Act so that people living with disabilities are fairly compensated for the work they do. 

Executive director at Inclusion NB Sarah Wagner has been advocating for this change for years and is proud New Brunswick is one of the first provinces to make the change. 

“I think New Brunswick can be proud of this were one of the first provinces to make the change for minimum wage equality. So that’s huge,” said Wagner.

The amendments made are changing the definition of what an employer and employee are. They were outlined in a Government of New Brunswick news release.

The amendments to the definition of an employer are “any person who authorizes an employee to be in or about a place of employment to perform work, supply services or receive training,” 

The amendments to the definition of employee are  “a person who performs work or supplies services, or who receives training, unless exempted by regulation, regardless of whether the person receives accommodations to meet their needs.”

These changes were made to clarify the relationship between employee and employer when an employment agency is involved so that loophole cannot be used to pay workers sub-minimum wage. 

 

Experience before the change

Kyra Thomas had quite a difficult time trying to get into the workforce, her mother Debbie Thomas was by her side the whole time and helped create much-needed change. 

Kyra has an intellectual disability and coming out of high school entered a program called Adapt which gave her the opportunity to work at a local retailer. 

But her mother Debbie notes that she was not receiving minimum wage, in fact, nothing even close. 

“She was working 30 hours a week making $20 a week,” said Debbie Thomas. “It was pretty evident that because of this loophole in the system, there was no incentive for them to, to pay real wages, because they already had three people working there for, you know, pennies an hour.”

Eventually, Debbie looked into why her daughter was still being paid pennies an hour for her work. She found that because of a loophole the employer was legally allowed to do so. 

This caused her to bring it to the attention of Inclusion NB, where she works as an independent facilitator. 

“That was an issue that I knew had to change policy-wise, because, you know, doing it one by one still left the problem as a problem,” said Thomas. 

Nearly three years after the issue was brought forth the amendments to the Employment Standards Act were finally made.