Accounting 12 Chapter 16

Pizza chain fined for not paying wages

Link: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2008/10/30/amato-fine.html

Summary

This article talks about a pizza chain in Toronto called Amato Pizza fails to pay workers for more than three years. They have been given one of the biggest fines ever over unpaid wages. Amato Pizza and its owners were fined more than $300,000 for failing to pay wages owed to six employees. One worker was owed $17,000 in pay and overtime throughout the years. The Ontario Court of Justice found the company "committed numerous violations of the Employment Standards Act in connection with wages owed to former employees. It's been told that the workers were legitimately owed $42,000 in pay from 2005 that the company wouldn't pay. Lawyer Mary Gallatly of Parkdale Legal Services, who represented the employees, said the fine sends a message to employers.She also mentioned that "It's nice to see, finally, the government beginning to take action against employers, like Amato's, who have been going on for years not paying workers' wages, it's excellent that these guys were brought up and finally prosecuted."

Connections

Wages and Salaries were the connections I made between the article and chapter 16. In the chapter it also talks about the process of a company recording the salaries and wages expenses in the books. In this case, Amato Pizza chain fails to follow the Employment Standards Act and went on without paying workers for years. In the chapter it is stated that a salary and wage is a fixed sum of money paid to an employee on a regular basis over a period of time. Salary is usually paid every two weeks. People who are paid by salaries are usually contract workers. A second type of payment that employers pay their employees is wages. This payment is paid according to hourly, daily, or weekly basis and the quantity of goods the workers produce. It is mentioned that salaries and wages can be decreased if the employee isn't up to standards for what they are getting paid. However, this wasn't the case for Amato Pizza.

Reflection

I understand that due to world's economy and recession, business can get pretty tough sometimes. However, leaving workers unpaid for the job they did, definitly isn't the right thing to do. Like many other businesses have done recently, Amato Pizza could have cut jobs of their more inexperienced workers in order to save money, while keeping their excellent employees happy by maintaining their salaries. Moreover, it is against the law for not paying workers. I believe that it is morally wrong to have income floating in yet making worker and employees suffer from not getting paid.