(Vancouver) November 1, 2011. Crown counsel have laid four charges under the Criminal Code against Khalid Bajwa, owner of Khaira Enterprises Ltd., for using forged documents and for fraud over $5000. The charges relate to work that Mr. Bajwa secured for clearing brush in 2010. Mr. Bajwa has been summoned to appear in Provincial Court in Revelstoke on November 2, 2011.
On February 4, 2011, the Employment Standards Branch (ESB) ordered Khaira to pay $236,800.52 to tree planters who worked for the company from March to July, 2010 in various parts of BC. Mr. Bajwa and Khaira unsuccessfully appealed the ESB’s decision, and in its June 28, 2011 decision, the Employment Standards Tribunal instead increased the amounts owing to 7 workers.
In October, 2011, the ESB paid the workers about 43% of the wages that they are owed by Khaira, using Khaira bid deposits held by the BC Ministry of Forests, Lands and Mines from 2010. ESB is also attempting to recover the remaining pay owed to the workers. “We appreciate that ESB continues to take proactive steps to see that the workers are paid the wages they are owed,” says Ros Salvador, a lawyer with the BC Public Interest Advocacy Centre who is representing more than 25 former Khaira workers. “We will be following the criminal proceedings closely”.
The federal government has spent more than a year investigating Khaira, but has yet to provide employment insurance to many workers, choosing instead to rely on Khaira’s drastically underreported hours to deny the workers EI benefits they are entitled to.
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For more information, please contact
Sarah Khan, co-counsel for the workers 604-608-0383 ext. 28
Jessie Uppal, BC Federation of Labour 604-220-0739