Daily Times

TORONTO: Two Indian sculptors have complained to the Canadian government against administration of a Toronto-based Hindu Temple of treating them poorly and denying their wages in thousands of dollars for their work at temple for six months.

Complainants Sekar Kurusamy and Suthakar Masilamani allege the Sridurka Hindu Temple, situated at Carnforth Road, owes them $66,121.74 in unpaid wages, unpaid public holiday pay, and unpaid vacation pay and termination pay from the temple.

In their complaint to Ontario’s ministry of labour, both complainants, who are back in their home country now, said that for a six-month period, from April 2017 to October 2017, they used to start work at 8am without being fed, and no food was made available until two to three hours into the shift. They said they sculpted and painted one of the holiest parts of the temple during the day, and by night, they would languish in the basement of the building, sleeping on cots near the boiler. These complainants are among four men from India whom the temple administration hired to execute part of a $1.2-million renovation to the temple’s gopuram.

They have moved the ministry through lawyer, John No.

Daily Times tried to take comments from chief pandit Kanaswami Thiagarajahkurukkal through phone but he wasn’t available. However, in an earlier statement, the temple administration had claimed that temporary workers had been brought to Canada for the past five years to complete religious sculpting work. It says no overtime work was done and the workers were housed on the premises for ease of access to the construction site, to reduce the time required for commuting, provide access to meals and access to the temple for their spiritual needs. “Over the past five years, our religious sculptor workers have never expressed concerns or made any complaints to us regarding the living conditions,” the statement said.

Lawyer John No said, based on the Employment Standards Act claim, the minister of labour will likely commence an investigation into the matter. The Ministry of Labour will conduct the investigation by itself and then determine whether there are wages owed, he said. If either party is dissatisfied with the decision of the minister of labour, then they can file an appeal to the Ontario Labour Relations Board, he added.

The Ontario Labour Relations Board is a specialized tribunal that deals with employment standards issues. While the board generally takes 8-10 months to conclude such investigations, John said he was hoping that the minister of labour will expedite the process on the complaint.

He said the claim on behalf of Kurusamy and Masilamani was not meant to focus entirely on Sridurka Hindu Temple, but also on weaknesses in the Federal Temporary Foreign Worker Program that leads to the exploitation of workers. “We are trying to highlight that these workers are put in a precarious situation where they are easily susceptible to exploitation because of the federal Temporary Foreign Worker Program where they are forced to only work for one employer”, he said.