Your rights as a temporary worker

Working through an agency does not give you fewer rights than anyone else on that floor. You have the same protection under employment standards and the same health and safety protection as the site's own employees — and in a few areas, temporary workers have specific extra protections precisely because the arrangement has been abused elsewhere.

This is a plain summary of what you're entitled to and who to call. It's general information, not legal advice, and the details differ between Québec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick — so the contacts at the bottom matter as much as the list.

Who your employer is

The agency is your legal employer. We hire you, pay you, remit your deductions and carry your workers' compensation coverage. The business you work at directs your day-to-day work and controls the workplace — which means site safety, training on hazards and equipment, and the conditions you work in are their responsibility.

That split matters when something goes wrong, because it tells you who to raise what with. Pay, deductions, hours and your tax slip: us. Site hazards, missing training, unsafe equipment, harassment on the floor: the site — and us, immediately, because we won't leave you to handle it alone.

You should never pay to get a job

Placement is free to you. Always. The agency is paid by the employer.

If any agency asks you for a fee to find you work, to place you, or to stay on their list, treat it as a serious warning sign and contact your provincial labour standards body before paying anything. Québec has specific rules on agency licensing and conduct, and in all three provinces you can ask the standards body directly whether what you've been asked for is allowed.

Pay, hours and vacation

You're entitled to:

• At least the minimum wage for the province where you work — and these differ between QC, NS and NB and are updated periodically.
• The rate you were told before accepting the assignment.
• Overtime according to your province's rules and thresholds.
• Vacation pay, calculated as a percentage of earnings — it does not disappear because the work is temporary.
• Statutory holiday entitlement, subject to your province's eligibility rules.
• A pay stub showing your hours, rate, each deduction and your net pay.
• Only lawful deductions — tax, CPP or QPP, EI, and QPIP in Québec. Not fees, and not anything you didn't agree to.

The mechanics of all of this are covered in how your pay works.

One Québec-specific point worth knowing: under Québec's labour standards regime, a client business can be held solidarily liable with the agency for money owed to the worker. In practical terms, if an agency fails to pay you, the law does not necessarily leave you with nowhere to go.

Health and safety — including the right to refuse

This is the area where being a temporary worker changes nothing at all.

You are entitled to:

• Site-specific safety training before you start work — hazards, equipment, emergency procedures. This is the site's legal obligation and it cannot be skipped because you're only there for a week.
• The protective equipment the job requires, and to be told what's required before you arrive.
• To be trained on any equipment you're asked to operate. If you haven't been trained on it, say so — do not operate it.
• To refuse work you reasonably believe is dangerous to you or someone else. All three provinces protect this right, with a defined process for raising and resolving the refusal.
• Protection from reprisal for exercising these rights. It is illegal to punish you for refusing unsafe work or for reporting a hazard.
• Workers' compensation coverage if you're injured at work. You are covered.

If you have not been trained on it, you should not be operating it — and no one is entitled to pressure you into it.

If you're injured

Do all four, in this order, and don't skip the small injuries:

1. Get first aid or medical attentionImmediately. Nothing else comes before this.
2. Report it on site, the same dayTo your supervisor or the site's first aid attendant, so it goes in their record.
3. Report it to us, the same dayWe're your employer — we handle the workers' compensation side, and we can't do that from a report three weeks later.
4. Write down what happenedDate, time, what you were doing, who was present, what you told whom. Memory fades and this protects you.

Minor injuries that are never reported are the ones that cause problems later, when a small strain becomes something that needs time off and there is no record it ever happened at work.

Harassment and discrimination

You have the right to a workplace free of harassment — including sexual harassment — and free of discrimination based on protected grounds such as race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age or disability. Québec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick all have human rights legislation and labour standards covering this, and it applies to you on a site where you're placed exactly as it applies to that site's own staff.

If it happens: write down what was said or done, when, and who was present. Report it to us. You will not lose work for reporting harassment, and if a site cannot be made safe for you, we will place you elsewhere.

Ending an assignment

Temporary work ends — that's what makes it temporary — but a few things are still true:

• You should be told the expected duration honestly when you accept.
• You're entitled to be paid for all hours actually worked, including your last shift, and for accrued vacation pay.
• Notice and termination rules vary by province and by the length and nature of the engagement. If you're unsure whether something applies to you, ask us or the standards body.
• An assignment ending is not a mark against you. Assignments end for volume reasons far more often than for performance reasons, and it doesn't affect what we offer you next.

Who to contact

You can contact these directly, and you don't need anyone's permission to do so:

Human rights complaints go to the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse in Québec, the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, or the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission.

And you can always call us first: (902) 710-0005. Raising a problem with us does not cost you work. An agency that punishes a worker for asking a fair question is not one you should be working through anyway.

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Also useful: what to expect on your first assignment, how your pay works, and how to get hired faster.