Angry in the Great White North

How much were the live-in caregivers in Ruby Dhalla's home paid?

Gordo and Tongson claim they earned $250 a week working 12- to 16-hour days at the Dhalla family home in Mississauga, Ont., and that Dhalla seized their passports.

The amount of $250 per week is supported by documentation published by The Toronto Star, showing semi-monthly payments of $500:

If the caregivers were worked 12- to 16-hour days, then yes, they were underpaid and overworked.  But the $500 payment every two weeks is exactly correct for a 40-hour work week.  Here are the calculations, and you can follow along to see if I'm right.

According to the application to Service Canada published by The Toronto Star, Mary Richelyn Tongson would be paid $9.25 an hour, 40 hours a week.  She would get paid vacation days, so using the standard of 2080 hours per year for a person who works a 40 hour week, Tongson's annual salary would be $19,240.

Divide that by 24 to get her semi-monthly payment, before taxes and deductions, of $801.67.

Using the 2008 tax code, we get a federal tax deduction of $46.93, a provincial tax deduction of $23.81, CPP deduction of $32.46, and EI deduction of $13.87.  That makes her net pay $684.60 per month.

The employer can charge a maximum of $369.42 per month for room and board, which is done in this case (this amount is also declared on the application).  That would be a semi-monthly deduction of $184.71.  So the net pay to Tongson would be $499.89, having subtracted $184.71 from $684.60.  So it seems like the semi-monthly payments of $500 were spot on.

So the question is whether they routinely worked in excess of 8 hours a day.