Two migrant workers who came to Canada through the Temporary Foreign Worker program have won a lawsuit against LeBreton & Sons Fisheries Ltd., a New Brunswick seafood processing company, over unpaid wages.
In late August, LeBreton agreed to pay former employees Juan Pablo Lerma Lopez and Adriana de Leon Silva a total of $11,000 in lost wages as part of a settlement of a 2024 lawsuit filed in New Brunswick small claims court. Last week the two workers received their cheques, closing out a years-long legal battle against the lobster company.
Mr. Lopez, speaking from his home in Nayarit, Mexico, said he hoped the outcome would push the employer to change how it treats workers, calling his experience with LeBreton “traumatic.”
A Rare Legal Win
Suing an employer is one of the few ways for temporary foreign workers to seek compensation for mistreatment. Workers can file complaints with provincial labour ministries, but that process is often lengthy and does not guarantee monetary compensation. At the federal level, Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), which oversees the TFW program, can fine employers for rule violations, but there is no direct mechanism for workers themselves to receive compensation through that process.
Karen Cocq, co-executive director of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, said that in this case the only recourse available to the two workers to recover owed wages was filing a lawsuit against the company.
Mr. Lopez had alleged in his 2024 lawsuit that LeBreton breached his employment contract by failing to provide adequate working hours and not employing him for the full six months stated in his contract terms. He arrived in Canada in April 2023 through the TFW program, one of about 50 migrant workers from Mexico and the Philippines brought in to work at LeBreton’s lobster processing plant in Grande-Anse, N.B. His contract called for an average of 30 hours a week at $16.50 an hour, but he said he was given no hours in his first month and rarely received the promised 30 hours afterward, leaving him struggling to feed himself.
According to the lawsuit, Mr. Lopez and other workers approached the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change in New Brunswick that July to ask how to file a complaint against LeBreton. A month later, the company terminated both Mr. Lopez and Ms. Silva, citing a shortage of available work — a timing the workers believe was connected to their contact with the migrant rights group.
Through the lawsuit, Mr. Lopez received a $6,000 settlement, close to the wages he said he lost, while Ms. Silva was awarded $5,000. Ms. Silva, who also now lives in Nayarit, said she was happy with the compensation but remained concerned that LeBreton continues to be allowed to hire foreign workers. She said she would still consider returning to Canada to work for a different employer.
Pattern of Violations
LeBreton has had repeated disputes with the federal government over its treatment of foreign workers. In March this year, ESDC fined the company $90,000 for failing to ensure a workplace “free of abuse,” according to the ministry’s registry of non-compliant employers.
In 2024, LeBreton was fined $365,750 and banned from the TFW program for two years over infractions involving salaries, record-keeping and failure to provide a violence-free workplace. The company appealed that penalty, and a federal court partially overturned it in January, finding the government’s decision had lacked procedural fairness. The court allowed LeBreton to continue participating in the TFW program.
LeBreton Fisheries: Settlement and Federal Fines
Vasanthi Venkatesh, an associate professor of law at the University of Windsor, said lawsuits by foreign workers against employers remain relatively uncommon, and workers often need assistance from an outside organization to pursue them. She added that employers do not necessarily fulfill the conditions of a settlement even after one is reached.
LeBreton did not respond to requests for comment on the settlement or on why it limited employees’ working hours.
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