Millen Farms Limited has been directed to pay three temporary foreign workers’ outstanding wages to the Director of Labour Standards in trust. The decision by the Nova Scotia Labour Board clarifies that a clause in the workers’ seasonal employment contract, which permitted the employer to send final paycheques to a foreign government agency, does not override the minimum standards of the Labour Standards Code.
Millen Farms appealed orders from the Director of Labour Standards to pay wages owed to three seasonal agricultural workers who could not be located. The workers — K.B., D.W. and A.P. — claimed that their employer failed to send them final wages directly after they left their employment on short notice.
Millen Farms argued it had fulfilled its obligations by sending the money to the Jamaican Liaison Service (JLS), a government agency that coordinates parts of the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP). According to Millen Farms, that action discharged its responsibility because a clause in the SAWP agreement, referred to as Clause III(6), states that when an employer cannot locate a worker, outstanding wages can be paid to the government agent in the worker’s home country.
Other means to locate workers
However, each of the three workers maintained that Millen Farms had other means to locate them. They pointed out that the farm had previously paid them by direct deposit and had their contact details on file.
Instead, Millen Farms followed the SAWP contract provision by mailing their paycheques to JLS. The workers later discovered that JLS applied portions of those wages to cover airfare-related debts, effectively reducing the amount of money that reached them.
What the Code says
The labour board noted the key provisions of the Labour Standards Code that came into play. It highlighted Section 86, which states that wages for employees who cannot be found must be paid in trust to the Director of Labour Standards.
It also cited Section 6, which establishes that the Code applies “notwithstanding any other law or any custom, contract or arrangement,” unless another arrangement provides superior benefits. Section 89 of the Code prohibits any assignment of wages to cover debt, and Section 89F bars employers from reducing a foreign worker’s wages below the level agreed upon.
Paying workers twice?
Millen Farms argued that it should not be forced to pay employees twice — once through JLS and again to the Director of Labour Standards — if the employee leaves without notice. It said this would lead to what it called “absurd” results, claiming that the legislative intent of Section 86 was only to prevent employers from pocketing wages owed to workers.
In its submission, Millen Farms insisted that sending the final paycheques to JLS was consistent with the SAWP contract, which is administered in partnership with the Government of Jamaica. Furthermore, Millen Farms stressed that it had no control over JLS’s decision to seize some or all of the funds for airfare costs.
On the other side, the three workers contended that Clause III(6) of the SAWP contract cannot trump the protections that the Code guarantees to employees in Nova Scotia.
According to them, the reality is that JLS withheld their wages in ways the Code would not have allowed, had Millen Farms simply followed Section 86 and forwarded their pay to the Director.
They also cited the “governing laws” section of the SAWP contract, which states that obligations created by it must abide by the laws of the province in which the work is performed. That language, they argued, clarified that Nova Scotia’s Code applies in full.
The board’s ruling
In its reasons for decision, the labour board agreed with the argument that the Code’s provisions form a statutory floor that cannot be contracted away. It stated, “Clause III(6) is inferior in its protection of employee wages compared to Section 86 of the Code,” noting that if wages had been sent to the Director of Labour Standards, they could not have been unilaterally deducted for airfare.
The ruling explained that while the SAWP contract tries to provide a system for government agents to hold wages in trust, employers in Nova Scotia must still follow provincial legislation, which offers stronger wage protections.
The board did not accept Millen Farms’ view that honouring Section 86 and ignoring Clause III(6) automatically forces employers to pay twice. Instead, it concluded that Millen Farms should never have sent the money to JLS in the first place if it wished to be discharged of its wage obligations. Because sending the money abroad was “following a contractual provision that is void by operation of law,” the farm remains liable. As the board put it: “To the extent that Clause III(6) contracts below the Code’s statutory floor, it is void and has no effect.”
In the final order, the labour board dismissed Millen Farms’ appeals and upheld the Director of Labour Standards’ original orders. It confirmed that the employer must pay the outstanding wages in trust to the Director and must comply with Section 86 “on a go-forward basis in respect of temporary foreign workers who cannot be located.” The board acknowledged that Millen Farms had already paid the amounts to JLS, but deemed that irrelevant under the Code since the method used contravened provincial legislation.
For more information, see Millen Farms Limited v Powell, 2025 NSLB 15 (CanLII).
