The following is a submission from a member of the RCP in Edmonton, who is organizing with their comrades and coworkers a picket to recover stolen wages from their boss. We call on all our readers to share this article far and wide. If you are in Edmonton, join us at the picket on Saturday, Aug. 29!
I worked for the Better Baker on Whyte Ave in Edmonton, for about 5 months. I started back in August 2025 when I had just turned 18. The owner, Vinny, was extremely unprofessional and consistently late with paycheques. So much so that some months, he would just “forget” to pay me. It was my first job out of high school so I let a lot of these things slide out of naivete.
It came to the point where I couldn’t cover my portion of rent and bills on time. I was struggling with monthly expenses already, but since he was late with my wages I also had to pay late fees. I finally had to walk. It was costing me more to keep the job and I couldn’t do it anymore.
After I quit, I would reach out to Vinny frequently to ask for my paystubs, paycheques, vacation pay, and my Record of Employment. He would reply very passive aggressively or not at all. The more I asked, the less he kept replying. Finally, I filed an employment standards complaint.
This was a painstaking and stressful process. After spending a lot of time jumping through a lot of hoops, I got some sort of help from them, but Vinny has just been ignoring the labour board. My $2,904.10 is still waiting to be approved by a collections officer. I’ve been waiting for what I’m owed for over 8 months.
There are many elements of this issue that have angered me but the one that takes the cake is the double standard of theft on rich versus poor people. When you steal money or product from a large corporation or a wealthy person you are prosecuted immediately. Police are involved and justice is brought to the rich in the most efficient time. Dealing with this experience I’ve been extremely disheartened to see the amount of bureaucracy that a worker has to go through in order to get what is rightfully theirs. This shows the horrific dichotomy between the ruling and working class and how laws are applied and enforced. I had to go through five months worth of hours, e-transfers, bank statements, and text messages to give enough proof for a claim to be made. This being my first job, I had very little knowledge as to how these things worked, it was easy to feel discouraged and I could understand why people may choose to just let these things go, almost as if that’s the intent with these processes in the first place. It is clear the only way to get justice for the workers is to make our presence known and take to the streets.
With the demand of my money in my last messages to Vinny, I also mentioned how I would not hesitate to picket if it meant getting paid quicker. Vinny has threatened me with police if I chose to speak out publicly. I was of course scared to do anything, until I got in contact with several other former employees who all experienced similar issues. Within conversations with these individuals we all realized an appalling pattern. More than half of us involved were under the age of 21 and all started at the Better Baker either fresh out of high school or as broke university students. Vinny clearly hired the people that were in the most vulnerable positions and knew exactly how to exploit and milk them until they left.
Me and my coworkers decided to create an Instagram page demanding our money and exposing him. Vinny just blocked us and brushed us off as a “fake account with fake documents”. But through this Instagram page we’ve received tons of support and even got more former employees reaching out and vouching for our stories. Since the creation of the account (August 20th) the pressure has made Vinny pay 1/6 employees.
The bakery is going viral right now because an influencer allegedly “bullied” him for cultural appropriation. We thought with all the attention he’s getting it would be a good time to ride the wave and call him out. Me, my coworkers, and my comrades from the RCP will be protesting at the bakery this Saturday, August 29th starting at 8:45 AM. We’ll be at 10324 Whyte Ave in the alley across the farmers market picketing the business, asking people to boycott the Better Baker until we are paid what we are owed.
In total this guy still owes $8000+ amongst the 5 former employees (including myself) in unpaid wages and vacation pay. Until we are paid, we are going to be telling everyone walking into the bakery what kind of an operation Vinny is running.
