Alberto Ojeda is still waiting for more than $31,000 a Toronto employer owes him — wages the provincial Ministry of Labour ordered paid more than three years ago. Despite a clear ruling from the ministry and a detailed investigation by an employment standards officer, seen by the Star, the province has yet to recover a cent.

Ojeda’s story is one of many that show how wage theft — when employers fail to pay workers what they’re legally owed — has become widespread and systemic in Ontario, amid weak enforcement and few consequences for those responsible.

In the past decade, nearly $200 million in unpaid wages have been formally assessed as owed to workers, according to a new report from the Workers’ Action Centre , an organization advocating for workers’ rights, based on freedom-of-in

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