Some employers are refusing to pay the new minimum wage because of inadaquate enforcement by the government, the leader of the B.C. Federation of Labour is alleging.

The second of three increases to the province's minimum wage goes into effect Tuesday, raising the wage to $9.50 from $8.75.

But an exception applies to liquor servers, who often benefit from tips, and whose minimum wage has topped out at $9.

B.C. Federation president Jim Sinclair says some employers are abusing the disparity between the general minimum wage and the liquor servers minimum wage by wrongly categorized some workers and paying them a lesser wage.

“We know there are employers that pay less, but how you find those employers and how you police them is a whole other issue,” Sinclair told CBC News.

Sinclair says some employers are able to abuse the rules because the law isn’t being adequately policed.

“We have seen the enforcement sidestepped by a massive cut in staff, so what we are looking at now is a situation where employers do not feel any real fear of being caught ripping off workers.”

Premier Christy Clark announced a series of minimum wage increases last March, after B.C.’s lowest-paid employees had been without a raise for ten years. The province had the lowest minimum wage in Canada.

The $8 hourly rate moved to $8.75 May 1. It will jump another 75 cents next May 1, to $10.25. Tuesday’s increase leaves Alberta with the lowest minimum wage, at $8.80 per hour.

After Clark’s announcement, the Fraser Institute, a conservative Vancouver-based think tank, said the change would cost force employers to cut as many as 53,000 jobs in B.C.