The Ontario Ministry of Labour has launched and investigation after JB Field's fired 38 striking workers Wednesday, six months after they walked off the job.

Officials are checking to see if the dismissals were carried out legally, but Bipin Khimasia, JB Field's chairman, said the strikers were sacked under recent reforms to the Ontario Labour Relations Act.

The news isn't sitting well with the United Needletrades Industrial Textile Employees union, which represents Local 1764.

Local union president Judy Morin said the workers received no notice of being terminated.

"It's news to us," said Morin. "The company has not come to the picketers and said anything to us... Until otherwise notified, we're on the picket line..." The act was introduced by Premier Mike Harris in 1995 soon after he was elected. It replaced the NDP's Bill 40, which prohibited replacement workers from being hired.

A spokesperson for Labour Minister Jim Flaherty said investigators have questions about Khimasia's interpretation of the law.

Khimasia said the regulations don't require him to notify the strikers their jobs were terminated.

"We're not required to give them their pink slips," said Khimasia. "That's the law... the people on the picket lines are now time-barred. There is no legal obligation for us to rehire them.

As a result of the passing of the deadline, 25 replacement workers - hired weeks after the strike began - become permanent employees at the Sidney Street sock plant alongside 35 union workers who crossed the picket lines.

They entered the plant soon after the strike began March 23. A majority of workers voted to strike when JB Field's offered a contract that called for a 38 percent wage cut and asked workers to drop a claim before the Ontario Labour Relations Board for $483,000 in back pay.

But Khimasia is not ruling out the possibility that striking workers could be included in any future negotiations to restore a union at the plant.

Those negotiations, however, could be on fragile ground given reports, said Khimasia, that the union is planning several protests outside of retail businesses such as Eaton's in Toronto, who sell JB Field's wares on their shelves.

Khimasia is worried the protests could hurt business in the future by eroding the plant's client base.

"Some businesses will cancel orders because they don't want problems. It's through intimidation that people won't deal with us, not because they believe the union's case," said Khimasia, who warned the company might take legal actions if protests proceed.