Tag Archives: minimum wage

ITUC World Congress – Poll: Governments told to tame corporate power

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Workers across the globe are losing faith in their national governments whom they see as putting the interests of big corporations ahead of their own, according to a new international public opinion poll from the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

Released at the opening of the 3rd ITUC World Congress in Berlin, Sunday 18th May, the ITUC Global Poll 2014 commissioned from market research company TNS Opinion, covers the general public of fourteen countries which have half the world’s population.

“The global economy needs co-ordinated action to raise living standards around the world. Seven years into the economic crisis has left structural damage to the global economy and the global workforce with more than 200 million people unemployed and many more struggling with low wages. Governments are in the grip of corporate power and are failing their people”  said Sharan Burrow, General Secretary, International Trade Union Confederation.

The poll showed:

  • 79 percent do not believe the minimum wage is enough for a decent life.
  • 82 percent say their wages have fallen behind the cost of living or remained stagnant.
  • 88 percent support lifting the minimum wage in every country around the world.

“The global labour movement meeting in Berlin at the ITUC World Congress has put entrenched business interests on notice. Nearly two-thirds of people want governments to tame corporate power.

People, dissatisfied with their own government’s performance, know they are increasingly in the grip of corporate power.   The world has to change, power needs to be rebalanced.

Big business and big finance must be tamed or democratically elected governments risk becoming mere puppets in economic and social decisions,” said Sharan Burrow.

The poll showed growing levels of uncertainty about family income:

  • One in two can’t keep up with the rising cost of living.
  • Seven out of ten European respondents say their income has not kept up with the cost of living.
  • In the past three years over half the world’s population have not been able to save any money.

“Realising decent wages for working families and those on low incomes means tackling the excesses of the 1 %. When people can’t save, family security is threatened with no capacity to invest in housing or other assets. Savings represent an essential component of long-term balanced growth,” said Sharan Burrow.

The poll showed rising levels of concern about job security:

  • One in two have direct or family experience of unemployment.
  • 41 percent expect their job to be less secure in the next two years.
  • Only one in two people believe the next generation will find decent jobs.

The poll showed distrust in government and the economic system:

  • 68 percent think their government is doing a bad job at tackling unemployment.
  • Four out of five people (78 percent) believe the economic system favours the wealthy, rather than being fair to most.
  • More than half rate the current economic situation in their country as bad.

“When people increasingly fear for the next generation, it should be a warning for governments to act.

People want their governments to reduce the gap between rich and poor, ensure fair wages, and increase job security.

The ITUC represents the largest global democratic community. Workers and their families expect better. We expect better of our governments, and we oppose the corporate bullies that are driving inequality in their own interests,” said Sharan Burrow.

The results of the poll conducted in January in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States represent the views of more than 3.7 billion people, or half the world’s population.

Street parties publicize call for $14 minimum wage — just enough to break poverty line

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Workers’ groups plan to stage events on the 14th of every month until next spring’s provincial budget.

By: Laurie Monsebraaten Social justice reporter  Sat Sep 14 2013   http://www.thestar.com

Toronto meatpacker Gyula Horvath has to work a gruelling 50 to 60 hours a week to survive on his wages of just $10.25 an hour.

“It’s no good,” the 22-year-old Hungarian immigrant, who is also supporting a wife on his meagre minimum wage earnings, said Saturday. “It’s very hard to pay rent.”

Call centre worker Jenny Kasmalee, 38, can rarely afford new clothing or other personal things on her $10.25 per hour.

“I have always worked for minimum wage,” she said. “It’s not much.”

A minimum wage worker should not be forced to live in poverty, said Lena Evlova, who is self-employed: “There is an argument that if you increase the minimum wage, you will increase spending and you will improve the economy.”

Horvath, Kasmalee and Evlova are among scores of Jane-Finch community residents who signed postcards Saturday asking Premier Kathleen Wynne to raise the minimum wage to $14 an hour. At that rate, someone working 35 hours a week would be able to live 10 per cent above Ontario’s poverty line of about $19,000 after taxes for a single person.

The “street party” for a $14 minimum wage outside the Jane-Finch Mall, and a similar demonstration next to the Dufferin Mall in Toronto’s west end, are part of a province-wide campaign by anti-poverty groups pushing for a higher minimum wage. A provincial panel appointed in July is studying how best to set future minimum wage hikes and is expected to report by December.

The minimum wage campaign, which began Aug. 14, is planning similar days of action across Ontario on the 14th of every month in advance of next spring’s provincial budget, when the Wynne government is expected to weigh in on the matter.

Ontario’s minimum wage has been frozen at $10.25 an hour since 2010. Under the Mike Harris Conservative government, it was $6.85 an hour for nine years before the Liberals began to raise it in 2004. Since then, Ontario’s minimum wage has gone from being one of the lowest in the country to one of the highest.

Alberta has the lowest minimum wage, at $9.95, while Nunavut’s is the highest at $11. Minimum wages in all the other provinces and territories are now at least $10.

Last week, the Ontario Chamber of Commerce reported that its members favour tying minimum-wage increases to inflation rather than the current ad hoc system that relies on government to decide.

But instead of annual increases, which its members felt would be too cumbersome, the business lobby group suggested adjustments every two years.

University of Toronto business professor Anil Verma, who chairs the provincial minimum wage panel, has said members will also look at factors such as economic growth and job productivity.

Angela Rose, 53, who struggled to raise five children while working a variety of low-wage jobs, said young people, especially, need a higher minimum wage.

“It will give children the motivation to work,” she said at the Jane-Finch event, which included Zumba dancing, live music and refreshments of samosas and juice for passersby.

Rose’s youngest son, now 20, is working in a minimum wage job, trying to save up enough money to go to George Brown College, she said.

“It’s hard to save anything when you are making $10.25.”

The campaign to raise the minimum wage is sponsored by a coalition of groups, including Ontario Campaign 2000, Parkdale Community Legal Services, Put Food in the Budget, Social Planning Toronto, Toronto and York Region Labour Council and the Workers’ Action Centre.

Raising low-wage workers out of poverty: What is the government doing?

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By Jenny Carson   August 21, 2013  http://rabble.ca

Photo: Bob Simpson/flickr

That there has been a dramatic rise in the number of working poor in Canada is incontestable. In 2013, one in ten Canadians earn minimum wages, more than double the number ten years ago; half of those workers are in Ontario. A recent study conducted jointly by McMaster University and United Way Toronto found that barely half of all workers in the GTA-Hamilton area are employed in permanent full-time positions that provide benefits and a modicum of job security.

The explosion of precarious or insecure employment and the subsequent growth in income inequality are the result of both long and short-term changes in the labour market. The outsourcing of good-paying manufacturing jobs to the developing world, the expansion of the low-wage service sector, reckless Wall Street spending and the assault on unions have all contributed to the current plight of the working class. But also important is the erosion of state support for collective bargaining and basic employment protections.

Governments at all levels have abdicated their responsibility to balance corporate and worker interests to maintain a healthy and balanced economy. The consequences for workers — in the form of shrinking wages, increased job insecurity and declining health — have been disastrous.

It is with cautious optimism then that we should greet recent municipal, provincial and federal-level efforts to address worker poverty and income inequality. On July 19, Toronto City Council voted 28-3 to update the City’s Fair Wage Policy. First established in 1893, the Fair Wage Policy requires contractors and suppliers for the city to pay their workers the prevailing market wages and benefits in their field of employment or, for unionized fields, union rates. The policy was designed to protect workers from unscrupulous contractors trying to underbid their competitors by paying their workers less than the prevailing wage rates, and to enhance the city’s reputation as an ethical employer. However, because the rates had not been updated since 2003, until last month many of the city’s “fair wages” fell below the Ontario minimum wage of $10.25 an hour.

The July 19 vote to update the fair wage rates reveals that a majority of councilors understand that is bad policy for the city, as an employer, to add to the growing ranks of the working poor (this excludes councilors like Denzil Minnan-Wong who sees as any kind of wage control as “social engineering”) Under the new rates, contractors providing janitorial services for the city must pay their workers at least $12.43 an hour. Cleaners in the private sector in contrast almost always earn minimum wages.

Unfortunately, however, a fair wage is not a living wage, which the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives estimates to be $17.76 an hour in Toronto (a living wage covers the cost of basic necessities such as shelter, food, clothing and transportation). The city’s fair wage rate for cleaners would barely raise a worker out of poverty and, if she or he were supporting a family as is often the case, would in fact leave them in poverty. This then is only a first step if the city truly wants to be an ethical employer.

On July 19 City Council also agreed to devise a “job quality assessment tool” against which any jobs being contracted out would be measured. The basic idea behind this initiative is to ensure that the city is not turning good jobs into bad jobs through the contracting-out process. As well as considering wage levels, the tool will include other criteria such as worker health and safety, skills and training opportunities, working conditions and other factors which determine job quality. Ideally, the job quality assessment tool, which will be considered by Council at the end of this year, will provide some protection for city workers who will no doubt face another round of privatization pressure as Mayor Ford runs for re-election in 2014. How successful this initiative will be depends on whether workers and their unions are given a voice in its formulation and implementation, and it’s not yet clear if they will be.

At the provincial level, the Wynne government recently announced the creation of a minimum wage advisory panel that will consider how to calculate increases to Ontario’s minimum wage. The six-member panel, chaired by University of Toronto Industrial Relations and Human Resources professor Anil Verma includes representatives from labour, business and youth, the latter of whom are disproportionately represented among low-wage and precariously employed workers.

The minimum wage in Ontario has been frozen at $10.25 for the last three years, and will remain so for at least the next six months as the panel conducts public consultations and studies how other jurisdictions calculate minimum wage rates. Anti-poverty activists are justifiably angry that it has taken the Liberals more than two years to set up the panel, and wonder why, unlike many other provinces, Ontario does not provide automatic annual minimum wage increases pegged to inflation. Ontario Labour Minister Yasir Naqvi’s assertion that we need a “made-in-Ontario” solution raises more questions than answers.

Yet once again there is reason to be hopeful that this initiative will help low-wage workers, many of whom are newcomers to Canada climb out of poverty and contribute to the economic recovery we so desperately need (remember, low-wage workers tend to spend every cent they earn in the local economy). The panel will most certainly recommend a wage increase and, perhaps just as importantly, develop a more predictable formula for raising the minimum wage in the future (in the past this has been done on an arbitrary, ad hoc basis that resulted in a nine-year wage freeze under the Conservatives). Only time will tell whether the panel’s political masters, whoever they might be next spring support a progressive overhaul of the system.

Despite the chilly climate for workers on Parliament Hill, there may also be reason to hope for change at the federal level. Next spring NDP Member of Parliament for Toronto Davenport Andrew Cash will introduce a private member’s bill to expand EI access to part-time and self-employed workers and to eliminate the use of unpaid interns. Cash has a personal as well as professional interest in the issue as someone who spent most of his adult life precariously employed in the creative sector. His bill would modernize a program that no longer reflects the employment realities of many Canadians, and make it harder for employers to engage in unethical and often illegal practices such as hiring workers as “independent contractors” so as to avoid obligations under employment law. It would also reform a pension system that currently consigns large numbers of elderly Canadians to poverty.

Cash understands that legislative changes to EI are only part of the solution. He envisions a multi-pronged approach that includes affordable daycare (along the lines of Quebec), social programs to fight poverty, and decent and affordable public transit. While the chances of Cash’s bill passing under a Conservative government are next to zero, his laudable initiative has the potential to start a public dialogue about how the EI system is failing Canadian workers. It is also, as Cash explains, an issue which “spans the employment silos and class divides” that traditionally divides workers. His bill has the potential to mobilize a broad cross-section of the working class, from journalists to taxi drivers to computer programmers. Its long-term success depends in large part on whether this mobilization takes place.

Together, these initiatives reveal that government (or at least some within government) is finally beginning to heed worker and progressive demands for action that will stem the alarming growth of job precarity and worker poverty in Canada.

It is far from clear whether any of these initiatives will lead to real change for workers, but collectively they suggest that at least some of our elected officials understand that government has a stake in creating a more equitable society.   

Jenny Carson is Associate Professor in the Department of History at Ryerson University.

Photo: Bob Simpson/flickr

The U.S. has a $7.25 minimum wage. Australia’s is $16.88

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By Dylan Matthews, Published: August 19 http://www.washingtonpost.com

Minimum wage advocates love to point to Australia’s $16.88 an hour minimum as evidence that a very high wage floor needn’t stifle a country’s growth. After all, Australia hasn’t had a recession in 20 years. But Australia is hardly an outlier. Most developed countries have a higher minimum wage than we do, as this chart from Business Insider’s Matthew Boesler — using data from the ConvergEx Group — shows:

minimum_wages_around_world

This holds up if you compare the minimums to the median wage in the country in question, as the OECD did. Here’s what they found:

minimum_wage_comparison

The U.S., unsurprisingly, is on the bottom but it’s tied with Japan. And Australia isn’t on top; that goes to France, which has a lower average wage than Australia, which makes up for a lower minimum wage and leads to a higher ratio.

The Center for American Progress has proposed setting the minimum wage at half the average wage (mean, not median as used above) for production and non-supervisory workers; at the current level, that means a $10.07 minimum. If we were to adopt France’s 60 percent ratio, that’d put us at about $12.08.

Of course, there are all kinds of pros and cons to that kind of increase. I went through many of them here. And it’s worth noting that Australia’s minimum wage comes with all kinds of exceptions, especially for younger workers.

Update: Another point, which Guan Yang reminded me of on Twitter – a large number of countries, including Denmark, Germany, Italy, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, and Switzerland, don’t have minimum wages at all. Most of them make up for it with widespread collective bargaining, which sets de facto minimums.

A Race To The Floor For Minimum Wage: Can It Be Stopped?

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just-saying_thumb      By Andrew Chernoff     https://andrewchernoff.wordpress.com/

First it was Jordan Bateman of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation with his article, “The pay of government workers is way out of line” published July 31, 2013 in The Province, to which I made my feelings known about on August 3, 2013 in my commentary, “Bateman Advocates A Race To The Floor For Minimum Wage…You First, I’ll Give Ya A Push”.

Just like a bad smell you can’t get rid of, or a bad itch you just can’t seem to scratch, another proponent of the drive to lower wages——–using a corrosive and mean-spirited abuse of the privilege of free speech for hateful, venomous and spiteful unsupported comments with the intent to rile, incite anger and get an antagonistic reaction——comes forward.

Ms. Margaret Wente, a so-called journalist for the The Globe and Mail, woke up recently seemingly during that bitchy time of the month (the only way I can explain it), and decided to lambaste, insult and take undignified shots at Canada’s firefighters—all of the “Nations” firefighters—-without exception.

In her article on August 8, 2013,  “A Nation of $100,000 Firefighters”, Wente charges, “municipalities do not love firefighters.”

Further, she claims to speak and know the feelings of our municipalities and regions, proclaiming, “ Across Canada, towns and cities are getting hosed by the skyrocketing costs of their fire departments.”, of which firefighters, she suggests, are the main reason for those increased costs because, municipalities, “simply match the settlements that everybody else got, including police. So the costs spiral ever upward,”

She continues, by adding insult to injury when she claims, “Thanks to arbitration settlements, your firefighters are the best paid (and possibly the most underworked) guys in town.”

Really?? Possibly the most underworked in MY town? Hmmm….she’s been in my town??….I think not!

She claims to have nothing against fire fighters. “I have nothing against firefighters, personally. But times have changed. We can’t go on like this. I could write the same column about the police. You guys are supposed to protect us. But we can’t afford you any more.”

But she does say, “They look good on calendars.”  A sexist comment I dare say. And dare I do.

So nobody is safe. The police make too much. School teachers? Bus drivers? Janitors? Airline pilots? Ambulance drivers? Paramedics? Who is not a target for Ms. Wente?

She obviously has a lustful crush for Stephen Harper and his Canadian Austerity plan. In her desire to drive down wages, she is a true Harperite, spreading propaganda for that race to the floor for minimum wage, to increase that disparity between those that have, and those that don’t—between the 1% and the 99%.

According to Wente, our firefighters have barely anything to do, “Working conditions are pretty sweet too. Thanks to modern safety standards, there are very few fires left to fight. These days, most fire department calls are medical. To prove that they’re still needed, fire departments have been adding defibrillators and Jaws of Life, and frantically expanding their repertoires to respond to even minor non-fire emergencies. Still, there’s an awful lot of what we shall euphemistically call “down time,” which firemen fill by preparing meals, sleeping, watching television, polishing the trucks and rewinding the hoses.”

She claims that the costs and salaries for Canadian firefighters are for smaller cities, “typically the largest item in the budget. It accounts for upward of a quarter of their costs.” And that firefighters and their unions are so insensitive, greedy in the community and regions they live in, that “the costs spiral ever upward, and towns are forced to cut back on libraries and roads.”

This is one woman who has one hell of a bitchy time of the month; so much so, that a grizzly bear would be no match for her spite and hate.

“But the really crass way that the rich have of driving down wages is by subtly and not so subtly feeding people’s envy and greed…making us worry that someone else might be getting ahead, might be doing better than us. We aren’t talking about getting us riled over the wages of bankers, brokers and sports stars; we profile them in the fashion and shopping pages of the papers.”, OperationMaple writes in its reaction to Wente’s column, titled, “Let Us Count The Ways of Driving Down Wages”.

I continue with the following quote from OperationMaple’s article referred to above:

“The Rich and their Media Mavens saved the corrosive power of envy and greed for school teachers, fireman, bus drivers…all the folks that live next door and shop at the same stores we do. Let’s get agitated and angry with Joe down the street and Alice around the corner for having a job with a union, a negotiated wage and benefits and let’s try and pull them down to our situation…part time work and no benefits and lousy pay. Because when their economic situation is as desperate as ours, then everything will be ok.

They get paid too much and work too little and couldn’t we all get by with a volunteer firefighting force? Just because they are the ones who run into burning buildings when the rest of us are running from burning buildings, in Wente’s view, doesn’t justify the wage they get.

It used to be the case that when people got decent wages and benefits through collective action we’d all cheer them on and try to copy their efforts, create our own unions and seek our own collective success. Not anymore. Now we just want to tear down those folks lucky enough to have a union. The drive to lower wages by making all of us envious of our neighbours is succeeding. That’s why the 1% and their media allies, their media employees go after Employment Insurance and Firefighter wages…because it works and it distracts us from the folks that are truly criminally over-paid: bankers and brokers.”

I conclude with the following remarks.

The drive to lower wages may be succeeding in some minds, but it has not succeeded everywhere and with everybody. Are you going to let it happen to you? Will you start fighting back now, and let yourself be heard? Will you stand up? Will you get involved in civil disobedience and fight the good fight?

The drive to lower wages is nothing but a race to the floor of minimum wage. We are expected to give up more, so the rich can get richer? I think not.

The richest 300 people in the world are more wealthy than the poorest 3 billion combined, and every year rich countries take over 10 times more money from poor countries than they give in aid, according to therules.org. Find out more by visiting  http://www.therules.org

Don’t let yourself succumb to the race to the floor of minimum wage.