Despite the fanfare for their service, food retail employees themselves are not convinced they’re ‘recognized’ in ways that actually improve their lives.
Newfoundland and Labrador has the highest rate of food insecurity in Canada. It also has the second lowest minimum wage. These two things are connected.
As a minimum wage worker, who like most of those I know working minimum wage jobs (both here in Newfoundland and Labrador and across the country), works part time to full time to support myself and those I care about, I know the value of every paycheque I get. I know the value of making even a few cents extra on minimum wage, and the potential benefit to myself and others that a true living wage could one day provide. When the news featured Tim Hortons franchises cutting benefits in Ontario to make a statement against having to give workers a fair wage I saw people who would sacrifice someone else’s long term future for their own short term gain. I saw people crying foul from their winter homes in Florida because they no longer get to profit off of a broken system. Evidently so does Tim Hortons’ parent company,…
Ontario just introduced a $15 minimum wage. The benefits are obvious, and it’s time for this province to do the same.
“Respectfully, Minister Bennett, the anxiety that you are currently witnessing pre-exists this budget. Your budget has inflamed it.”
Newfoundland and Labrador may be a so-called ‘have’ province, but despite the record corporate profits from our natural resource industries, thousands of minimum wage workers are living on or below the poverty line
There are good reasons to raise the minimum wage, and good reasons to explore other options. What’s your take?
A Labour Day message from the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador
Minimum wage policy would make life harder for the province’s women
A minimum wage increase is a good start. But it’s only a start…
Between 2005 and 2009 assessed incomes in Newfoundland and Labrador increased by 49%. The boom we are experiencing is without precedent in Canadian history, but it is also exceptional for a quite different reason.