Raising a cup of joe to some good news
Wage hike made it a Happy New Year for 30,000 low wage workers in this province
I am not your average coffee drinker. My partner is a routine, run of the mill, double milk, one sugar, all of her life, kind of gal. My mom will take hers black, please. Always has, always will.
From the time I could wake up and smell the coffee brewing in the Melita carafe on the stove, I wanted to be older so I could be like my parents and enjoy the adult beverage they were drawn to each morning alongside the requisite number of cigarettes and a read of The London Free Press. Despite my original longing and the consistency of my role models, I became a very fickle coffee drinker and a nonsmoker but an ardent lover of newspapers.
When I worked in parish ministry from ’87-01, the pot was always on since hospitality was a key component of our business. In those days I was jacked up daily on the stuff. Turns out caffeine and I don’t mix well. I was born awake and alert so I don’t need the drug coffee carries with it to escalate my already wide-eyed and edgy self.
When I moved to Hamilton in 1993, I had a routine of buying one cup of coffee each morning for my Upper Paradise bus ride from Jackson Square to Regina Mundi. The movement calling for fair trade coffee was well underway and I became a quasi-activist, showing up each morning at the Second Cup requesting a fair trade coffee.
The cashier (they had no fancy names back then) would dutifully reply, “I’m sorry, we don’t carry that.” In return I would tell her the negative impact of the existing coffee trade on the workers and ask her to pass on my request to the manager. She would agree and then I’d order my unfairly traded black coffee and head off to the bus knowing I’d done what I could to change the world.
These days you don’t have to look far to find fair trade coffee, if that’s your pleasure. You’re welcome.
Now there is something else which needs to be asked when you step up to the front of the coffee line, especially at that ever-present, brown-bricked, “Made-in-Hamilton” chain of java-selling stores. Before you order your double-double, double-check the server has not received any cutbacks in breaks or benefits from their employer since the new and improved minimum wage of $14 an hour was introduced in Ontario, making it a Happy New Year for the 30,000 low wage workers in this province.
This week at two of the “Made-in-Hamilton” coffee shops in Cobourg, owned and operated by the children of Ron Joyce, cofounder of said shops, each worker received a letter informing them of immediate cuts to their paid breaks, health and dental benefits and any other perks they may have enjoyed until the greed set in on Jan. 1, like this deep Alaskan freeze.
The letterhead-less letter begins with a salutation one might mistake for the wrecked voice of John Irving’s Owen Meany: “DEAR TEAM MEMBERS.” The owners had to scream their news because they were deep down in Florida enjoying their other home, paid for on the backs of their workers who were keeping the home fires and coffee pots burning.
Maybe they’ll be boycotted and out of business by the time they return and someone like the owners of Cake ’n’ Loaf can set up shop instead. They are only one of hundreds of businesses across this province, including giants like Costco, that pay a living wage and have from the start. They never set out with the intention of getting rich off the toils of their labourers, so this increase means nothing for them but affirmation.
Marvin Ryder, an economist with McMaster’s DeGroote School of Business, says the government’s move to raise the minimum wage shows “great humanity.” He acknowledges there will be some inflation peaking at 2.5 per cent, but there is no evidence of job loss in other jurisdictions.
There will be some adjustment, and some businesses that ignored the call for a living wage may suffer, but the good that will come of this will be worth the increased cost of a good cup of coffee.
Deirdre Pike is a biweekly freelance columnist with the Hamilton Spectator. Deirdre can sometimes be found at home drinking fair trade coffee, reading and slowly answering emails to dpikeatthespec@gmail.com or tweets @deirdrepike pike.