Time ripe for raising minimum wage, labour minister says
With Ontario’s economy outperforming other G7 countries and the unemployment rate at its lowest level in 20 years, the province’s labour minister, Kevin Flynn, says now is the ideal time to boost wages for those at the bottom of the earnings ladder.
Flynn was in Windsor Thursday to help sell the minimum wage legislation his government proposes to enact in the fall. He visited a small sign company in Oldcastle operated by third-generation owners Chris and Matt Oliver.
“The little guys are being forgotten, ” Flynn said. “It’s time somebody stood up for them.”
The Liberal government, following a two-year review, in May announced a set of labour and workplace reforms, a centrepiece of which is a 32-per-cent hike in Ontario’s minimum wage within 18 months. The province proposes increasing minimum wage to $15 an hour from the current $11.40.
“It only makes sense that, if you work full time, you earn a livable wage,” said Chris Oliver. Oliver Signs is in an industrial park heavily populated with businesses in the automotive and agriculture industries, two sectors complaining loudly about the proposed hike in Ontario’s minimum wage.
Brad Duguid, economic development and growth minister, conceded a day earlier in addressing the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association annual conference in Windsor that the government’s reform plan was not popular with that industry. The Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses said its members are reeling from higher CPP and EI contributions, hydro rates and new cap-and-trade fees, and has now been “blindsided” by the proposed minimum wage hike. The Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association calls the wage increase “too much, too fast.”
“I don’t know how you, as an employer, would want to pay your employees a wage (in which) they live in poverty,” said Flynn. He said his government has reduced corporate taxes and that cities across the border, like Seattle, New York and San Francisco, are themselves moving on raising minimum wages.
“Our industries here don’t compete with Manhattan, they don’t compete with San Francisco,” Windsor-Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Matt Marchand told the Star. He said the costs of doing business in Ontario have “gone up dramatically” in recent years, and it’s proving “very damaging ” to local competitiveness.
Flynn said the province is open to “sitting down and negotiating” with the business community. Flynn said a committee will be touring the province this summer, and Marchand said he expects the Windsor area will get its chance to address it in July.
Meanwhile, Marchand said Ontario’s chambers are conducting an economic analysis of the potential impacts, and the local chamber is teaming up with the Windsor Essex Economic Development Corp. to host an information and input session for its members Thursday at the Caboto Club starting at 7:30 p.m.
Flynn (L– Oakville) said society once had “a level of tolerance” for a low minimum wage, viewing it as acceptable compensation for starter jobs and those looking to tide themselves over until something better comes along. “Now what we’re finding is a growing number of workers trying to raise a family on minimum wage ... the money runs out before the month runs out,” he said.
Almost a third of Ontarians now earn $15 an hour or less, and more than half of those are adults between the ages of 25 and 64, said Flynn. A tenth of Ontario’s workforce are earning the current minimum wage of $11.40 an hour, he said.
Flynn said it’s about “dignity and respect” and that the “vast majority of businesses in Ontario (currently) pay livable wages.” He said all the new money that’s going to be earned by those on the bottom of the wage scale will be spent in their local communities, “and that’s good for small business.”
There will still be lower wages for students and for workers in establishments where liquor is served, said Flynn.
Oliver Signs might have been an odd choice of location to talk “livable wages” for workers. Aside from the two co-owner brothers who work there full time, there’s only a third, part-time employee.
But Chris Oliver said the company is busy and expansion is likely. “When we do hire, obviously it’ll be a livable wage,” he said.