Local fight against poverty

There’s a difference between minimum wage and the actual wage necessary to live free of poverty in Calgary.

That’s why a number of Calgary organizations and businesses are advocating for paying a living wage. As of Sept. 1, minimum wage in Alberta is $9.95 per hour; living wage is $13 per hour with benefits, $14.50 without, says Janet Eremenko, communications and community liaison with Vibrant Communities Calgary, which supports initiatives aimed at reducing poverty.

“Our responsibility is to demonstrate to employers that (living wage) is doable,” she says. “It can be a bit of a shock, but there are a lot of benefits to employers — reduced turnover, employees are more invested and they probably deliver better customer service.”

First Calgary Financial is one of many local companies that support a living wage.

“We don’t want our people to ever be in the situation where they have to make choices about the basic necessities of life,” says Shelley Rathie, assistant vicepresident of human resources.

Rathie says there’s a mistaken assumption that every “professional” job in Calgary, such as those found in a bank, pays a high salary, but First Calgary tries to make sure everyone under its employ gets at least a living wage.

“It’s our IT (information technology) employees, commercial account managers — all the folks who do the back-end work that make everything happen, from estate reconciliation to the mailroom,” she says. “We also encourage our contractors and suppliers to do this. It’s part of the conversation we have with them.”

Progressive Alternatives Society of Calgary, which advocates for gainful employment for people with developmental disabilities, also supports the livingwage initiative.

“We’ve had some success in the last year, especially with smaller employers — we have people at a local craft brewery, another at a local bookstore,” says executive director Bill Forman. “They’re people who are significantly disabled and they’re making more than minimum wage.”

PASC works to break the misconception people with developmental disabilities can’t function at the professional level.

Many with disabilities have certificates from notable postsecondary facilities, says Forman.

“To exist on minimum wage in Calgary is to live in poverty,” he says.