Minimum wage panel stacked, critics say
Critics say a panel appointed to assess potential minimum wage decreases for alcohol servers lacks diversity and appears “stacked” toward a particular outcome.
On Thursday, Labour Minister Jason Copping unveiled the names that appear on the panel. But he wouldn’t confirm whether any panellists were minimum wage earners themselves.
The group doesn’t include representatives from organized labour, nor organizations representing service employees.
It’s led by Joseph Marchand, an associate professor of economics at the University of Alberta. In 2017, Marchand published a report with the C.D. Howe Institute predicting the minimum wage increase by the previous NDP government to $15 per hour would cost 25,000 jobs across the province.
He said Thursday that his report was consistent with studies of potential minimum wage hikes in other provinces.
The roundtable does include three servers, including two from Calgary’s Blink Restaurant: Delphine Borger and Nicole Lyckama. Borger is the half-sister of Blink owner Leslie Echino, who has been vocal about how minimum wage increases have made it more difficult for her restaurant to operate.
Echino said Friday she’d “have zero input” on what Borger would contribute to the panel.
“She is a university student, has worked at Joey’s and other restaurants, not just for me. I am sure she would prefer a $20 minimum wage for servers,” Echino said in an email.
“She is a strong, and independent young woman who has her own voice and doesn’t need me to tell her anything. All of her friends work in the hospitality industry, so she probably has a better understanding of the impact of minimum wage differential than me.”
Echino, who sits as a member of the board of directors for Restaurants Canada, added that the higher minimum wage has created challenges for small businesses, “but that isn’t the only difficulty, so it is a mistake to just focus on that.”
The other server on the panel, Rachel Donnelly, works at Chop Steakhouse. Alan Howie, president of the restaurant’s parent company Northland Properties, is also a member of the Restaurants Canada board.
Earlier this year, Restaurants Canada vice-president Mark von Schellwitz claimed Alberta lost 10,000 workers in the food service and accommodation sector from February 2015 to December 2018.
The group called on the province to restore a separate minimum liquor-serving wage. That system, which was eliminated by the NDP in 2016, saw minimum wage servers paid about 50 cents less than other workers.
The three servers are the panel’s only female members.
University of Calgary political scientist Melanee Thomas questioned why the group lacks more female voices.
“I get annoyed that the women’s voices have been brought into this just as the barmaids,” she said. “Surely if you wanted to have an entrepreneur included on this, why not include a woman? Why not a business owner? Why not include a greater diversity of servers?”
Thomas called minimum wage a “gendered” issue. According to the province, women made up 62.5 per cent of Alberta’s minimum wage earners from April 2017 to March 2018.
“They’re usually lone heads of households. Lots of them aren’t serving liquor either,” said Thomas.
“The fact they are paying no care and attention to the gender dynamics of this, I find really irritating.”
In 2016, Restaurants Canada launched a campaign called “Now Is Not the Time,” in response to the NDP’S gradual $15-per-hour raise proposal.
Von Schellwitz, now a member of the province’s review panel, argued the timing for the increases was wrong due to the recession.
“I don’t think anybody should prejudge anything,” von Schellwitz said Friday. “It was explained to me that this is really a fact-finding mission and it’s a way to actually remove the politics and dive in and look at the economic data.”
He called a server differential a “win-win-win” that benefits servers, guests and kitchen staff who don’t earn tips.
“It’s an issue that’s so emotionally charged,” von Schellwitz said. “If you ask anybody, ‘Gee, shouldn’t we be giving people more money?’ they’re going to say yes, even though some of the policies may end up hurting the people that it’s meant to help.”
Anindya Sen, a University of Waterloo economist tapped to serve on the panel, has been critical of minimum wage increases in Ontario. Last year, he wrote to then-labour Minister Kevin Flynn, who served in Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government, citing studies that “are suggestive of unemployment resulting from a higher minimum wage.”
The panel also includes Canadian Federation of Independent Business vice-president Richard Truscott. That organization called on the province to freeze Alberta’s minimum wage at $13.60 per hour last year.
Jason Stanton, owner of the Running Room, and Branko Culo, owner of Express Employment, round out the panel.
A spokesperson for Copping did not respond to a list of emailed questions by deadline Friday.