Labour Minister Dismisses $15 Minimum Wage
Prince George, B.C. – The B.C. government is considering an increase to the province’s minimum wage, but not to the $15 per hour level the BC Federation of Labour has been seeking (see story here).
“The fact of the matter is that an increase from $10.25 to $15 would have a significant impact,” says Labour Minister Shirley Bond. “And it’s something we’re not contemplating and I have had direct meetings with the BC Federation of Labour on numerous occasions and have clearly said, we’re not increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour.”
As an alternative, she says they’re “looking at how we make this more predictable, reasonable, and systematic so that it’s not ad-hoc, you’re not waiting two or three years and then bumping it up 50 cents or 75 cents at a time.”
Bond admits that may mean indexing future increases to the Consumer Prince Index (CPI).
“That is absolutely one of the considerations we’re looking at. B.C. has a CPI, and again that is something that is predictable and regular, and as I look at other jurisdictions they have a variety of methods but that’s certainly one of the considerations.”
She says we can expect change sooner rather than later.
“I expect to deal with this in the near future in fact. And I think it’s important that if we are going to look at predictability and potential increases, we need to do that and send that message to give business some time to adjust to it.”
Comments
Shirley Bond shoots down progressive solution for the problem of working poor, In other breaking news, dog bites man.
Politicians are not suffering from predictability and affordability problems! They are the ones that give themselves a raise! It is the only occasion when the whole legislature or parliament votes quickly and without much of a debate to pass a bill which increases their remuneration! Their pensions are also of the gold plated kind – meaning fully indexed to the inflation index! How sweet it is!
PrinceGeorge, I’m not defending our politicians and their gold plated pensions, but if you are going to mention them, shouldn’t you also mention all gold plated government pensions?
From where many of us sit on our side of the fence without any pensions, it’s not just politicians that have gold plated pensions, it’s ALL Government employees!
Seattle ,Washington moved to a 15$ minimum wage and it was not only good for workers . It was good for the local economy in a big way because those workers spend locally . It was also good for every level of government with their hands in the till . The only problem with a 15$ minimum wage is that is helps everyone and libs don’t do logic .
Comes down to basic math.
Minimal skills = Minimum wage
Minimal skills + Strong work ethic = > Minimum wage
Marketable skills+Strong work ethic = Minimum wage +(Market demand x Marketable skill)
Employers will gladly pay more for skilled motivated workers. Rolling your eyes because someone asked for no onions on their burger is not in very high demand and not worth 15 bucks an hour.
Minimum humanity and imagination= Conservative or BC Liberal
Hart Guy, right you are! Yet, many of them complain about hard times and how poorly they are being done by! They have been ahead of the private sector for at least the last three decades!
Minimum wage for those serving alcohol ($9) should be the same as any other worker. If you have to pay a teenage babysitter $10.25 an hour the person serving you a beer after work should get at least that too.
it’s not just politicians that have gold plated pensions, it’s ALL Government employees!
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All those government employees contributed 6% of their wages and 1% for indexing of their pensions. If you such a good employer and run a viable business why not set up a pension plan for them. But then I guess if your paying 10.25 per hour it doesn’t leave much for pensions. I guess your vacation in Mexico comes before your employer’s.
Cheers
Sparrow – Employers will gladly pay more for skilled motivated workers. Rolling your eyes because someone asked for no onions on their burger is not in very high demand and not worth 15 bucks an hour.
No employers will not pay $15 for qualified employees when the government has allowed 80,000 TFWs in BC at $10 an hour.
fallacy….govt. employees don’t get anywhere near what Krusty and slime get,so quit blurtin out the bs. A govt. employee has to work 35 years to top up their pension and a politician works 10 years.
Posted on Tuesday, March 10, 2015 @ 1:24 PM by Ataloss “Seattle ,Washington moved to a 15$ minimum wage”
Hasn’t happened yet, April fools day they will be between 10 bucks an hour and 11 bucks an hour minimum wage. In fact 15 bucks an hour doesn’t come into effect until 2017 to 2021 depending on the amount of employees their business has USA wide – so you won’t see any effects of the wage increase on employers for a few more years. Time will tell if this is a good move, wonder how much court costs will be to the city of Seattle – they were sued by franchisees the day of the announcement and a ruling is about to be handed out today whether the increase can be blocked until the case makes its way through the courts.
http://shiftwa.org/first-casualty-of-seattles-15-minimum-wage/
And it hasn’t even come into force yet and they are losing 100 jobs, but it is OK as they have a population of 650,000 so they can outlive a bit of bleeding.
Taking Wendy’s as an example, this chain alone made $660 million gross profit last year off the backs of those who work full time and live in poverty.
I don’t understand why someone serving your burger is held up as someone not deserving, didn’t work hard enough or isn’t smart enough to get another job. Why can’t they be proud of that waitress/bartender/clerk job and want to stay right where they are and still be entitled to a pay-cheque above poverty levels? I get so tired of hearing that they just didn’t try hard enough.
If hard work made you rich, most of us would be rich! But in our world the rich get richer and Conservatives vote against their own middle class interests.
anniemarten—-How true!
Australian minimum wage is $16.87. Here is an economic study done on the effect of raising minimum wages. Note that the Australian unemployment rate is lowers than Canada’s.
http:**www.theguardian.com*world*grogonomics*2014^jan*13*minimum-wage-fear-and-loathing-not-based-on-evidence
For all those posters decrying a so called gold plated pensions, workers who are in public jobs which get a pension must work a minimum of 10 years before they qualify to get a pension when they retire.
Not all public pensions are great either. I was talking to a friend who works in a public sector job here and she will get what is called a defined contribution pension when she retires at a minimum of age 55. A defined contribution pension does not guarantee what she will get monthly when she retires. The amount she may get depends on how well the investments that the pension funds are invested in do. So if the economy does poorly, then she will get less than if the economy does well. No guarantees.
I checked some information from the BC Federation of Labour which states that the AVERAGE public sector pension is $800/month. So if a public sector worker works part time or is in a low wage job which some are or doesn’t work for 35 years, then their monthly pension is low.
Retired02. you state:
“All those government employees contributed 6% of their wages and 1% for indexing of their pensions. If you such a good employer and run a viable business why not set up a pension plan for them.”
Retired02, seriously, SERIOUSLY, do you actually believe that public sector pensions are funded solely with contributions from public sector employees?
Have you forgotten or are you completely unaware of the contributions made by the Government?? Government pensions are funded by contributions form the employees AND the employer!! The employer in case you haven’t figured it out is the tax payer!! That’s you and me Retired02!
You may want to contribute to public sector pensions, but I don’t have a pension and I sure as heck don’t want to contribute to public sector pensions by virtue of my tax dollar!!
Seriously Dude, you are smoking way too much manure down there in good ol’ Abby!
CHEERS!!
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