Come on, Councillors. Cut the strings of business on which you dance and support a living wage for workers.

There is no problem when it comes to give themselves a big raise, but to deni people a small hike in pay so they can feed their kids and sort of live half decent is not allowed. Shame om Dan Rogers and the rest of them. They don't even flinch when they raise our taxes at will either, that is good we don't eat for another week, plastic bags taste real good when boiled.

Maybe they ought to drop the wages of the idiot in the loader on 15th this morning to $6.00 per hour as surley he was in training.

Really, all you have to do is boil the plastic bags, and they become edible. I been just throwing them away all these years.

city employees get more raises and just freeze min wage for the next decada,good job dan! real good job!

It was a pretty simple non-Civic issue. Should have went to a vote, do you support raising minimum wage? Long speeches for this are just to try to cover your guilt with false reasoning.

Having said that, can anyone tell me what jobs (besides the ones teenagers do) are paying minimum wage. From the want ad's I see, any job that would be considered permanent, pays more than minimum.

nearly every employee working at the retail stores make min wage, as do most of your waiters / waitresses / dishwashers etc. There are a lot of women trying to re-enter the work force after raising children or who have been divorced etc. that would not have "up to date training & education" that would only qualify for these "teenager jobs"

You should do a bit of investigating there Porter...clearly you haven't had to look for a job for a while!!

Ontop of recieving poor wages there are workers that don't miss a shift yet they are required to work 2hrs, 3 hrs, 1 hr and are sent home because there's no work after reporting to do their regular shift. One such company that uses these practices is Wall Mart. The working man is supposed to jump whoopes with his/her money, save for retirement, have good medical insurance, save for vacations, have good dental insurance etc. etc. I say the worker needs some laws to protect themselves from big government and companies with bad attitudes towards their employees.

For the record, I don't have a problem with $10 an hour. My opinion is that you won't have long term employees that make minimum wage. The market will dictate and those low paying places will constantly be training and losing employees. Also if you don't like min. wage, stop bargain hunting, wages are the largest fixed expense in a business if your bottom line drops, that is usually where you have to start cutting.

porter with that logic why even have minimum wage? let the market dictate the price.

Council says, "Let`s review Let`s review" and pay some underworked overpaid so called expert to say something that`s simply a no brainer. Just support the issue and get on with more important stuff.
It is been so long since a raise in min. wage and anyone I have hired, I wouldn`t think of Paying them less than $10 an hour. Even if it was just part time, student, teen, whatever.

This is not a municiple issue....period. Its like declaring your city a nuclear free zone like some have. This crew has more than enough to deal with. What next....a stand on abortion?

Exactly dow, minimum wage is a provicial matter not a city of PG matter.

I just wanted to comment on the proposed minimum wage increase. For starters I do not pay any of my employees minimum wage, they receive fair wages based on their experience, education and willingness to work. Hypothetically if I did pay minimum wage it would be because I had to (financially couldn't pay any more to staff and still remain in operation)and not because I didn't want to pay them any more than I had to. A quick calculation shows me that my minimum wage employee would cost me an additional $4648.80 each year. This is based on a 40 hour work week at $10/hr plus MERCs (mandatory employer related costs)I don't believe that my business has increased over the last year or so. I have been lucky business hasn't gone down but it hasn't increased either. This additional four thousand dollars in staff cost each year has to come from some where, Personally I would have to increase consumer costs in order to cover the additional staffing cost. I don't like to see people living in poverty but I believe that some people choose to live in poverty. There are many opportunities for funding to increase education and receive training, why more people don't take advantage of it I will never understand.If minimum wage increases I would consider working more hours myself and decreasing staff to part time hours. Would this be helpful to anyone. I think not. There needs to be other options pursued by labor and the government.

Dragonmaster, dow7500. Municipal governments lobby the other levels of government on a daily basis. I dont think they want to take the power of setting the minimum wage away from the prov government.

Your out to lunch littleguy!!!!

How come every Province in Canada can can raise minimum wage,but when it comes to BC we have such a problem raising it!

so explain to me how I am supposed to make ends meets for my family when I(the business owner) have to take home less so I can pay the "working man" more. I'm not making more so how can I can I pay more. Do the math!Is that stipulation for gradual increase to new minimum wage or am I just supposed to pull this money off the money tree growing in your back yard.

Raise the wage is not going to happen. Seems little hard nosed doesn't. I have posted comments about this issue. I never thought they wouldn't raise it. But opinion250 is not city counsel.

So littleguy I guess none of your employee's will ever get a raise either. Please give a hint as to which business you own, as so one knows which to avoid when job hunting!

Hey Porter, Littleguy pays minimum wage.

It will help parents buy more drugs....

As you can see littleguy, there is no room for rational argument and factual conversation here.

rah rah minimum wage rah rah raise it, all business owners are evil, all workers deserve golden spoons and champagne baths rah rah rah

This is a non-issue! Why would social workers even complain to the City about what the city did or did not do? The City has nothing to do with minimum wage. They sent a letter, they didn't even have to do that.
Thought the Northern Branch of the B.C. Association of Social workers had better things to do than whine to some city that couldn't do anything about it. Go whine at the province. Can they get anything right?

actually the lowest wage paid to my staff is $14/hr with benefits and I just gave all of my employees a raise... of course they have to work for their money.. I truly am ashamed of myself for requiring my employees to work for their money.. I should give it to them for free...

Good posts, littleguy. Too bad it's still lost on some that if the employer isn't getting his it won't be long before the employees aren't getting theirs.

We should keep in mind that there are employers and there are employers.

The Forest Industry, Government Workers, and various other industries pay good wages and benefits. Some of these benefits have been realized because of Unions etc; Some because of the education required, etc; All these people making the big bucks are clueless when it comes to people working for minimum or just above minimum wage.

Firstly if we were all educated, and members of strong unions, or self indulged butt kissers there wouldnt be enough low paying jobs around for a lot of business;s to survive.

What people do not realize is that employees who get paid $8.00 to $12.00 per hour are in fact subsidizing the company they work for. If it wasnt for them working for the small wage the company would go broke (as outlined above by littleguy)

Littleguy is still operating under the illusion that he is the provider of the jobs, when in fact he is the benefactor of having people available to work for low wages, so that he can make a living, as a business man. Its the old story of **what comes first, the chicken or the egg** Without business you do not need employees, without employees you cannot run a business. Where the system breaks down is as follows.

1. A security company is established, and it gets contracts from various business's. The contracter pays the security company x number of dollars per month to provide security. The security company low balled the rate to get the business, and the contractor kept the rate low, because the alternative to security would be to pay higher insurance rates.

2. The security company then hires staff to provide the security, however he has to pay minimum wage in order to make a profit. If he pays more than minimum wage, he will go broke. If he trys to raise his rate to the contractor he could lose the contract to a competitor.

3. So what happens. A. The security company pays minimum wages and makes a living off the employees. B. The contractor gets cheap security and saves money on insurance fees. C. The people working for minimum wage are the glue that holds it all to-gether.

Realistically if a company cannot make a profit without paying minimum wage, then they should pack it in, and go into another type of business, or get a job. Overtime the wages would rise to a level that would provide the services, and allow the employees to make a living.

Face it: All bus. owners are millionaires! FCOL.

Palopu Quote: We should keep in mind that there are employers and there are employers.
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Wow, good statement.
Are you a public school teacher?

HD. Obviously you missed the point. We have employers who pay $25.00 to $50.00 per hour, and we have employers who pay $8.00 to $12.00 per hour, hence there are employers and there are employers. One pays goods wages and makes a profit, while the other makes his profit by paying low wages.

Have you got it figured out now????

I walked in to the city hall today and there were two ladies sitting on the floor in the window putting up desicrations. I was there about 10 minutes and all they did was yap,yap to another staff member who stopped by to tap. I hope these aren't the ones in the big pay category.

Have you got it figured out now????
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Yes I did. You should get less than minimum wages.

Palopu:-"Realistically if a company cannot make a profit without paying minimum wage, then they should pack it in, and go into another type of business, or get a job. Overtime the wages would rise to a level that would provide the services, and allow the employees to make a living."
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There is a major fallacy here, Palopu, though I generally agree with the rest of what you're saying in your posts above. That fallacy is that ALL 'costs' are CURRENT 'labour costs'; and that as such, all those 'costs' are available as 'incomes' in the same period of time they're coming forward into 'prices'. Only they're not.

If you study this, you will invariably find that the RATE at which 'prices' are being generated, in the economy as a whole, normally exceeds the RATE at which total'incomes' from ALL sources are being distributed, over any SAME given time period, and over time in general. This is why we, many individually, and certainly all of us collectively, are sliding ever further into debt.

Raising wages can assist in bridging this 'gap', but it can only do so temporarily, since the cost of any wage increase must flow through into price.

Even if it were more unable to do just that than at present, and an increasing number of employers that pay minimum or very low wages went out of business, you'd find that most couldn't "go into another type of business" or "get a job".

Wages of those that were left may indeed be better then, but an increasing amount would be taken from them in taxes and other exactions just to maintain the increasing number of those then unemployed from their former low waged jobs, plus the maintenance of those who employed them, and now are no longer able to remain in a business of their own, or find anything any better.


What you really have here in what you're saying is the 'socialist' argument in reverse.

Their contention is that the 'poor are poor because the rich are rich'. And that if you levelled everyone down the world's economic problems would end. It's been tried, here (to a degree), and elsewhere (often to a greater degree), and it doesn't work.

Only a very small number of people could afford a Rolls-Royce car, and if you were take away the income those people had ~ the income that makes such a car affordable to them ~ and distributed it equally amongst those less fortunate, it certainly wouldn't mean that 'everyone' could then afford to buy a Rolls, would it?

Only that now no one could. Not at the costs of its making, which haven't changed.

And so Rolls-Royce cars wouldn't be made, Rolls would be out of business, and those making them would be unemployed. Which really benefits who? This little FACT is continually lost on the 'socialists'. Whose chief purpose in life seems to be in the promotion of the idea that "misery likes company".

But the reverse of that argument is also true. Economic nirvanah won't ever be achieved by 're-distributing' something which is fundamentally totally INSUFFICIENT in relation to the totality of prices in the first place. That something is 'money'. To solve the problem means that the present, ongoing OVERALL relationship between 'money'itself and 'prices expressed in money' has to be corrected, and kept corrected. You can't achieve that by playing with wage levels.

littleguy, as you can see by these rants, you are wasting your time trying to talk logic to them.........they think everything should be handed to everyone on a silver platter. You can bet that if you raised your goods one red cent so that you could afford a staff increase these idiots would be the first to bitch about that too.

I'm just curious to see if everyone is aware that the hourly rate paid to anyone (laborer or teacher) is the visible part of their wage. Over and above the visible hourly rate of pay the employer has to pay an amount equal to the employees EI contribution and an amount 1.4x the amount of the employees CPP contribution in addition to their vacation pay. This amount goes up just as the hourly rate of pay does. For my business, the highest expense I have is wages and salary and benefits. I pay on the high end for my industry and because of that I have excellent staff retention.

Over the summer I employed two boys fresh out of high school and paid them minimum wage. Considering how much additional work I had to do when cleaning up after them and chasing them back to work after their breaks were completed, and checking on their work frequently each day, I questioned the feasibility of paying them minimum wage (a lower training wage would have been better)If you look at minimum wage jobs compared to higher paid industry and career jobs you will see three types of workers. 1) the young student or entry level worker trying to find their way (hopefully they will find a career path or work at a job to make ends meet while attending school) 2) The "I work because I have to" type (my experience with these people is that they believe that they are more privileged than others, their attitude, work ethic and demeanor leaves a sour taste in my mouth) 3) The driven ambitious type, this is the ideal worker in my opinion, It doesn't matter if they are shoveling someones driveway or working somewhere hot and dusty, they do the best they can everyday, their work ethic shows in what they are willing to do. This worker will rise through the ranks and be successful.

I know someone will chastise me for saying it but I believe minimum wage (whatever that turns out to be) should be kept low in order to motivate people to go to school, take advantage of various training opportunities etc, you have to want to better yourself. The harder you work, the better your pay. Who wants to work a minimum wage job, I didn't and that's why I work 7 days a week (In the field, at home and in my office)I can honestly say that I spend most of my free time thinking and working; trying to better myself and my business. Look at successful people and how they got that way, they went out and found opportunity instead of waiting for opportunity to come to them.

I am very aware that there are many factors to people being stuck in minimum wage jobs but there are factors which often are beyond their control. Among them are mental health and addictions. From where I am sitting there are numerous (although not enough)social service organizations which provide assistance to some. One suggestion I can see is more govt sponsored wage subsidy programs for minimum wage earners and those just entering the labor market.

Ramble, ramble I know.. thanks for giving me an outlet.

"Personally I would have to increase consumer costs in order to cover the additional staffing cost"

Just to ensure you personal bank account doesn't go down?

"Please sir, can I have some more?"

Am I not allowed to make a living? Of course its to make sure my personal and business bank balance does not go down. I have to balance the books somehow, I do not subscribe to the believe that if there is cheques in the chequebook there is money in the bank. Logic states if more money is going out than more money has to come in.

Littleguy, as a small business owner myself, I hear you and agree with your posts. People who do not own or have not started a business do not have a clue about the blood, sweat, and tears as well as the personal investment it takes to start and maintain a successful small business. The sleepless nights, making sure staff is paid before you even see a wage yourself, and the hard worry about balancing the bottom line. I also pay more than most in my business, however, staff need to work to earn it. I don't pay minimum wage, however, I also do not employ people who are not willing to work. People who make good life choices around school, staying out of debt, responsible spending, and taking risks to make a better life for themselves should not be punished for thier hard work. And for all those people who started out at minimum wage and have worked hard to move up the ladder without waiting for a hand out deserve a heap of respect as well.

Sandee-Q, are the morality lessons a part of the pay?

Most of the arguments that are being made against the minimum wage hike are actually arguments against minimum wage. I think that debate was settled some time ago.

Dragonmaster: You speak with employee (likely union) tongue.

I dare you to start and run a business with employees (plural) for five years.

I heard somewhere a long time ago that if a new business can survive five years, it is somewhat solid. Restaurants are even worse, their time to succeed is only one year. Notice the "if".

Let the business owners know how you did avoiding paying minimum wage or at least minimal wages.

It didn't take long for Council to vote themselves a raise this year, did it! How soon they forget. I also notice that politicians make far more donations to charities in an election year than during other years while they are in office. How do they look at themselves in the mirror!

Dragonmaster,

If not for the potential for high earnings, why be an employer instead of an employee?

You have to hire everyone 'on contract' to elliminate the extra costs of EI etc. That is exactly what I did for years. Let the big corporations pay the EI and the WCB and the other useless socialist crap. Contract out and pay your own way is my motto. You wouldn't need a minimum wage.

"Potential" is far different from "actual", Porter. Many businesses, even large ones, have as many, or more, years of inadequate earnings as they do ones in which they have decent earnings. There is NOT the same degree of certainty that an employee has when he's trading hours for dollars.