City Hall debates living wage for employees
“It is but equity that they who feed clothe and lodge the whole body of people should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed clothed and lodged.”
Who was the author of this quote? Lenin? Mao? Marx? Tommy Douglas? In fact it’s from The Wealth of Nations the free-market bible written by Adam Smith in 1776. Like zealots interpreting the Holy Bible free marketers seem to pick and choose which parts they believe in and which parts they conveniently ignore.
City hall is now debating whether or not to provide its employees with a living wage. Why is this an issue during an economic boom? According to Statistics Canada 34800 workers in Calgary over the age of 25 make less than $12 per hour. In 1975 a full-time worker making minimum wage in British Columbia had an income 22 per cent above the poverty line. The minimum wage all across Canada has been eroded by inflation. A person working full time at minimum wage in Alberta is now 18 per cent below the poverty line.
The result has been an increasing gap between the rich and the poor. A study by the Parkland Institute a public policy think tank based in Edmonton found that the economic boom in Alberta has increased the income of the top 10 per cent of earners. Middle-class incomes have slightly increased because of increased working hours while lower-class incomes have actually decreased. Taking inflation into account Statistics Canada calculated that retail and wholesale workers’ average wages have actually decreased $2500 since 1990. This sector is Calgary’s largest employer with 87000 workers. With lower wages and higher prices the economic boom has actually hurt the lower class.
Thus far provincial and federal governments have resisted calls to increase the minimum wage to the poverty line. Government intervention is seen as distorting the market for wages. Though the market is clearly telling employers and governments to increase wages these calls are going unheeded. Yet they blindly support tax cuts and subsidies for business and enthusiastically support temporary foreign workers — clearly interventions in the free market. Obviously the free market is used as a theoretical shield to defend profits when it is convenient. It is also an effective way of letting the air out of the tires of democracy.
Locally though there is hope. On March 12 city hall’s Standing Policy Committee (SPC) will decide whether to adopt a living wage of at least $12 per hour (or $13.25 without benefits) for all City of Calgary government workers contract workers and employees of suppliers who sell goods and services to the city.
Workers should not be living in poverty. It is time that the minimum wage again be brought up to at least the poverty line. A component of Calgary’s 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness is that housing support services and case management contractors of the Calgary Homeless Foundation pay their employees at least a living wage. The city and its suppliers should follow this example. Paying a living wage has many benefits. George Akerloff Nobel Prize winner in economics found that increasing low wages improved productivity employee loyalty and customer satisfaction and reduced employee turnover hiring and training costs and absenteeism. Isn’t the city having difficulty hiring and retaining workers?
The City of Calgary currently employs 682 workers at less than a living wage. It has been estimated that it will cost the city an additional $200000 per year to lift these workers’ wages to the poverty line based on the low-income cut-off rate for a person working full time — less than the purchase price of a fully loaded Hummer.
Adam Smith said "A man must always live by his work and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more; otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family.”
Call your city councillor to voice your support for a living wage. Tell them Adam sent you.
David Wilson is a volunteer for the Calgary No Sweat Coalition.
