NGO calls for voluntary wage hike
'Living wages' make employees more productive, allow them to spend more money, says Alternatives North
Cody Punter
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, July 2, 2014
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A group of social justice advocates is launching a campaign urging Yellowknife businesses to guarantee paying employees a salary that is above the territorial minimum wage.
At a recent discussion organized by the Circumpolar Arctic Council, Ben McDonald and Julie Green from Alternatives North said the minimum wage in the NWT is not sufficient for some low-income employees to support themselves in the North.
At $10 an hour, the NWT's minimum wage is the second-lowest in the country and is only five cents higher than Alberta's $9.95 - the lowest in Canada.
While the GNWT is currently reviewing its minimum wage policy, Green and McDonald said they would like to see local businesses adopt a "living wage," where employers volunteer to pay their staff a salary that better reflects the cost of living in the capital.
"There should be no such thing as the working poor. If you work ,you should be able to earn enough that you can survive," said McDonald.
Unlike the minimum wage, Green said "living wages" are not legislated. Rather they are more of a "moral" benchmark - similar to certified "fair trade" and "organic" labels - which more and more businesses across North America are striving for as consumers become increasingly socially conscious of the products and services they purchase.
They are also different from the minimum wage in that they are also local in scope. As such, living wages vary from city to city within a province or territory depending on the cost of living there.
"The concept of a living wage is that people should be paid enough that if they have a job and they're working full time, they should be paid enough to live in their own community," said McDonald.
Although providing a living wage leads to increased operating costs, Green argued that employees who earn more money are more productive. She also pointed out that providing higher wages is better for the businesses community as a whole because people who earn more money tend to spend it on local goods and services.
While Alternatives North has yet to calculate a living wage for Yellowknife, Green suggested that it should be somewhere between the living wages of Hamilton and Vancouver which are $14.65 and $19.62 respectively.
She said, "$14 is probably too low and 19 is probably too high."
Raymond Li, general manager of Sushi Cafe, said he wouldn't support a living wage, even if it was at the lower end of the spectrum proposed by Green.
"I don't think any business in town that uses general labour could afford it," he said.
Li pays his employees a starting wage between $11 and $12 an hour, depending on their experience and gives staff raises if they perform well. He argued that wages should be determined by the free market and not by advocacy groups, which have no financial stake in the profitability of businesses.
"If staff can perform, I don't think any boss would miss that," he said. "Even if you clean toilets and you do a good job, I will pay you more."
McDonald said most people in Yellowknife make well above the minimum wage adding the average industrial wage in the NWT is $28 per hour. However, he said approximately 600 people in Yellowknife, most of whom are in the service industry, make less than $13-hour. As a result, many people in that pay bracket often end up having to work two jobs for up to 80 hours a week in order to make ends meet.
"The idea that you have a job and you can't put food on the table, or if you have to have two jobs to put food on the table is, in my view and Alternative's North view, not a socially acceptable option," he said.
Li admitted that some people may have to work more than one job to stay in Yellowknife but that "it's better than nothing."
Green said Alternatives North hopes to have a better idea of what Yellowknife's living wage is by the fall. She said the organization is planning on making it a campaign issue in the upcoming election, with a view to having the city become a living wage employer.
While most city employees earn well above the minimum wage, Green said they would have to meet the threshold for subcontracted workers, such as janitors, in order to receive the designation.
