But you probably know how easy it is to buy cigarettes for example without getting carded - or even get served alcohol at a bar - because the min wage teenager/immigrant/slob behind the counter just doesn't care. Even if he gets caught and gets fired, he'll just go work at the place across the street.

I've never been able to buy booze without ID. Buying booze underage is hard. And taking that extra step to call the other LCBO stores and warn them (or calling the cops when the drunk customer drives off in a car) is certainly dependent on the personal initiative of the clerk. Also, most LCBO employees are older adults- they're not the same as the teenage cashiers who work at the kwiki-mart, its a different labour pool.

So there's a place where an ordinary Joe can make a good buck - so what.

But management is top-heavy and highly paid, and when it comes to cost-cutting measures it's always the little guy that's supposed to take it in the neck.

I don't think any of us are suggesting a reduction in the salaries. It's the point that they have more than their private sector counterparts and looking for more.

Being among the top earners in the retails sector for both full and part-time workers, it seems a little greedy to step up to the trough and demand more.

The per-employee profit at the LCBO amounts to more than $200,000 per employee (60& of whom are earning $25k). And remember these aren't just 7-11 clerks here, these are people we expect to enforce drinking laws, they have a number of responsibilities like not selling to drunks, minors, reporting drunk drivers, notifying other stores when they turn away customers, etc.

I don't think any of us are suggesting a reduction in the salaries. It's the point that they have more than their private sector counterparts and looking for more.

Being among the top earners in the retails sector for both full and part-time workers, it seems a little greedy to step up to the trough and demand more.

We seem to have a communist sympathizer in our midst!

It depends on what quality you want. I've found one often overlooked element of pay is that you get the quality of labor you pay for. Frankly you pay people to care. If we want quality maybe that wage really isn't too high.

They're not demanding more, they just don't want their current wage to decrease with infation

OPSEU says the key issues include boosting part-time wages and upgrades to health and safety standards.

Hell no, I'm a capitalist, but not a head-over-heels capitalist. I believe in a fair distribution of earnings.

Once, just once, I'd like to see management take the hit when it's time to cut or control costs.

We've got an example here of people who are being paid well for what they do (though most of them only part-time, which is another problem), in a government-run business that makes lots of money, and the first impulse seems to be to tear them down.

Fer Crissakes, can't there be some good-paying jobs for ordinary folk without people snapping at their heels?

It should be.