[andyt]

Brenda Brenda:

Canadian_Mind Canadian_Mind:

Why should a kid who works at home deserve any less than a kid who doesn't?

Frankly, why should a kid bother to take a job wasting 4 hours he/she could put towards other things when he is only going to get 20-25 bucks for it? I never liked the concept of being paid only a 6 hour training wage when I was in highschool, so I went out and found someone who would pay me much more money for what turned into a lot less work per hour than working at the local Tims. Regulating that kids living at home must only be paid X number of dollars is a ridiculous concept.

So you rather have the parents work for that kind of money?
Remember, not everybody has smarts or skills. We need shelf stockers. We need gasbar attendants. But they don't pay more than $8/hr, but they do want you to give your best, and work late at night, sometimes even alone. You do need your foodsafe and your black pants. Waiters, same story. You need to buy your own working clothes and do some courses (even if they are only day courses, they do cost money) and you get paid $8/hr...

It's all their own fault for not being rocket scientists - as for shelf stockers and gas bar attendants - hey that's what we import people for. Get used to it - we're moving to a two tier system with a small elite on top and the rest inexerably pushed to the bottom. 'Course all those Joe the Plumbers will keep blaming their problems on all those welfare cheats while they dream that making it big is just around the corner. Something about a sucker born every minute.

[Canadian_Mind]

Brenda Brenda:

So you rather have the parents work for that kind of money?

I don't know what you mean. What does that have anything to do with what you or I previously said?

$1:

Remember, not everybody has smarts or skills. We need shelf stockers. We need gasbar attendants. But they don't pay more than $8/hr, but they do want you to give your best, and work late at night, sometimes even alone. You do need your foodsafe and your black pants. Waiters, same story. You need to buy your own working clothes and do some courses (even if they are only day courses, they do cost money) and you get paid $8/hr...

Again, it all depends where you go. And 8 dollars an hour as a shelf stocker at a grocery store while going through highschool isn't a bad job, I would have gone for that in my teenage years. But again, all people were offering were the training wage of 6 dollars an hour. I felt my time was worth more then that.

As for specific wages for jobs that require extra skills, do those jobs offer quick promotions in either wage or position once you begin and do a good job, or are there tonnes of people applying for the job that already have those courses?

If you have to take a course for a job, and there is no chance of getting a higher wage quickly, tell them to get bent and find something better for you. Of course this wont work if there is 10 other people with the same course looking for the same position. Then it sucks to be you. At the end of the day, if you want more money for your time, it is up to you to find something that not a lot of people are trying to get into, then make yourself qualified for it.

Sometimes it isn't all that hard to do. I started doing yard work. And in the age of computer-raised lazy assholes like my peers, it made it fairly easy to get a job that required a little effort. But it paid much better than the training wage. Where I would have pulled at most 30 bucks a day working at Tims, the gas station, or the grocery store, I was getting 50 a day doing yard work on peoples acreages. not to mention the money I saved by riding a bike to work with a couple tools in my bag instead of paying for gas and a car or hitching a ride with someone for ten bucks. Was closer to home, great pay, and I actually enjoyed working. It didn't even take me that long to find out there was something like that open. There were no "help wanted" signs. I literally stumbled across it one day when some guy cut down a tree the wrong way across the sidewalk. I helped him clean it up, his neighbours appreciated my work ethic, and word spread. People called me looking for help. Any kid could have offered to help the guy, but I was the only one that did. Any kid could have put an ad in the paper if they were so inclined, and probably would have gotten calls from at least half the people I worked for. None did.

[Brenda]

Canadian_Mind Canadian_Mind:

Brenda Brenda:

So you rather have the parents work for that kind of money?

I don't know what you mean. What does that have anything to do with what you or I previously said?

There are still adults with families working for $8/hr...

$1:

Again, it all depends where you go. And 8 dollars an hour as a shelf stocker at a grocery store while going through highschool isn't a bad job, I would have gone for that in my teenage years. But again, all people were offering were the training wage of 6 dollars an hour. I felt my time was worth more then that.

As for specific wages for jobs that require extra skills, do those jobs offer quick promotions in either wage or position once you begin and do a good job, or are there tonnes of people applying for the job that already have those courses?

If you have to take a course for a job, and there is no chance of getting a higher wage quickly, tell them to get bent and find something better for you. Of course this wont work if there is 10 other people with the same course looking for the same position. Then it sucks to be you. At the end of the day, if you want more money for your time, it is up to you to find something that not a lot of people are trying to get into, then make yourself qualified for it.

Sometimes it isn't all that hard to do. I started doing yard work. And in the age of computer-raised lazy assholes like my peers, it made it fairly easy to get a job that required a little effort. But it paid much better than the training wage. Where I would have pulled at most 30 bucks a day working at Tims, the gas station, or the grocery store, I was getting 50 a day doing yard work on peoples acreages. not to mention the money I saved by riding a bike to work with a couple tools in my bag instead of paying for gas and a car or hitching a ride with someone for ten bucks. Was closer to home, great pay, and I actually enjoyed working. It didn't even take me that long to find out there was something like that open. There were no "help wanted" signs. I literally stumbled across it one day when some guy cut down a tree the wrong way across the sidewalk. I helped him clean it up, his neighbours appreciated my work ethic, and word spread. People called me looking for help. Any kid could have offered to help the guy, but I was the only one that did. Any kid could have put an ad in the paper if they were so inclined, and probably would have gotten calls from at least half the people I worked for. None did.

[Canadian_Mind]

Brenda Brenda:

There are still adults with families working for $8/hr...

And for people in those positions, I don't think raising the minimum wage would help them, as eventually costs of living will catch up and once again they'll be stuck just barely able to pay for food, and a roof over their heads.

What may be a preferable solution for many here is income tax removals for those below a certain income bracket with children. I'd also advocate that for students going to university, highschool, or college.

I'd also suggest a plan where the employer must offer an x hour per week position (say, 20 hours a week) to anyone joining, and is not allowed to cut those hours without maintaining pay. And an employee has the option of taking less hours, but then with cuts in pay, because it was their decision to cut hours, not the employers. However, the employer is not allowed to further cut a persons hours without maintaining the employees previous rate of pay.

So as an example, there was a cashier brought up in this thread who was awesome at her job, but applied for a new position and was then told she would only get a 4 hour per week position. With what I suggest, the employer would either have to offer her 20 hours worth of work, or pay her for 20 hours worth of work when she only works 4.

Further, assuming she got the position for 20 hours a week, but opted to only work for 15 hours a week because of needing to do other things at home, the employer would only have to pay her for those 15 hours of work. If the employer then cut her hours down to 4 like the assholes that they are (talking about you, Wal-mart!), they would still have to pay her for 15 hours of work. And she wouldn't qualify for the 20 hour position again until such time as the employer offers it to her AND she takes it.

Of course, the 20 hours was only a number pulled out of my ass, and whatever is deemed appropriate by a governing body would become the established norm. Maybe 25 hours a week, 15, 10, etc?



Both of these in tandem should help cut the fuckery for low-income families and students. Looking for your opinions and thoughts here, Brenda.

[Bruce_the_vii]

It's possible to do a calculation of the inflation from a minimum wage increase. In Calgary some 7% of adult workers earn below $12 an hour. They may make $11 on average. An aggressive minimum wage would be $12.50, that is $1.50 more. So the increase to the system is 7 times $1.50. The average wage in Calgary is $23.00 dollars so all wages in the system are 23 time 100. Now wages are only half of the GDP so you mulitply by half. ((7*1.50)/(23*100))*(1/2)= 0.23% of 1% the Calgary economy. If the increase was spread over 2 years it'd be half of that per year, 0.12%.

It's true some essential services would be hit with a raise. You pay a little more for fairness - these rock bottom wages are not popular. The grocery store example Canada-Mind mentioned would be alleviated by the fact that grocery stores are simple warehouses and not much labour goes into stocking the shelves. The grocery store turn over is high relative to it's wage bill, as per warehouse like operations.

The rap on minimum wage increases is it would cost jobs. The wage inflation is 0.23 of one percent in a strong economy like Calgary. This is the cut in the amount of money circulating to jobs, the cost in jobs from inflation. It's reduced by the fact the people that get the extra money spend and stimulate the economy, the traditional multiplier factor from economics 101. The multiplier maybe 1.5, so you divide by that. In the 10 years to 2007 the number of jobs in Calgary increased 45%.

In Ontario minimum wage went from $7.85 to $10.25,some 30%, the cost of my daily small regular coffee at Tim Hortons went up 5 cents.

[ASLplease]

calgary doesnt need inflation, the average guy making 40-60k per year saw thier cost of housing double, and their cost of living climb several times faster than their salaries did.

if you make a subtle increase in min wage, the increase will be carried over to the consumer who in turn doesnt get any more value from the min wage worker, a better solution would involve teaching these workers and their employers more how to provide more value.

In short, if you want better money stop looking for handouts and start working like a better paid worker.

when a counter person at mcdonalds starts to work as hard and smart as his floor supervisor, then pay him a supervisors rate so he can quit his bitching. but as long as he continues to fck up his orders( there are places in calgary that havent gotten my order correct in 10 years) then he isnt worth the pay that hes already making, and the restaurant ought to be encouraged to keep and train him. raise the rate, and he may get fired.

[Bruce_the_vii]

Oh, there was lots of inflation of wages in Calgary pre-recession. People jocky for position relative to the others all the time and always have. Moving the last horse in the race up a lenght on the rest of the crowd isn't a big deal. These things go on.

[BartSimpson]

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

Anyone that only went to school until grade 8 deserves what they get.

Yeah! And what about those losers who drop out of college?





I bet they get what they deserve, too!

[BartSimpson]

Bruce_the_vii Bruce_the_vii:

It's possible to do a calculation of the inflation from a minimum wage increase.

Indeed. Now be sure to include the automatic increases that commonly occur in public sector employee contracts that index to the minimum wage.

(Hopefully, you're now getting a about why so many public sector union members - none of whom work for minimum wage - agitate to raise it.)

[Bruce_the_vii]

Index to minimum wage? I haven't heard that in Canada. In Canada the Unions talk about CEO wages as a reference point. They shoot up, not down.

Your broader point is correct though, I admit. If you increase minimum wage the tier above gets pushed up as well. If you increase minimum wage for some workers their immediate supervisor will need a pay increase, for example.

[Bruce_the_vii]

Another problem with inequity is the subsidy of workers at the bottom by the nanny state. Economists will try to calculate the taxes/social benefits of low wage workers but I have an alternative concept. The idea is that taxes are eventually paid for by people, that’s the bottom line. In fact taxes are mostly paid by workers, they carry the tax load.

You can do some arithmetic. The Canadian Centre of Policy Alternatives calculates all taxes are almost flat in Canada(I have the graph). In the Alberta pre-recession economy the minimum wage would be $11 an hour while average wage would be some $20.50. All taxes in Canada are 40% of GDP so I use a figure of 38% tax for the average worker and 36% for the minimum wage worker. The average wage earner would pay for his social benefits, including things like the interest payment on the debt. The minimum wage earner pays some $7.7K less in tax than the average worker – which is the subsidy in the Canadian nanny state.

Places like Wal-Mart and Tim-Hortons are making it by this subsidy to their workers. They are heavily subsidized through their workers. Capitalists have always made good on the backs of the workers and now they are doing in on the backs of the tax payer. Tim Hortons is like a North Sea oil strike of nanny state subsidies, a major gusher. You go into Timmies for a coffee, all those Asian workers are on subsidy – welfare of some sort.

[ASLplease]

min wage workers are often the laziest most spoonfed people in our workforce. If they want an extra $10 an hour, then figure out a way to get them to work like they deserve an extra $10 an hour.

Also,wrt Tim Hortons has group benefits,

and the Walmart statistics that quote government subsidies are american statistics.

[Brenda]

Did you know that most jobs offered lately that are not above the $50K/yr range, are mostly casual? That most employers do not offer benefits what so ever?
(at least here it is.)

[ASLplease]

Brenda, alot of employers are willing to pay extra if they can get experienced qualified help for the next 100 hrs without having to keep the person employed for the next 10 years.

Casual does not necessarily mean crappy wages.

Also, if an employer is looking to fill a full time position, who do you think they will select first? a) the casual employee that exudes confidence and acts very competantly, or b) the cranky unemployed union redicalist that wont even consider a job unless it's a full time permanent position?

A, of course. If A is you, do not feel embarassed or unworthy of asking for more money, you are worth it.

[ASLplease]

Plus, in my experience, there is very little security that goes with the term 'full time permanent' most employers can send you walking for a few weeks pay and 2 weeks notice.

However, base you career off of real value that you can offer your employer, and you can enjoy a security that comes from the confidance that if today's boss shakes you hands and sends you away, you know that its not that big of a deal, and you'll find more work around the corner.

over 90% of working demographic canadians have jobs, dont let yourself fall into the rut that turns some people into unemployed sulkers that hate imigrants.