Opinion: Living wage is least staff can ask for
The age-old complaint, and a justified one at that, is that costs go up, but wages stay put. That proves to be true, it turns out, even when it comes to a government job.
Last week, Winnipeg city council directed a motion, calling for the city to implement living wages for all city employees by the beginning of next year, to the executive policy committee. The motion puts the living wage at $19.21/hour, a figure determined by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. (Its figure is a unique one among organizations which have analyzed a living wage for Winnipeg; the CCPA defends its number as thoroughly researched.)
It’s significantly more than the $15.45 currently paid to the city’s lowest-level employees. For reference, the current minimum wage is $15.30/hour.
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESs fileS
Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham
And yet, the CCPA says it’s $19.21/hour wage is a “bare bones” amount for a family of four.
If that’s so, it goes to show how difficult Manitobans’ current financial situation is, that an employee for the city might be making $4 per hour less than what some analysts would consider a rock-bottom figure. Winnipeggers may have some difficulty mustering sympathy for city employees or the private contractors they hire (and to whom the motion also applies). When tap water turns brown, or potholes make roads perilous, or sidewalks aren’t cleared, it’s easy to point the finger or sneer at municipal workers.
It’s easy to sound like a broken record when talking about what could be the cure for what ails government, but the answer does tend to be the same: money. Money can’t buy happiness, but it can fix a lot in both the short and long term.
It was an influx of money, in November last year, that alleviated pressure on 311 staffers, because the funding boost was used to hire six more staffers. And money — more of it, by the hour — will bring people to a work place, and keep them there. Nobody wants to be stuck in a job that expects them to do more than less, and for the same old cheque.
But where to find that money? Mayor Scott Gillingham was correct when, speaking to the Free Press, he noted that paying a higher wage to everyone at the bottom of the scale will cause a proportionate increase for everyone else. It will be no small sum to bring city salaries up to code.
The simplest solution is taxation, either by expanding the city’s business tax base or by increasing property taxes on residents. The province could also allow different forms of taxation. Winnipeg’s property tax rate was frozen for many years, and now as those taxes go up, residents are expressing some consternation over how these higher values are calculated. It is, however much it may sting, necessary: the city has operated for too long with too little, and we’ve reaped the civic whirlwind by way of the city often having too little to do what it must.
And one symptom among many of that is that, according to the CCPA at least, some city employees are making $4 less per hour than they should. Increasing wages — be it a provincial minimum wage or wages for city staff — at a snail’s pace in comparison to inflation has not helped very much, and now we have a sizable gap to close.
And if the city continues on the present course, and leaves the number to be determined by a bargaining process that is likely to result in an inadequate compromise, the frustrations of workers and the problems which result — in the form of staff exodus, and too much work for too few hands — will remain.
The truth is, new wages will end up right back in Winnipeg’s economy. And that’s not a bad thing, either.
