On average, B.C. and Alberta saw productivity gains worth $122,698 per net worker gained from migration. Provinces who lost population due to migration, however, saw average productivity gains of $82,955 per worker.
Based on these productivity estimates it means that workers in B.C. and Alberta should have earned wages of $63.90 an hour. In fact in the Trades most earned less than half that. Leaving the surplus value for the bosses. In Ontario the wages were closer to unionized manufacturing rates at $43.50 per hour.
In fact average wages even in booming Alberta are 1/3 of what each worker creates in surplus value, profit, for the bosses.
Alberta continues to lead all provinces in average weekly earnings despite a drop in May, Statistics Canada reported Thursday.Earnings for payroll workers, including overtime, hit $818, down from $825 in April but up 2.3 per cent over May, 2006.
Earnings are up 4.3 per cent so far this year, second only to the 5.1 per cent in Prince Edward Island, which has the country's lowest weekly rate at $635.
Ontario has the second highest earnings at $798, up from $796 in April, followed by B.C. at $750, down from $755 the previous month.
Average earnings for hourly paid employees edged up 14 cents in May to $19.04.
Which is why the bosses demand concession bargaining as they are in the case of Molsons Edmonton strike, since the CAW and the Molson bosses are negotiating in Toronto. They are overlooking the Alberta boom and the fact that Molsons corporate productivity and value has increased since its merger with Coors.
SEE:
Pay 'Em What They Want
Labour Boom = Falling Rate Of Profit
Productivity Myth
Canadian Workers Poorer Today Than Yesterday
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1 comment:
A unionized or CLAC construction worker is billed out at 60-70 bucks an hour. paying them 35/hr, plus 10% vacation pay, benefits and pension, the margin is closer to 15% markup on their labour.
These are net gains from provincial migrants, and it does not follow that the $122,000 figure can be extrapolated across the entire population. People move west for already high-paying jobs.
There's a pretty decent report from TD Economics that shows the effect of high-wage industries such as oil and gas on the wage growth in services, transportation and warehousing. Wage growth hasn't been too robust at the top of the food chain; rather, wage gains are accruing to people in service industries, as those $700 signing bonuses at 7-11 suggest.
LINK
"The relatively high wages in the rainmaker industries and their insatiable appetite for workers has literally “sucked” up all the slack in the labour force and begun to draw workers away from other sectors – which on average are lower-paying. As a result, the non-rainmaker industries have had to drastically boost wages to retain workers or else shut down or curb production. Going forward, assuming there continues to be no significant slack in Alberta’s labour force and corporate profits and hiring remains strong in the rainmaker sector, we should see a continued narrowing of wages between the rainmakers and the other areas. Indeed, the strength in the Albertan labour market is a tide that lifts all boats.
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