Showing posts sorted by relevance for query class war alberta. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query class war alberta. Sort by date Show all posts

Friday, June 07, 2019

CLASS WAR IN ALBERTA 

We are in Hour 24 of bill debate. We’re standing up for people’s overtime and for young people’s minimum wage.
Your NDP team will work as long as it takes to stand up for working people. We’re not going to let Jason Kenney pick your pocket or scoop your overtime pay without a fight. #ableg


SEE CLASS WAR
·  CLASS WAR IN ALBERTA  Shannon Phillips23 hrs · We...
·  CLASS WAR IN ALBERTA  Edmonton·Updated All-night ...
·  CLASS WAR IN ALBERTA Some Alberta businesses vow t...
·  CLASS WAR IN ALBERTA  Alberta MLAs continue marath...
·  CLASS WAR IN ALBERTA 'Full-frontal attack' on wor...

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CLASS WAR IN ALBERTA

Opinion: Two-tier minimum wage will cost older workers their jobs


CALGARY HERALD
Updated: June 7, 2019




Alexander Shevalier, president of the Calgary and District Labour Council, says the new two-tier minimum wage will likely cost older workers their jobs. POSTMEDIA


Premier Jason Kenney’s cavalier approach to the minimum wage has led to one of Bill 2’s most regressive changes in a piece of legislation filled with them.
By lowering the minimum wage to $13 from $15 for an estimated 35,000 workers aged 13-17 — for the first 28 hours per week when school is in session and for all hours worked during the summer — the UCP has kept one of its most controversial election promises while facilitating the increased exploitation of young workers for the sake of higher private profits.
This isn’t the first time a conservative government has implemented an age-based minimum wage differential in Alberta. We had one in the 1990s, called a “training wage,” that allowed employers to pay 50 cents less per hour to those under 18.
The Klein government, however, nixed its unequal youth wage in 1998.
“One, we know that employees, particularly young people, are far more job-ready than they’ve ever been before,” then labour minister Murray Smith told the legislature.
“Secondly, we had evidence where that training wage was being abused by employers, abused to the point where it had to be eliminated. We took that action.”
A two-tiered, unequal youth wage system, as some have speculated it might do in Alberta since Bill 2 was tabled, encourages discriminatory hiring and firing practices. Known as the “substitution effect,” jurisdictions with differential minimum wages have experienced as much.
Australia’s age-tiered wage regime led to “learn or churn” conditions that often result in lower hours for aging workers, or outright replacement. One McDonald’s employee in Queensland called the gradual phase-out of older workers an “unspoken rule.”
While Australia’s youth wages are more extreme at the margins — a 14-year-old worker could make as much as 50 per cent less than their adult colleagues, with incremental wage increases every year until they reach 21 — the incentive to reduce the hours of older workers still exists.
“They use casual employment and junior rates to basically cycle workers off under the apprehension that those workers are going to get more hours as they get more skills in the workplace,” one fast food union rep in Australia said.
Wage differentials in Denmark saw unemployment levels rise by upwards of 33 per cent when workers reached the standard adult wage-earning age. The Danish study also found that hiring slowdowns occur for workers in the months approaching their 18th birthday.
While employment levels declined by a third for Danish workers who’ve turned 18 years old, those levels didn’t start to recover until they reached their 20s. This employment gap could lead to what researchers call a “scarring effect” on those young workers’ career prospects later in life.
Ensuring all workers are paid a standardized minimum wage — preferably a living wage — is the easiest way to prevent employers from the discriminatory practices detailed above.
But young workers are easy targets. They aren’t of voting age, many of their workplaces aren’t unionized, and they are now forced onto even more precarious financial footing because this government believes their labour is less valuable than their adult colleagues’.
While there are legal protections against age discrimination covered by the Alberta Human Rights Act for workers over the age of 18, enforcement is often ineffective. It is unclear how instances of “learn or churn”-style discrimination might be handled in the Alberta context if they occur.
It is also difficult to imagine young, freshly churned workers pursuing costly civil litigation against discriminatory employers.
Considering the hike to $15 last year did not bankrupt the province’s service sector or result in recession-level job losses predicted by some, the UCP’s take-it-or-leave-it “$13 is better than $0” attitude is confusing.
Along with Bill 2’s other anti-labour provisions, it is plain to see that this is a government preparing for a longer fight against Alberta workers. Kenney should heed the advice of former minister Smith and scrap this two-tier minimum wage.
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CLASS WAR IN ALBERTA AUPE FIGHTS BACK
Have you ever thought bosses need even more power over workers? No? Well, our UCP government seems to think so. 🤔
They want to get rid of overtime banking for non-union workers, bring back scabs for public sector labour disputes, and more! 👎🏾 What do you think of the government's Better for Bosses Act?


Unboxing: The Better for Bosses Act
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Saturday, June 15, 2019

CLASS WAR IN ALBERTA

Kenney government to bring in bill to alter union wage deals


By Dean Bennett The Canadian Press

The Alberta legislature on Saturday, June 9, 2018.
Emily Mertz,Global News
Alberta’s United Conservative government has formally served notice it is bringing in legislation to override bargained contract agreements and delay wage talks for thousands of public-sector workers.

The move led to heated debate in the house Wednesday, with Opposition NDP Leader Rachel Notley accusing Finance Minister Travis Toews of a “gross abuse of power.”

“This government didn’t say a word about breaching the Constitution to break the law in order to steal money from nurses in the last election,” Notley told the house.


Watch below: (From June 11, 2019) David Eggen, NDP Advanced Education Critic, talks about a letter sent from the finance ministry to public sector unions about passing legislation if necessary to override collective bargaining agreement with unions.

https://globalnews.ca/video/rd/1535784003685/?jwsource=cl


Toews replied that all options, including legislation, are on the table as he and his staff work to find savings to eradicate Alberta’s annual multibillion-dollar budget deficits.

“Albertans expect us to be responsible with their hard-earned tax dollars,” said Toews.

“We’re also committed to working together in good faith with the public sector as we work to ensure we can deliver high-quality services to Albertans.

“This delay is the responsible path forward and we believe Albertans will support it.”

Earlier Wednesday, Government House Leader Jason Nixon informed the house that the government intends to bring in the Public Sector Wage Arbitration Deferral Act.

The issue involves unionized workers who took pay freezes in the first two years of their contracts but now have the right in the third and final year to have the wage portion reopened and subject to binding arbitration if necessary.

The workers affected come from across the province, and include nurses, social workers, hospital support staff, prison guards, conservation officers, toxicologists, restaurant inspectors, therapists and the sheriffs who protect the politicians and staff in the legislature.


Watch below: (From May 14, 2019) Tensions are rising between organized labour and the new government, and nurses’ wage negotiations are at the heart of the dispute. Tom Vernon explains.


Toews said the government wants to delay those talks and arbitration until an independent panel, headed by former Saskatchewan finance minister Janice MacKinnon, reports by August 15 on ways the province can save money to get the budget back into balance.

MacKinnon, in a co-authored research paper, has previously argued Alberta should look at cutting public sector wages to save money.

The wage legislation plan came up earlier this week when the NDP released a leaked letter dated May 16 from Toews’ ministry to public sector unions.

The letter asks for union input on delaying wage reopener talks but said legislation would be used if necessary.

United Nurses of Alberta has labelled the move unfair and heavy handed by a government that believes it is above the law.

Notley told reporters that Toews’ promise to work in good faith with unions is the opposite of his actions.

“The minister is not acting in good faith with unions when he first threatens them with legislation and then brings in legislation,” said Notley.

“He is also not acting in good faith when he ignores the legally binding collective agreement to which he is a party.”

The legislation comes after the province tried in recent weeks to get wage reopener talks delayed by arbitrators handling talks at the table with the nurses union and with the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees.

The results were mixed.

The arbitrator granted the delay in the nurses talks, but the one handling the AUPE talks rejected it.

SEE

Have you ever thought bosses need even more power over workers? No? Well, our UCP government seems to think so. 🤔
They want to get rid of overtime banking for non-union workers, bring back scabs for public sector labour disputes, and more! 👎🏾 What do you think of the government's Better for Bosses Act?

CLASS WAR IN ALBERTA - UPDATED
Alberta’s finance minister says the government will pass legislation if necessary to override collective bargaining agreements with unions and delay contractually mandated wage talks
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Thursday, June 06, 2019

CLASS WAR IN ALBERTA 

Some Alberta businesses vow to keep paying all workers $15/hr


By Radio Anchor/Reporter  Global NewsThe UCP introduced Bill 2 on Tuesday, which included several changes to Alberta labour laws. It takes effect June 26.r
LISTEN ABOVE: Northern Chicken co-owner Andrew Cowan in Edmonton and Red Bison Brewery owner/founder Steve Carlton in Calgary on the Ryan Jespersen Show.
 A A 

While the minimum wage for liquor servers and minors is set to be rolled back to $13 an hour this summer, a few Alberta businesses are vowing not to cut their workers’ pay — and they’re making their pledge public at Alberta15.ca.


One of the first to sign up was Red Bison Brewery in Calgary. Co-owner Steve Carlton told The Ryan Jespersen Show on 630 CHED that when he started his business, he decided to pay his workers $15 an hour even before the wage hike.
Over the four years Rachel Notley’s NDP government was in power, it gradually increased the minimum wage to $15 an hour — the highest in Canada — from $10.20 hourly.
“I think that was kind of the way to go, so we didn’t get the shock later on.” said Carlton.
“We kind of knew what our costs were from the get-go.”
Edmonton restaurant Northern Chicken also signed the pledge. Co-owner Andrew Cowan admitted when the base wage went up, it did mean an adjustment for his business on 124 Street.
“Everybody — front and back of house for us, cooks, servers — all get paid the same wage and they all split tips across the board.
“The idea was that everybody made the same amount of money, we all worked hard to get to the same point in time and nobody deserved more or less than the other person,” Cowan said.
“So we kind of designed our business this way, which the minimum wage wasn’t going to be as big a factor for us at the end. We hope at least.”
Cowan said while he doesn’t have any underage employees, he used to.
“A gentleman who actually works for us — he started when he was under 18 and now he’s over 18,” he said.
“I don’t think that would have changed our minds, regardless. Even if we had three, four, six guys under the age of 18 — we still would have been $15 or more.”
WATCH BELOW: In the Global Edmonton kitchen with Northern Chicken




















Besides Northern Chicken and Red Bison, other businesses that had signed up as of 1 p.m. Wednesday include Earth’s General Store, Variant Edition Comics + Culture, and West Grow Farms, and Meuwly’s.
But Carlton said he believes they’re just the start.
“I would actually expect more breweries to be signing up,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a whole lot that would just roll back wages because they can.”
He thinks it’s the larger businesses who’ll be taking advantage of this rollback.
“I think you see that the huge corporations here that have, you know, hundreds or thousands of employees.” said Carlson.
“They lobbied for this for a long time, and they’re already making hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars in profits. I don’t know why they can’t share all that revenue.”

SEE


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