Category Archives: Labour Force

LIVING POOR: KAREN’S STORY

Affordable Housing, Collective Impact, Complexity, Income, Income Inequality, Labour Force, Living Wage, Minimum Wage

Note:  In addition to writing about community change and penning commentary, I am a story teller. I write fiction and spoken word. This piece is a mix of fact and fiction, often called “faction.”

One of my small luxuries in life is having someone come to my house weekly and clean it. I tell myself I need this service because I am so busy, but truth is it’s a luxury for me. I can afford it and to be honest I have the time to take care of my own mess; I just hate doing it.

Karen is the one who takes care of this for me. She is 24 and nearly always cheerful. She does an excellent job and in good time as well.  She is a friend of a friend and when I heard she was interested in providing this service, I decided to give her a go. Continue reading LIVING POOR: KAREN’S STORY →

Ending Precarious Employment – A Game-Changer Strategy

Economy, Income Inequality, Labour Force, Living Wage, Minimum Wage

Precarious Employment is the jargon people like me use to describe the employment conditions and experiences of a growing number of workers in our country. Here is what that jargon means:

Precarious employment is in effect sub-standard employment that offers low wages that typically are not enough to live on, and that does not offer basic benefits like sick leave, vacation leave, or even unpaid bereavement leave. Health and dental benefits are too often absent as a benefit to low-wage workers.

In Ontario, according to the Wellesley Institute, one in three workers do not have health and dental benefits. And the lower your income the more likely you will not have these benefits. In fact, the Institute reports that only one in five persons making $10,000 or less receive health and dental benefits from their employer. As well, the Institute reports that it is not until workers are earning $60,000 per  year that the majority have employer provided health and dental benefits (90%). See this link from Benefits Canada’s website.

Such employment also lacks in any form of job security. Workers can be sent home on a slow day, laid off for seasonal reasons, or simply let go if they are seen to be a “problem.” By “problem” I mean when a worker has to stay home to take care of her child in a work environment where such leave is not allowed. It might be allowed on the books (unpaid sick leave) but not so in practice. Precarious employment can also include work situations where worker safety is ignored, side-stepped, and seen as an unnecessary drain on revenues.

Most employers are likely decent employers, but precarious employment is not rare. Living Wage Canada reports that one-quarter of workers are low-income, the highest rate in the world. Precarious employment is estimated to affect 50% of Ontario workers, according to the Fight for 15 and Fairness collaboration.

A livable income is a game-changer for people. Sufficient income means better access to health services, to good food, to accessing services for our children, for planning for the future, and participating in the economy. A good job offering sufficient income reduces mental health problems, helps reduce stress in family relationships and can avoid the embarrassment, not to mention lack of opportunity, that children face at school when their parents cannot afford the extra fees required for participation in a sport or other school activity. People who earn a livable income can turn their attention from survival to contributing to their community and the lives of those they love and care about.

Imagine if there were more groups, more community leaders, more businesses, more citizens focused on stopping precarious employment and increasing the number of jobs that compensate people fairly.

Systems would change, new and effective policies would surface, employers would treat workers with dignity and people’s human rights would be met.

For more information:

• Fight for $15 and Fairness (Ontario)
• Fight for $15 (British Columbia)
• Fight for $15 (Nova Scotia)
• Fight for $15 (United States)

 

Precarious Work

Collective Impact, Economy, Income Inequality, Labour Force, Living Wage, Poverty, Private Sector

When an employer won’t allow a worker more than 25 hours a week but requires that worker to be available for work 7 days a week, people become little more than commodities on the open market of Precarious Employment.

Lately I have made an effort to talk with folks that work at places like Shopper’s Drug Mart, Home Depot, and Save-on Foods and none of the workers I have talked to get an eight hour shift. My partner’s son just landed a job at 30 hours per week, no benefits of any kind.

Efforts like the Living Wage movement are gaining traction but large corporations seem slower on the uptake than do small business owners. When will the incessant desire to keep wages low by major businesses end up hurting the economy on which these low wage employers depend? There is a tipping point somewhere down the road – for everyone. Continue reading Precarious Work →

Mandatory Winter Tires and Poverty

#yeg, economic choice, Income, Income Inequality, Labour Force, Poverty

Yes, perhaps an odd title for a posting, but bear with me. I was on my way back home from meeting downtown with Alberta Government colleagues who also work in the poverty reduction arena and I heard this call-in show about winter tires and more to the point about whether or not winter tires should be mandatory.

They are in Quebec now but even in some provinces without a mandatory requirement more than 80% of drivers have winter tires. Not so in Alberta where the percentage is just over 50%. Not sure about other low percentage provinces, but here is what went through my mind. Continue reading Mandatory Winter Tires and Poverty →

Signals of Coming Disruption

Alberta Government, Change, Complexity, Edmonton, Government, Income Inequality, Labour Force, Minimum Wage, Poverty

Big change doesn’t just click on. It occurs over time, starting out often as weak signals of the change to come. Sometimes it’s like the old frog in the boiling water story. Put the frog in when the water is cool and turn up the flame and eventually the frog realizes its plight, just too late to adjust, to escape.

For years, donor giving has been changing. Charities have become increasingly dependent on larger gifts from fewer donors. As the economy has served to increase the income and wealth gap between the small numbers of wealthy and the rest of everyone else, we have seen food bank use escalate and a growing number of workers living pay check to pay check. Job security is no longer a reasonable expectation for a growing number of people, much less the chance for advancement. Employee supported pensions are no longer the norm and health and dental benefits are harder to come by for low income workers and many who do not yet qualify as “low income” workforce members.

imagenoise_signalmlab2The adaptations charities have taken have been focused on how to grow revenues through different sources of revenues. Funders are looking at alternatives too, given their inability to fund all the good things that come their way. Crowdfunding, social enterprise, impact investing, social purpose businesses are among the more recent options in financing social good.

GDP growth has been slowing, 80% of Canadian incomes are not increasing or if they are, at far less a rate, the restructuring of the job market is creating more insecure and benefit-less employment. the ratio of workers to seniors is dramatically decreasing. Key drivers like oil prices are in turmoil. Consumer debt keeps increasing. The numbers of people making $15 or less are growing as businesses work harder to cut back on expenses in order to feed more profits to investors. Continue reading Signals of Coming Disruption →