Minimum Wage Advisory Panel 17 October 2013
400 University Ave., 12th Floor
Toronto, ON M7A 1T7
By email:
Dear Panel Members,
Please accept this letter as ISAC’s submission on your deliberations around the minimum wage.
The Income Security Advocacy Centre (ISAC) is a community legal clinic funded by Legal Aid Ontario. We have a provincial mandate to improve the income security of people living in Ontario through test case litigation, policy development, advocacy and community organizing. Although we work primarily in the area of social assistance law and policy, the minimum wage is a critical part of ensuring income security for Ontarians and their families. As such, we want to provide our perspective on this issue.
As you know, the labour market in Ontario has become increasingly bifurcated, with a growing pool of low-wage jobs counterposed against a growing pool of high-wage jobs, with very little available – and very little upward movement – in between (see Zizys, T. 2011. Working Better: Creating a High-Performing Labour Market in Ontario. Metcalf Foundation. http://metcalffoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/working-better.pdf).
And those who are filling the growing pool of low-wage jobs are not the “typical” minimum wage worker. Indeed, recent analysis shows not only that the share of minimum wage jobs is growing relative to other jobs, but that those jobs are increasingly being filled by women, racialized workers and recent immigrants. As well, the share of adults working at minimum wage has grown significantly over the past decade (see Block, S. 2013. Who Is Working for Minimum Wage in Ontario? Wellesley Institute. http://www.wellesleyinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Who-Makes-Minimum-Wage.pdf).
Minimum wage work in the current context in Ontario is not the minimum wage work of past decades, and the face of those working for minimum wage is changing significantly. As such, the level of the minimum wage is critical in determining the income security of many Ontario workers and their families. And it can also play a vital role in reducing poverty, reducing income inequality, and closing the gap between the wages of racialized and non-racialized workers, between men and women, and between recent immigrants and longer-term residents.
...p.2
Additionally, however, the level of the minimum wage can help to ensure a route out of poverty for people who receive income support from Ontario’s social assistance programs. As government policy in this area is increasingly geared toward moving people from social assistance and into employment, that employment must be of sufficient quality that it provides a route out of poverty. Otherwise, competing public policy objectives will simply consign people currently living in poverty from social assistance to a future of poverty from paid employment.
As a member of the 25in5 Network for Poverty Reduction, we support the call for a minimum wage that lifts minimum-wage workers 10% above the Low Income Measure, is adjusted annually for inflation, and reviewed periodically by a special-purpose advisory commission with research capacity to ensure it continues to function to lift workers out of poverty.
And action must be taken now. The minimum wage has been frozen since 2010, but the cost of living continues to rise. We support the call from the Raise the Minimum Wage Campaign that the minimum wage should immediately be raised to $14 / hour.
We also call on the Panel to bring forward recommendations to government to extend minimum wage protections to those workers who are currently exempt, particularly farm workers. These workers, both migrant workers and those whose primary residence is Canada, plant and cultivate Ontario food crops and feed and care for Ontario livestock, and deserve the same wage protections as any other Ontario worker.
And we call on the Panel to bring forward recommendations that highlight the critical role of other employment and labour market policies that would help ensure that jobs in Ontario provide the income security and stability that Ontario workers require. These measures include increasing employment standards coverage and enforcement; instituting employment equity legislation; increasing the ability of workers to unionize; creating a good jobs strategy for Ontario; and instituting a public system of extended medical and dental supports.
Thank you for your consideration of this submission. If you require further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Sincerely,
Mary E. Marrone
Director of Advocacy & Legal Services