See more about the new campaign

There's a lot at stake in the June 7 Ontario election. It’s urgent that we elect candidates who will protect and extend our workplace rights.

Click here to order your lawn sign.

That means taking on the Big Business lobby, raising the profile of the Fight for $15 and Fairness, and having as many conversations as possible with our co-workers and neighbours about why all Ontario urgently needs a $15 minimum wage and decent work for all.

Here's everything you need to get organized: 

• Put up signs (and invite your neighbours and co-workers to do the same).
  
  • You can order lawns signs and banners by clicking here,
  • Or click here to download and print your own 11''x17'' window signs. 

• Talk to your friends, coworkers and neighbours about our new rights and help us distribute this 3-fold brochure.
  • Click here to download it and print.
  • Or email [email protected] to order quantities of 100 or more.
  • You can also get your friends to text the word FIGHT to 647-360-9487 to join our movement or sign up online by clicking here.

• Host a “Know your new rights” workshop in your community. If you think you can bring together at least 15 people, the Workers' Action Centre can send workshop facilitators to you. Send an email to [email protected] to make arrangements. (Please note, 3 hours is ideal for the workshop and a PowerPoint projector is essential.)

• Make our demands clear to your local candidates. At local all-candidates meetings or when a candidate comes knocking on your door, tell them $15 and Fairness is a voting issue for you. Click here to download some sample questions for candidates.

• Start organizing now for the June 16 Decent Work Day of Action. We need to mobilize as soon as possible after the election to send a message that Ontarians expect our elected politicians to protect and extend our workplace rights. Help us spread the word on Facebook by clicking here.

Are you organizing an event?

If you are organizing an event, workshop, action, street party or picnic, input the details here. This helps us develop a centralized list of actions and allows us to promote them through our province-wide social media and electronic networks.

Join us at an event near you:

**If you'd like to order a lawn sign (or a few) but would like to avoid the cost of delivery, you can arrange to pick them up at an upcoming $15 & Fairness action. See what actions are coming up near you and order your sign today.

Saturday, April 28

TORONTO
Understanding Islamophobia, Injuries, and Violence in the Workplaces.
2:30 PM - 5:00 PM | Islamic Information & Dawah Centre, 1168 Bloor St W | Click here for the map 
Come mark the National Day of Mourning with us. Following a spoken-poetry piece performed by activist Shadiya Aidid to commemorate the workers who have died or got injured on the job, a panel discussion will take place. We are demanding safe, healthy workplaces for all, with adequate support and compensation for those made ill or injured on the job. Workplaces must be free from harassment, discrimination and Islamophobia. It is also time to hold bad bosses accountable! Light refreshments will be provided. 
To RSVP and share on Facebook click here.

BRAMPTON
Sikh Heritage Month Closing
6:00 PM - 10:00 PM | Brampton City Hall - 2 Wellington St W | Click here for the map
Sikh Heritage Month is being celebrated in Brampton all of April. We will have a table at the closing event and will get the opportunity to speak to hundreds of community members in Brampton about the Fight for $15 and Fairness and the upcoming elections. Join us to spread the word!
To RSVP, contact Navi at 416-837-3871
Help us spread the word on Facebook click here.

Sunday, April 29th 

TORONTO
Toronto Vaisakhi Parade Downtown Toronto
10:30 AM - 1:30 PM | Enercare Centre - 100 Princes Blvd | Click here for the map
We will have an information table set up where the Vaisakhi Parade begins. There will be thousands of people from around the GTA and this will be a great opportunity to get the word out about our new rights and organizing for the upcoming elections! When you walk in the building, there will be a section set aside just for information tables. You can find us at the table with the Brampton $15 and Fairness banner. You will need to cover your head with a bandana or scarf. 
To RSVP, contact Navi at 416-837-3871.
Help us spread the word on Facebook click here.

NIAGARA
Know Your Rights Workshop
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM | The Hub - 4333 Queen St | Click here for the map
Learn about Your Rights under the Employment Standards Act, about the $ 15 minimum wage and fairness and why we need stronger laws protecting us at work so that we can live better. Snacks are served at 6:00 pm. Speakers from the Workers' Action Centre start at 6:30 pm followed by Q & A.
To RSVP and share on Facebook, click here.

TORONTO
Health Providers Outreach Blitz at Regent Park
12:30 PM- 2:30 PM | Tim Hortons - 335 Parliament St | Click here for the map
We're sending the message that Ontarians, including healthcare providers, care about fair and decent work. This will be a great opportunity to chat with community members, meet other passionate healthcare providers, and of course, have fun! You are welcome to wear healthcare-related apparel (scrubs, stethoscope, white coat, program sweatshirt, etc.) and we encourage you to make signs in advance!
To RSVP, fill out this google form or share the Facebook event

West End Mass Outreach Blitz 
12:30 PM - 3:30 PM | 1094 Bloor St W, Toronto | Click here for the map
Join us to hit the streets to make decent work the defining issue. We'll be meeting at the Tim Hortons by Dufferin subway station before having a mass blitz of the neighbourhood to speak to our neighbours on what is at stake this election. The elec
To RSVP and share on Facebook click here.

MARKHAM
Fun Outreach at Pacific Mall
1:00 - 3:00 PM | 4300 Steeles Ave East | Click here for the map
Please join us for this fun action that will take place at Pacific Mall. We will do leafletting, postering, "broadcasting", chatting, music from boombox, and lots of laughter ... Everyone is needed! Help us spread the word about our new labour rights and why they are at stake.
To RSVP and share on Facebook click here.

SCARBOROUGH
Door-to-door outreach
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM | Canadian Tire - 4630 Sheppard Ave E | Click here for the map
We are pulling out all the stops to make sure that Decent Work and the Fight for $15 & Fairness is the central issue in this election. Join us for a door-to-door canvass to speak to our neighbours about whats at stake this election and to invite them to our Scarborough Decent Work Forum on May 10. 
To RSVP, click here.

Sunday, May 6th

MISSISSAUGA
Malton Vaisakhi Parade
10:00 AM - 4:00 PM | Siri Guru Singh Sabha - 7280 Airport Rd | Click here for the map
There will be a huge celebration and parade in Malton to celebrate Vaisakhi. We will have a table at the event and will get the opportunity to speak to thousands of people about the Fight for $15 and Fairness and the upcoming elections. We need your help! Join us to help spread the word.
To RSVP, click here.

Tuesday, May 8th

TORONTO
Toronto-Wide Organizing Meeting
5:30 PM - 8:00 PM | 720 Spadina Ave, Suite 223 | Click here for a map
There is a provincial election coming up in June and we know that the corporate lobby and their candidates are already organizing to roll back the labour law reforms we've won. That's why we must stay mobilized to win $15 & Fairness for ALL workers. Come to the next city-wide Fight for $15 and Fairness organizing meeting!
To RSVP and share on Facebook, click here.

KINGSTON
Employment Standards Trainer Workshop
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM | Sutherland Room at John Deutsch University Centre 99 University Ave | Click here for the map
In conjunction with the Workers' Action Centre in Toronto, Kingston $15 and Fairness is hosting a Training Session for union leaders and community advocates on the new employment laws brought in with Bill 148. This training session is intended to give participants the tools and knowledge to be able to do their own Know Your Rights workshops for workers in their workplaces or the communities they serve.
Please RSVP by emailing [email protected] or via Facebook by clicking here.

Wednesday, May 9th

TORONTO
Regent Park Phone-banking
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM | CRC Advocacy office, 40 Oak St| Click here for a map
Hundreds of people in Regent Park have signed the petition in support of our $15 & Fairness Demands. Join us in calling them to update them about the new labour rights we've won and why they are at stake during the June 7 Ontario election. No experience in phone banking is necessary. Please sign up so we know you are coming.
To let us know you are coming click here.

Thursday, May 10th 

SCARBOROUGH
Decent Work Forum
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM | Scarborough Civic Centre (Committee Rm), 150 Borough Dr | Click here for the map
What does this provincial election mean for workers in Scarborough and across Ontario? Join a discussion of the rights we've won, what's at stake, and which political parties support a $15 minimum wage and decent work for all. 
To RSVP and share on Facebook, click here.

Saturday, May 12th 

TORONTO
Canvas at Jane and Wilson
12:30 PM - 2:30 PM | Coffee Time at Jane and Wilson | Click here for the map
Let's make the $15 minimum wage and fairness at work the deciding issues this provincial election! We'll speak to workers on the street, and at their doorsteps, about how our wages and working conditions will be impacted based on who wins the election. Join us!
To RSVP and share on Facebook, click here.

Sunday, May 13th 

BRAMPTON
Workers' Meeting
2:00 PM - 4:30 PM | Terry Miller Recreation Centre, 1295 Williams Pkwy | Click here for the map
We are hosting a community event to talk about the issues at work that affect us all in Brampton. For example, we know that many temp agency workers are used by client companies for years at a time without ever getting directly hired – this has to stop! We will be inviting all of the Brampton candidates in the provincial election to come hear our stories. We want them to tell us how they are going to ensure decent work for our communities.
To let us know you're coming, click here.
To spread the word on Facebook, click here.

By Afnan Naeem

ANALYSIS: Canada is working toward achieving the UN’s sustainable development goals — and Ontario has an important policy role to play, writes Afnan Naeem

The next provincial election is coming up — and nothing says policy change quite like change in government. Naturally, policies will get reshuffled and reprioritized based on how they align with the victorious party’s political platform and ambitions.

Ontario’s successful pursuit of sustainable development — a term encompassing 17 goals, laid out by the United Nations, that address poverty reduction, health, climate change, and more — in some ways is connected to its labour and economic policies. So how might the June 7 election affect that?

The state of labour policy in Ontario
Recently, labour policy has seen significant changes — primarily thanks to years of citizen-driven movements such as the “$15 and Fairness” campaign for a higher minimum wage and fairer working conditions. These changes include policies such as equal pay for equal work, which means employers must pay casual, part-time, temporary, and seasonal workers the same as full-time and permanent workers who are doing substantially the same job. Workers also now have 10 days of emergency leave, two of which are paid. The minimum wage has been increased to $14 per hour (and will be raised again to $15 per hour in 2019, unless the Progressive Conservatives win the election — the party has stated its desire to freeze the minimum wage).

Ontario’s sustainable development
Sustainable development is a shared global priority, and while the UN’s sustainable development goals pose a challenge for Ontario and other jurisdictions, they are noble in intent. Achieving the SDGs must start with our own individual actions, which have the potential to ripple out to our communities. At the provincial level, though, they can be achieved only through sound policy and agenda-setting. The SDGs are meant to be holistic; they involve multiple systems that interact with one another in some capacity.

One hundred and ninety-three countries have signed onto the SDGs, and each of these countries is responsible for its own progress. The decentralized nature of governance in Canada (in which certain policies fall under provincial jurisdiction), however, makes some of these goals provincial responsibilities. Labour policy, for example, is set and governed at the provincial level (in Ontario’s case, by the Ministry of Labour).

Goal 8 of the SDGs states that participating countries should “promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.” It’s a goal that Ontario must strive to achieve, and it also has implications for Goal 3, which dictates that Canada, as an SDG signee, must “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.” Thus, the provinces — including Ontario — must work toward sustainable development individually if Canada is to make progress as a whole.

Labour and economic policy is an important part of this. The UN has developed various indicators for tracking progress on each of the SDGs. In the case of Goal 8, one such indicator reads: “Protect labour rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all workers, including migrant workers, in particular women migrants, and those in precarious employment.” It is clear that Ontario has a major role in ensuring that progress is made on this front.

According to the World Health Organization, employment and working conditions are “social determinants of health,” a term that refers to “the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age” — things governed by our social and political environments that affect our ability to live healthy lives. Our health is not merely affected by our health-care system or our access to it; it’s also influenced by policies outside of health care. Current research bears this out: 50 per cent of health outcomes among Canadians are attributable to social determinants. Reducing disparities that are the result of social determinants constitutes an important investment: 20 per cent of the more $200 billion a year spent on health care in this country is the result of socio-economic disparities.

Sustainable development and political will
The implementation of SDGs depends on political will. Regardless of the outcome of the upcoming provincial election, Ontarians must work together to make sure the province continues to strive to achieve economic growth and decent work for all.

Read the TVO Story

By Jeff Lagerquist

Part-time, casual and seasonal workers in Ontario now have the power to demand the same wage that their full-time colleagues receive if they do the same job under new rules brought in by the province on April 1.

The change forces employers to either boost the wage of the lower-earning worker, or justify the gap based on seniority, merit or a “system that measures earnings by quantity or quality of production,” when a potential discrepancy is raised.

The “Equal Pay For Equal Work” amendment to Ontario’s Employment Standards Act also shields workers against repercussions from opening a dialogue about pay with their employer, or talking about compensation with their peers.

With this legislation, the Wynne Liberals have thrust labour relations in Ontario into uncharted waters. The province is the only jurisdiction in North America requiring equal pay for non-full-time workers.

CTVNews.ca spoke to two employment lawyers about what workers need to know if they plan to make a case for levelling the paying field.

Who can ask for a review?

The legislation applies to part-time, casual and seasonal workers in Ontario who are not employed by federally regulated businesses.

Exempt employees include those who work in banking, air travel, most federal Crown corporations, as well as telecommunication and broadcasting.

What information do I need to request a review of my pay?

All eligible employees in Ontario are entitled to request a review regardless of what information they may have about their pay relative to full-time co-workers.

No proof of unequal treatment is required, such as a copy of a full-timer’s pay stub or anecdotal knowledge of how much another person makes.

“The onus is on the employer to either prove that you are paid as much as the full-timer, or to explain why you are not paid as much,” Howard Levitt, an employment lawyer and senior partner at Levitt LLP told CTVNews.ca in an interview. “Even if you don’t have the information, you can make the allegation.”

There are some proactive measures that workers can take before approaching their employer.

Philip Graham, a lawyer with Koskie Minsky LLP specializing in employment law, encourages workers to make sure their employers have an up-to-date and accurate job description for them on file. He said that information will be a major factor in how a company determines if workers are doing the same job for different pay.

“You can always approach your employer’s HR department and ask to have your job description updated or reviewed,” Graham said in an interview. “Your manager maybe has you doing something that HR does not know about.”

Performance evaluations are another important factor for workers in certain manufacturing roles or telemarketing sales positions, for example, where pay is directly influenced by production quotas or sales outcomes.

Of course, knowledge of another worker’s pay is an asset.

“It’s fine to say, ‘I know that Bob is making X amount and I am not when you submit your request for review,’” Graham said.

How is equal work determined?

The province defines equal work as “substantially the same kind of work in the same establishment” that requires “substantially the same, skill, effort and responsibility,” performed under similar working conditions.

Work does not have to be identical to qualify.

The “same establishment” can mean two or more locations, if they are in the same municipality. A location in another municipality can qualify if so-called “bumping rights” exist.

“Bumping rights are the contractual right of an employee being laid off to replace an employee with less seniority who is not being laid off,” the legislation states.

Skill is defined as “the amount of knowledge, physical skill or motor skills needed to perform a job.” These include education, training, experience and manual dexterity, such as hand-eye coordination.

Effort can be either mental or physical.

Responsibility includes both the number of responsibilities, as well as the level of accountability and authority the employee has.

Working conditions include the environment, an office or outdoors for example, as well as exposure to weather and health hazards.

What counts as a difference in rate of pay?

The legislation accounts for differences in hourly pay rate, salary, overtime pay and commission rate.

Other forms of compensation, such as health and retirement benefits, stock options and bonuses are not mentioned.

How do I request a review of my pay?

Requests for a pay review should be sent to management, ideally someone in a human resources department, if it is a large company.

Use email to create a dated digital record of your request.

The legislation notes that “it would be helpful” if the employee can outline the following points when requesting a review of their pay:

• The positions or jobs that they are comparing their work to
• Why they think the work is equal
• Why they think their rate of pay is unequal

What information should I expect in my employer’s written response?

If the company believes there is no violation of Equal Pay For Equal Work under the Employment Standards Act, they are required to explain in writing that there is either no difference in the rate of pay, no difference in the employment status of the employees being compared, or that the work being performed is not equal.

The legislation allows for exemptions based on seniority, merit, or a “system that measures earnings by quantity or quality of production.”

“All of the exemptions need to be objective and quantifiable at the end of the day,” Graham said. “Your employer can’t all of a sudden have a seniority system, or all of a sudden have a merit system that has never been in place before, as a result of your pay review request.”

A manager’s personal preference for one employee, or their work, over another’s would not be a valid justification for a pay gap.

What should I do if I disagree with my employer’s response, or do not receive a response?

In both cases, workers are advised to file a claim with the Ministry of Labour under the Employment Standards Act.

“Once your complaint is filed with them and the employer is notified, it moves quite quickly,” Graham said. “You are usually looking at a matter of weeks before they get the ball rolling.”

If an employer denies a pay raise due to seniority, merit, or a “system that measures earnings by quantity or quality of production,” and a ministry claim is initiated, Levitt said inspectors can review the company’s records.

“If they say it is performance related, they are going to want to see the stats of the performance, and they are going to want to see the stats of everybody else’s performance,” he said. “They are going to be erring on the side of finding that the employer acted inappropriately, a little bit like the occupational health and safety branch when someone is fired after saying the work was unsafe.”

If I get a raise, how will I know if it’s enough?

Employers cannot lower other employees’ pay to even things out, but knowing how much of a raise you should receive to make things equal can be tricky.

“The legislation does not include an obligation for them (employers) to disclose to you some sort of evidence of what other people are making. That may in itself be a flaw in the legislation,” Graham said. “It really comes back to whatever launched your suspicion in the first place that you might have been underpaid. Someone saying, ‘Hey I’m making X dollars.’ And you’re like, ‘I’m not making that much.’”

According to Levitt, the legislation could potentially lead to situations where a part-time, casual or seasonal worker earns more money than full-time employees.

“It may be that a seasonal employee says, ‘I’m paid $16 per hour. There are people being paid $18 and $19 per hour who are permanent.’ Which amount does the employer adjust it to, and what rights do the other employees have?”

Both Levitt and Graham agree that a number of unknowns remain when it comes to how this legislation will work in practice.

“The legislation, not to be cynical, is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination,” Graham said. “I’m not sure if the legislation has the necessary teeth to bridge the gap. I think employers will . . . find ways to justify those pay differentials.”

Levitt said he expects any resulting pay gains will be offset by cutback hours and lost jobs as employers grapple with rising labour costs on the heels of a minimum wage hike.

“I think this is going to have a bigger impact on employment and business than minimum wage,” he said. “Suddenly a lot of part-timers will get wage increases. The employer is going to scratch their head and say, ‘How can I get rid of these people? It’s just not market productive for me to pay people this much for this particular job. I can’t get by.’”

There is also the question of if the legislation will survive if Progressive Conservative candidate Doug Ford unseats long-time Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne in the June 7 provincial election.

With that in mind, Levitt said he is not too worried about the knock-on effects the legislation will have on Ontario’s ability to compete with neighbouring jurisdictions where part-time labour is less expensive.

“It’s going to be reversed in three months,” he said. “Ford said he is not going to touch minimum wage. He is just not going to increase it. This one, I think he might roll back.”

Read the CTV News Story

Temp agency workers will now have more protection on the job, thanks to years of mobilizing by our communities. The Ontario government proclaimed today Schedule 5 of Bill 18, the Stronger Workplaces for a Stronger Economy Act, making it possible to hold client companies using temp agencies responsible for workplace injuries.

This is an important victory. Under the old rules, the company where temp agency workers were assigned did not have responsibility for agency workers’ injuries and illnesses, ie. for their workplace compensation premiums. Instead, companies were able to shift this financial liability to temp agencies. This meant that temp workers were put at greater risk for getting hurt on the job, since employers often hired temp workers to perform dangerous jobs, without even providing proper health and safety training and protections.

Today’s change will put the responsibility for injuries and the costs of workers’ compensation premiums where it belongs – on the company using temp agency workers. 

While we celebrate this victory we know our fight for stronger protections for all workers is far from over. For temp agency workers this especially means putting an end to perma-temping.

Let’s make sure temporary agency jobs are truly used for temporary purposes. Some employers rely on temp agencies to keep their costs low at the expense of workers. At Fiera Foods where 3 temp agency workers died on the job since 1999, 70% of the workers are temporary workers reported Toronto Star – even though the company had previously said that “it uses temp agency workers to meet fluctuating demands.” This has to stop.

The victories we’ve won to date show that our pressure is working! The equal pay for equal work law that came into effect this past Sunday is another one of these wins. This will stop agencies from reaching into the pockets of workers by requiring that temp agency workers get paid the same hourly wage as their directly hired co-workers who do comparable work. Now let's keep pushing for more:

• Companies should not be allowed to hire more than 20% of their workforce through temporary staffing agencies.
• Temp agency workers should be converted to direct employees of the client company after 3 months on an assignment. The client company and temp agency must be required to provide just cause, if, at the end of the assignment, another worker is hired to do the work previously done by the temp agency worker.
• Temp agency and the client company should be held jointly liable for ALL employment rights of temp workers – for example, personal emergency leave and misclassification of workers

Thank you for your ongoing participation in our collective fight for a $15 minimum wage and fair working conditions. With the Big Business lobby and its candidates campaigning to roll back our wins, we have a lot at stake with the June 7 Ontario election. Let’s send a clear message to all political parties that our communities have high expectations for them to deliver on a decent work agenda. Click here to download our campaign leaflet to learn more and help us spread the word by sharing it with 3 friends or forwarding this email.

(TORONTO, ON) -- Today, workers at university and college campuses across Ontario are mobilizing to promote and enforce equal pay for part-time, contract, casual, seasonal and temporary workers.

“The new laws that came into effect on April 1 are all about promoting decent work with hours that workers can live on,” said Kimberly Ellis-Hale a contract professor at Wilfrid Laurier University and member of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) Contract Faculty Committee. “Precarious employment proliferates when the law allows employers to pay part-time or temporary workers less than their full-time co-workers. Too many employers have been creating part-time or contract jobs even when there is enough work to create more full-time, secure employment.”

The trend toward part-time insecure work can be seen at Ontario’s universities and colleges, where part-time and contract employment has far outstripped full-time employment. “Contract faculty, with low pay, few benefits and no job security, now do the bulk of teaching because their labour is cheaper,” said RM Kennedy, Chair of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) College Faculty Division. “We’re also seeing the same trend toward precarious work for the staff who support and maintain our post-secondary system. Too many part-time support staff and contract faculty are getting lower pay for the same work as their full-time colleagues. It’s time to close this gap.”

“Workers of colour and newcomer workers are over-represented among those working involuntarily in part-time employment,” said Alia Karim a student leader with the Fight for $15 & Fairness at York University. “As a result, these same workers earn less, receive fewer benefits, and are short-changed on holiday pay. By addressing such unfair treatment, the new laws will go a long way toward closing the growing pay equity gap.”

“Another important equal pay win for workers in the new legislation is public holiday pay,” said Deena Ladd, Coordinator of the Workers’ Action Centre. “The old formula for calculating holiday pay meant that many part-time workers received as little as one-tenth the daily pay of their full-time co-workers when they worked on a statutory holiday. The new laws eliminate this financial incentive for employers to rely on part-time work instead of offering full-time jobs.”

“The first step in enforcing and protecting our legislative victories is making sure that post-secondary workers, including students, staff and faculty, know what the laws are and how to access them,” said Pam Frache, coordinator of the Fight for $15 & Fairness. “April 4 is just one of many upcoming actions to highlight, enforce and extend our legislative rights.”

Under the revised Employment Standards Act, employers are now required to offer the same rate of pay to part-time, contract, casual, temporary and seasonal employees, who are doing substantially the same work in the same workplaces as their full-time, permanent counterparts. The same standards apply to temporary agency workers who are doing substantially the same work, in the same workplaces as directly-hired employees of the client company.

-30-

The Fight for $15 and Fairness is a growing network of workers committed to fighting for decent work, and includes students, faculty, labour, health providers, temp agency workers, minimum wage earners, anti-poverty groups and faith leaders. To learn more, visit: 15andFairness.org.

For more information or to arrange interviews:

Pam Frache, Ontario Coordinator, Fight for $15 and Fairness           416-578-3472

Thunder Bay:      Lakehead University              Laurie Forbes              807-343-8966

Kingston:             St. Lawrence College             Grant Currie                 613-893-2505

St. Catharines:   Brock University                      Quinn Ascah               905-933-2358

Kitchener:            Conestoga College                Lana-Lee Hardacre    519 501-0994

Waterloo:             Wilfrid Laurier University       Kimberly Ellis-Hale     519-574-0402

Guelph:                University of Guelph              Janice Folk-Dawson  519-766-8376

Scarbrough:        Scarborough Town Centre   Linda Bernard             647-299-53870

Toronto:               York University                        Alia Karim                     647-915-0766

                              Seneca College at York         Anna Ainsworth          647-832-7002

                              Ryerson University                 Rajean Hoilett              289-923-3534

                              Centennial College                RM Kennedy               416-346-8382

By Syed Hussan

For most, an election raises two questions: should I vote? And who should I vote for?

The Ontario general elections are set for June 7, 2018. Doug Ford snatched the Ontario PC leadership, running on a populist platform of repealing Ontario’s new sex ed curriculum, stopping the minimum wage increase, and restricting access to abortion. The Liberals, under Kathleen Wynne, are smelling defeat and tacking left, promising progressive changes like free childcare for many. The NDP and Andrea Horwath have gone even further, promising the Liberal goodie bag plus universal Pharmacare, dental care, and more.

But an election is about more than whether and for whom you should vote. It’s an opening to push conversations towards just futures, within an atmosphere of heightened debate over political, social, and economic issues. The result of an election and the arrival of a new government often has a material impact on the most excluded and illegalized people. But should we intervene in the conversation? How, and with what goals? Is it the best use of our energy to engage with elections?

I invited five Ontario activists that I greatly respect to weigh in on these issues. I asked them all the same two questions, followed by one personalized question. Their ideas represent some (though not all) of the key schools of thought on elections. If you agree with their ideas, join them (or others like them near you) – or start your own collective. More than anything else, we need many more people organizing together to build the worlds we want to live in.

How should we engage with Doug Ford in the upcoming Ontario election and after? Should we even engage in the elections?

Pam Frache: We cannot allow Doug Ford to masquerade as a defender of the “little guy” when he is driving an agenda that will make life worse for those he purports to protect. But we won’t beat Doug Ford by offending his base with derision and insults. For in every populist message Ford delivers, there is also a kernel of truth that we must patiently identify and try to explain. In this way, we can help focus the legitimate anger that people feel about the system in a constructive direction. Ford is a pro-business candidate and opposes any measure that may cut into corporate profit. That’s why he is unlikely to support changes that raise wages or give workers more agency on the job. If we intervene in this election with bold, working-class demands, we can help polarize the election between corporate interests and the rest of us, which can help expose Ford’s real agenda. But to succeed, we need an even stronger movement for decent work. That’s why building a multi-racial, working-class movement is our foremost task before, during, and after the June election.

John Clarke: The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) thinks it is not a good idea to promote the ‘lesser evil’ theory, and we don’t want to support the Liberals in any way. But Ford represents an intensification of the regressive agenda – and the provocative nature of his electoral campaign may give us reason to target this as he campaigns. If he is elected, his Government will be waging war on workers and communities and either we’d defeat his agenda or suffer huge losses. Our goal would have to be a real common front of social mobilization against Ford and the Tories.

Vanessa Gray: Unfortunately, all of our problems cannot be solved through elections. We should engage by showing commitment and support to the communities impacted by the Ring of Fire. Ford is another example of white supremacy, which wants to grow the Canadian economy. These days, the dominant political agenda seems to be one that is working against the scientific evidence that we need to cut down our emissions. While First Nations people continue to bear the brunt of the impacts on the land, the so-called “progress” is never enough for some Canadians.

Sandy Hudson: Ford and his party’s obsession with destroying the sex ed curriculum and access to reproductive choice may sound outrageous, but we all know by now how this game works. The very act of raising these issues in the debate gives their reconsideration a legitimacy that they otherwise wouldn’t have. It has already begun to shift discussions to the right. We need to raise our own principed positions that truly shift conversations to the left. Reducing hospital wait times isn’t going to do it. Let’s talk about nationalizing our communications infrastructure, free education, and demilitarizing police. The way to make these issues a factor in the debate is to mobilize a base that makes it impossible for the politicians vying for election to avoid taking a position on them. As a Black Lives Matter (BLM) activist, I can tell you that it is possible to force local, provincial and federal discussions on what some people may have thought were “controversial” issues. We did it by mobilizing, sticking to our principles, and never letting up.

Chris Ramsaroop: From the perspective of working with communities that, by design, are excluded from traditional methods of “civic engagement” like electoral politics, it’s critical that we don’t fall into the trap of believing all our problems can be fixed through elections. The Conservatives (like the Liberals) continue to use racially coded language to exclude migrants from basic access to healthcare, employment standards, the right to organize, etc. Our organizing work will continue to focus on the structures of migrant worker schemes and we will continue to chip away at the facade of the notion of the Canadian nation state as benevolent when it’s premised on theft, dehumanization and exclusion of migrant workers.

By and large, Conservative and Liberal policies are pretty much the same with respect to working class communities. Our work on the ground must be to challenge the inherent divisions that capitalists use to divide workers, such as racial and gender divisions in the workplace, but also to identify spaces where solidarity has been built and continues to be built.

What are the lessons from your histories of organizing (for the Days of Action, Stop the Cuts, Fight for 15, BLM etc) that are particularly valuable in this moment? How should they shape movement strategy?

Pam Frache: On November 29, 2016 – just 21 days after Trump’s election – thousands of workers in 340 cities (including 20 airports) took strike action, organized by the U.S. Fight for $15. They demanded not only a $15 minimum wage and the right to join unions, but also an end to racist police killings, an end to deportations, and for universal healthcare. Remember, the world expected Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton to become president and most were shell-shocked when Trump prevailed. Asked how they pulled off 340 strikes just three weeks after the election – while most were reeling and demoralized – U.S. Fight for $15 organizers gave a simple answer: “We didn’t. We all thought Clinton was going to win the election, so workers had been preparing these strikes for weeks. Workers know they can’t rely on politicians.” The strikes involved not just fast food workers, but child care workers, home-care workers, airport workers, and even contract faculty. Hundreds were arrested on the day, among the workers: faith leaders and other community advocates. This bold action helped inspire the incredible resistance that followed, including the airport workers and taxi drivers who shut down airports across the U.S. in response to Trump’s Muslim ban, and the millions who marched in the women’s march in the U.S. and around the world.

John Clarke: The key lesson of the Days of Action against Mike Harris’ Conservative government in ‘95 is that we won’t win if we aren’t prepared to take things to the level necessary. The campaign in the ‘90s showed incredible power but it was frittered away by escalating and de-escalating the struggle, and by failing to adopt a perspective of raising the level of action to the point where the Tories either capitulated or faced a movement capable of creating political and economic disruption on a decisive scale. Those within unions and social movements who accept the logic of this strategy should start talking and planning right now.

Vanessa Gray: Through the rallies and strikes in Ontario, the common thread has been generational gaps between students and political activists (mostly academic). I think we should question how accessible our movements are, because the support Doug Ford has comes from a larger number of people who don’t follow the political agenda that most of us can barely keep up with. While our movements are unique and beautiful, we need to find time to meet and come to terms with the fact that we have a common enemy.

John, would building the “common front” you talk about entail creating a new structure, or bolstering an existing one? What are some coordinated activities for this front to enact?

John Clarke: If Ford is elected, he will most likely want to move quickly with his austerity measures and related social regression. When the Harris Tories came to power in the ‘90s, they enjoyed a period where the left was shocked into demobilization, allowing them to push through their initial work. We want to initiate action as quickly as possible, but also to escalate the response from forms of moral appeal to those that are disruptive and powerful enough to actually force the Tories into retreat. As that struggle emerges, I would expect that some kind of formal union or community alliance would be created, after a round of meetings and discussions. But right now, I think the focus is on trying to bring together a caucus of organizations and individuals that share the goal of resistance and stopping the Tories. The Days of Action taught us that that kind of caucus needs to stay in place once the main organizations are moving. This time around, the fight-back needs to be much more decisive and based on a plan to escalate pressure – and that will require those of us who share this goal to do more than stand at the back of the crowd chanting slogans about shutting down Ontario.

Vanessa, in regards to the election, what are specific mechanisms to strengthen anti-colonial analysis and action?

Vanessa Gray: Until Indigenous peoples have attained self-determination, we deserve to be able to participate in provincial politics in a meaningful way. The Canadian government continues to prioritize the economy over Indigenous nations that are struggling to reconnect with our cultures and lands. The politicians work against our interests, like securing drinkable water, adequate housing, food sovereignty, and culturally relevant education. Every nation whose land Ontario occupies should be represented in provincial decision-making, and all decisions should require the free, prior, and informed consent of the Indigenous nations that would be impacted.

Pam, what are some specific strategies that $15 and Fairness will be using in the next nine weeks to win over workers? On another note, do you think there is a need or a space for a coordinating body – a “common front,” like John suggested?

Pam Frache: We see workers, not politicians, as the drivers of change. The whole movement for $15 and Fairness has been built by small groups of committed people having conversations (in as many different languages as possible) with other groups of people. It doesn’t sound very exciting. But it is through these thousands of conversations and actions that we have been able to knit together a network of leaders committed to fighting for decent work and wages. Organization will be crucial for the struggles ahead, no matter who forms government. In our experience with the fight for $15 and Fairness, the process of involving others in the campaign poses the question of organization. The more we persuade, learn, activate, involve, assess, energize, motivate, and even make mistakes, the more likely we are to grow and expand organization over the long run.

We are fighting for a big vision for decent work, before, during, and after the Ontario election. This big vision has been developed by workers themselves and will require a united working-class movement make it a reality. To that end, we have three tactics. First, we are redoubling our effort to collect as many signatures as we can on a big visiof to implement and fund $15 and Fairness (and invite each signatory to join the movement). Second, we want to make existing support as visible as possible, so we want to decorate doors, windows, lawns, bulletin boards, and community hubs of Ontario with “Proud to support a $15 minimum wage and decent work for all” signs and banners. Third, we are co-sponsoring, along with the Ontario Federation of Labour, a decent work rally on June 16, so that, no matter who forms the next government, we want them to be too afraid to attack our gains, and instead feel the heat to deliver more.

Chris, you talk about challenging the inherent divisions that capitalists use to divide workers. How do we challenge these deeply-rooted divisions in a short period of time before the election? How can short term strategies build towards a long term project?

Chris Ramsaroop: I agree with John that learning from the experiences of the Days of Actions, there needs to be a space – a common front, a caucus, or whatever we want to call it – where we engage in organizing and action that pushes boundaries. The Harris period was marked by a consistent and intense fightback that was both militant and creative – it encouraged unconventional strategies. For younger organizers – like myself, at the time – it was critical in developing our awareness of what we can and should demand of the state. Whether it was large mass protests or small autonomous actions, people came together first out of a necessity to counter Harris’ reactionary strategies, but also to demand a future that was not premised on austerity nor on begging for scraps. The fight-back is for the short term, but for the long term we need to develop and sustain a community of resistance. As we move forward, it’ll be critical to ensure that young comrades don’t burn out, and older comrades are not pushed out.

Part of our work over the next nine weeks will be to engage with migrant workers about the significance of this election. Wedge politics will mark this election and, learning from our past organizing work, we will need to engage with allies across the province to counter the impending xenophobia and anti-immigrant hysteria. There won’t be a cookie-cutter approach to fighting back. Each community struggle will look differently because the terrain is different.

Leamington, for example, has a very different geography to Simcoe, Tillsonburg, or any of the other communities that we organize in. Justicia for Migrant Workers’ (J4MW) Harvesting Freedom campaign taught us that interventions at local farmers’ markets were critical in forcing a conversation about food production, racism, and white supremacy. We also faced extreme hostility in these spaces, where our adversaries felt compelled to “protect the family farm.” In the past we have also intervened in local election debates – a few years back we brought a bus load of migrant workers who demanded to have a say in electoral issues. This simple, mundane act of “civic engagement” was met with police, who cordoned off the migrant workers from the rest of the audience. As a result of the heightened exploitation that migrant workers face (being tied to an employer, absence of labour and social mobility, constant threats of deportation) we will need to be creative in our approaches and to use this moment to build long term.

Sandy, you talk about changing the message to push the conversation left. What are strategies or messages that most Ontario organizations can take up during the next nine weeks?

Sandy Hudson: At this stage in the game, I think organizations should think about using a strategy that demands that our most urgent issues – the ones that mean life or death for those of us who are workers, who are migrants, who are Indigenous, and who are Black – are considered, publicly, and at a time when those who hold the levers of power are most vulnerable. Our issues are the most urgent, and we should frame them as such. Politicians so often treat the issues that result in the disruption of our lives as inessential “special interest” issues. We need to creatively and strategically use public space to force mainstream media to put our issues front and centre. Politicians know that generally, the public will support our demands if they are aware of them. So they do everything they can do avoid publicly reckoning with them. It’s our job to make that suppression of our issues impossible.

Read the briarpatch Story

Decent work is going to be a defining issue in the Ontario election.

Millions of workers are already enjoying higher wages and better working conditions thanks to the improvements we have made in the law (Source 1: Financial Post). 

All workers now have 10 days of job-protected emergency leave and the first two of these are paid. Part-time workers are, for the first time, receiving the same holiday pay as full-time workers – a provision that the Big Business lobby opposes with a vengeance.

When equal pay for equal work becomes the law today on April 1, millions of part-time, contract, casual, seasonal and temporary workers will start receiving the same pay as their full-time/permanent and directly-hired counterparts. (For more information, download and distribute our new leaflet by clicking here.)

These are extraordinary wins.
But they are all in jeopardy in the upcoming Ontario election.

Conservative Leader Doug Ford has promised to scrap the $15 minimum wage, cut billions from our social programs and axe the very public sector staff we depend on to deliver the services we need (Source 2: Globe and Mail). If we look at the last time Ontario Conservatives formed government in the mid-1990s, they rolled back employment standards and made life harder for working people.

This time, the Conservatives are promising tax cuts for those earning less than $30,000. But the vast majority of us who earn less than $30,000 already pay no tax thanks to pre-existing tax credits. In other words, Doug Ford wants us to vote for a scheme that denies us decent wages while reducing taxes for the rich. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has done the math to show why minimum wage earners are better off with higher wages than phoney tax cuts (Source 3: CCPA).

We need to do everything we can in the days ahead to spread the word about what we’ve won and why this election matters.

Our decent work movement is growing!
Check out this short video to see the many people who are giving leadership to the Fight for $15 &
Fairness, then join us at an action near you!
View & share on Facebook | View & share on Twitter

Here’s what you can do right now:

• Spread the word about our $15 and Fairness wins. Distribute these leaflets in your workplace, campus, community.
• Organize a “Know your new rights” workshop in your workplace, campus, community. If you think you can assemble 15 people to participate, reply to this email and we will arrange to send workshop facilitators.
• Put up a sign on your door, window or lawn and ask your friends and co-workers to do the same (you can download posters by clicking here).
• Help us decorate Ontario with these beautiful window & lawn signs and banners (click here to fill out an order form).
• Join in one of these crucial actions coming up in your community (scroll below for details) or host an event yourself.

Source 1: Click here for the Financial Post article
Source 2: Click here for the Globe and Mail article
Source 3: Click here for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives analysis

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Tuesday, April 3

TORONTO
This Changes Everything/film screening and discussion
6:00 PM - 9:00 PM | Ryerson University School of Image Arts, 122 Bond Street | Click here for the map
Join Cinema Politica Ryerson's upcoming screening of This Changes Everything, directed by Avi Lewis and produced in conjunction with Lewis' partner Naomi Klein's bestselling book of the same name. The fight for good jobs and climate justice are linked, come and learn more! This event is free. 
To RSVP and share on Facebook, click here.

Wednesday, April 4

ONTARIO-WIDE
Equal Pay Outreach Blitz
8:00 AM - 6:00 PM | On campuses and in communities across Ontario!
On April 4, we’re getting out on our campuses and in our communities to talk about Ontario’s new equal pay law. Let’s talk to students, staff and faculty on campus, and our neighbours in our communities to make sure everyone knows about our new rights! Here are some ideas:

- Hand out leaflets and talk to others about equal pay
- Chalk the sidewalks with equal pay for equal work messages
- Hold classroom "teach-ins" to educate students, many of whom are in precarious jobs, about their new rights
- Perform fun skits on equal pay for equal work
- Put up posters and forward this email to others to tell them about our new rights under Bill 148

All you need to participate is a couple of people, materials, and a location where there are people to talk to. To get materials and information about outreach blitzes near you, send an email to [email protected] or ask your question on the Facebook event page by clicking here. Below are some events that have already been announced for April 4 and more is coming soon!

KINGSTON
11:00 AM - 2:00 PM | St. Lawrence College, 100 Portsmouth Ave | Click here for the map
Join $15 & Fairness Kingston Chapter for a tabling session to raise awareness about equal pay for equal provisions in Bill 148 which come into effect across Ontario on April 1st.
To RSVP and share on Facebook, click here.

ST. CATHARINES
11:30 AM - 2:30 PM | Brock University, 1812 Sir Isaac Brock Way | Click here for the map
Join us on April 4. Let’s talk to students, staff and faculty to make sure everyone knows about our new rights! Looking forward to working with you to build a strong movement to ensure equal pay is enforced on our campuses and across the province. For more information please email [email protected].
To RSVP and share on Facebook, click here.

TORONTO
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM | York University, 4700 Keele St, Main Gate Picket Line | Click here for the map
Join us on the picket line to celebrate the introduction of new equal pay legislation and show support for striking CUPE 3903 members! York contract faculty, TA's, GA's are precarious part-time workers, and their strike demands reflect a lot of the concerns shared by precarious workers across Ontario. For more information, please e-mail [email protected].
To RSVP and share on Facebook, click here.

TORONTO
12:00 PM -  3:00 PM | Seneca College at York, 70 The Pond Rd | Click here for the map
Join us at the Computer Commons Hallway to learn about Ontario's new equal pay laws which come into effect across Ontario on April 1st.
To RSVP and share on Facebook, click here.

Thursday, April 5

TORONTO
Student Workers Know Your Rights Workshop
2:00 PM - 4:00  PM | 720 Spadina Avenue, Suite 223 |Click here for the map
Join Fight for $15 and Fairness UofT to learn about your new rights under the Employment Standards Act before starting your summer job this year. This workshop can accommodate 25 people so sign up early at the eventbrite link to reserve your spot (for free). We're looking forward to seeing you at this training. Get informed and teach your friends about your new rights! NOTE: Coffee and tea will be provided, gender-neutral washrooms on site, building fully accessible.
To reserve your seat click here, to share on Facebook click here.

HAMILTON
Hamilton Town Hall: Organizing for the Provincial Election
5:30 PM - 9:00 PM | Hamilton-Wentworth Elementary Teachers’ Local 105 Nebo Rd | Click here for the map
Join the Ontario Federation of Labour and the Hamilton District Labour Council for a special town hall. There is a lot at stake in this upcoming election. Come ready to roll up your sleeves, and strategize an effective ground campaign that inspires and motivates. Doors open at 5:30 PM with refreshments and a light meal, town hall is from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM.
To RSVP and share on Facebook, click here.

Friday, April 6

TORONTO
Training for Medical Students - Ontario's New Employment Laws
12:00 PM - 1:00  PM|Medical Sciences Building, 1 King's College Circle |Click here for the map
The Decent Work and Health Network is pleased to join Social Justice in Medical Education in presenting training on these new laws, including how medical students can support patients in accessing their rights. Attend this lunchtime session in MSB 3153 to learn about how health provider advocacy contributed to the development of policy, some of the new protections for workers, and how to address issues related to employment laws when they arise in the clinic.
To RSVP and share on Facebook, click here.

Sunday, April 8 

BRAMPTON
Know Your Rights Workshop
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM | Royal Star Realty Inc.,170 Steelwell Road, #200 | Click here for the map
We have new labour laws as of January 1st including a $14 minimum wage, 10 personal leave days and many more. Join us to learn more about your new rights at work!
To save your spot click here, to share on Facebook click here.

BRAMPTON
Issues Around Temp Agency Work Meeting
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM | Royal Star Realty Inc.,170 Steelwell Road, #200 | Click here for the map
Are you a temp agency worker? Are you getting paid low wages or less than minimum wage? Are you forced to do unsafe work? Have you been working a long time at the same company without being hired directly? Join us to talk about how we can fight for better working conditions for all, including for so many of us working through temporary staffing agencies!
To save your spot click here, to share on Facebook click here.

OSHAWA
We Are Oshawa Annual General Meeting
2:00 PM | 61 Charles St, Room 217| Click here for the map
Join We Are Oshawa for the annual general meeting. Over the past weeks, we've organized an incredible series of mobilizations, first across Ontario then throughout the country in support of workers at Tim Hortons. The pressure we've created is working! We will be discussing this and more, as well as elections for the We Are Oshawa executive board and setting the agenda for the next year so please don’t miss this very important meeting.
To RSVP and share on Facebook, click here.

Monday, April 9

OTTAWA
Algonquin College - Know Your Rights Workshop!
2:30 PM - 4:30 PM | Algonquin College, E206 Student Commons | Click here for the map
Join Algonquin's Fight for $15 and Fairness Club for an afternoon of workers' rights education! We will be outlining our new rights under Bill 148 (Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act), and discussing what can be done to protect them. Come out, enjoy some snacks, learn about your rights, and how we can enforce them together. NOTE: The Student Commons (E Building) is fully accessible, and has gender-inclusive washrooms.
To RSVP and share on Facebook, click here.

Tuesday , April 10

TORONTO
EQUAL PAY DAY RALLY 2018
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM | Northwest Corner of College St and University Ave | Click here for the map 
Join the Ontario Equal Pay Coalition for a rally outside Queen's Park. Bring friends and wear red to protest how unequal pay leaves women in the red!

When: Rally 12-1pm, followed by a visit to Queen's Park at 1pm
Where: The North West corner of College and University
What: Samba Squad! Food truck! Short speeches! Gender Priced Bake Sale! And much more!

To RSVP and share on Facebook, click here.

KINGSTON
Queen's University Equal Pay Day of Action
11:00 AM - 2:00 PM | Joseph S. Stauffer Library, 101 Union St | Click here for a map
Come on out and help us raise awareness of the gender pay gap in Ontario and the new Bill 148 legislation mandating equal pay for part-time and contract workers as of April 1st.
To RSVP and share on Facebook, click here.

TORONTO
Toronto-Wide Organizing Meeting
5:30 PM – 8:00 PM  | 720 Spadina Ave, Suite 202 | Click here for a map 
We are less than 100 days away from the Ontario election and are pulling out all the stops to make sure that decent work and the Fight for $15 & Fairness are central issues in this election. But we can't do it without you. Please join us for the next citywide organizing meeting to help us protect our legislative wins -- and fight for more. Please RSVP so we know how many snacks to provide! And please share this event with others who may want to get involved.
To save your spot click here, to share on Facebook click here.  

Thursday, April 12

OSHAWA
Provincial Election Town Hall: Durham
5:30 PM - 9:00 PM | IBEW Hall, 1001 Ritson Rd South | Click here for a map 
Join the Ontario Federation of Labour and the Durham Region Labour Council for a special town hall. There is a lot at stake in this upcoming election. Come ready to roll up your sleeves, and strategize an effective ground campaign that inspires and motivates. Doors open at 5:30 PM with refreshments and a light meal, town hall is from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM.
To RSVP and share on Facebook, click here.

Saturday, April 14

TORONTO
West Toronto $15 and Fairness Neighbourhood Canvass
12:30 PM - 2:30 PM | Jane and Wilson
Join us for a door-to-door canvass. Like we did in Davenport, we are going to be knocking on doors, talking to people about the changes to Ontario's labour laws, raising questions about decent work to ask candidates and trying to get people to put up lawn/window signs to show their support for $15 and Fairness.
To save your spot click here, to share on Facebook click here.

OTTAWA
Workers' Rights Workshop
2:00 - 4:00 PM | Jack Purcell Community Centre, 320 Jack Purcell Lane | Click here for a map
Join $15 & Fairness Ottawa and Pilipinong Migrante Sa Canada to learn about your new rights. Is your boss breaking the law by refusing paid leave? “Say NO to bad bosses, and YES to workers’ rights!” Come and learn about your right to paid emergency leave; paid vacation; equal pay; fairer schedules; and more. Snacks & drinks will be provided.
To RSVP and share on Facebook, click here.

The Fight for $15 & Fairness campaign has made great advances in recent months with the passage of new legislation in Bill 148 that will bring more fairness to Ontario workplaces. Among these changes is new equal pay legislation for contract, part-time, temporary and casual workers, which comes into force for non-union workers on April 1, 2018 and for unionized workers the earlier of January 2020 or expiry of collective agreement. At our colleges and universities, this means that contract faculty and part-time support staff must be paid the same as their full-time colleagues for the same work.

Our work as the $15 and Fairness Campus Network in the coming months is to educate workers and students about their newly won rights and fight to make sure they are enforced fairly.

For contract faculty, the stakes are high.

It is widely acknowledged that contract faculty at colleges and universities do the same work but are paid less than their full-time colleagues. The same goes for all part-time, casual and contract support workers on campus. Students also understand the importance of equal pay because many of them have worked part-time or at temporary jobs to pay their rising tuition fees.

That is why on April 4, we’re getting out on our campuses and in our communities to talk about Ontario’s new equal pay law. Click here to download the "Enforce Equal Pay" leaflets now.

Now is the time for students, staff and faculty across the Ontario post-secondary education sector to step up our organizing in the Fight for $15 & Fairness and to call on the provincial government to fund and enforce $15 & Fairness! Workers and students in the post-secondary education sector are well placed to take a leadership role in organizing and fighting to enforce, protect and extend equal pay across the province.

So join us on April 4 (watch this Facebook event page for updates). Let’s talk to students, staff and faculty on campus to make sure everyone knows about our new rights! 

Some ideas for getting involved:

• Hand out leaflets (download them here) and talk to others about equal pay
• Chalk the sidewalks with equal pay for equal work messages
• Host classroom “teach-ins” to educate students, many of whom are working temp and precarious jobs, about their rights
• Perform fun skits on equal pay for equal work
• Put up posters (click here for many colourful options) and send emails about our new rights under Bill 148
• Invite your friends, members and colleagues to take selfies with the equal pay posters/leaflets and post on social media (don't forget to use hashtag #15andFairness #fairness4cf)

All you need to participate is a couple of people, a few materials, and a location where there are people to talk to. To download and share leaflets, click here. Be sure to stay organized after the event, use this sign-up sheet to invite new people to join the campaign.

If you are interested in coordinating an outreach blitz on your campus, email [email protected]

If you need any other information about outreach blitzes near you, or are in need of other material please email [email protected] 

Thanks for your ongoing participation,
Together we WILL win.

Today’s Toronto Star reports a major victory for workers' rights. In response to years of grassroots organizing, the Ontario government will move to hold client companies using temp agencies responsible for workplace injuries.

Under current law, the temp agency takes responsibility (including increased worker compensation board premiums) if a temp worker gets hurt, not the company where the injury took place. Such a loophole has created a huge financial incentive for employers to hire temp agency workers to perform dangerous jobs and not provide proper health and safety training and protections. For example, at one company, Fiera Foods, 3 temp agency workers died on the job since 1999. A Toronto Star investigation revealed last year that temp agency workers placed in warehouses and factories were twice as likely to get hurt than their non-temp counterparts. Temporary agency workers have been organizing to speak out and expose these huge gaps in protections for years. This change will put the responsibility for injuries where it belongs -- the company using temp agency workers. 

Now we need to put a stop to perma-temping. This has been a key demand in our Fight for $15 & Fairness. 

The equal pay for equal work law that our communities won last Fall (coming into effect on April 1, 2018) and the measures announced today, will go a long way in curbing the unchecked growth of temp agency industry. The new equal pay measures, for example, will stop agencies from reaching into the pockets of workers by requiring that temp agency workers get paid the same hourly wage as their directly hired co-workers who do comparable work. But more needs to be done.

Together, we need to make sure that temporary agency jobs are truly temporary. 
Last year, bakery giant Fiera Foods used temp workers to staff 70 percent of its operations. We cannot allow for companies to fill permanent positions with temp workers, sometimes years on end, without providing any decent wages, benefits and job security. The experiences of countless brave agency workers who've spoken out demonstrate that employers must be prevented from using temp workers as a strategy to increase profits by keeping workers precarious. Here is what we still need:

• Companies should not be allowed to hire more than 20% of their workforce through temporary staffing agencies.
• Temp agency workers should be converted to direct employees of the client company after 3 months on an assignment. The client company and temp agency must be required to provide just cause, if, at the end of the assignment, another worker is hired to do the work previously done by the temp agency worker.
• Temp agency and the client company should be held jointly liable for ALL employment rights of temp workers – for example, personal emergency leave and misclassification of workers

Our victories to date prove that by mobilizing across Ontario we can improve working conditions. We need your help to fight on! The temporary staffing agency lobby (including groups like ACSESS, Adecco and Randstad) has been a key backer in the Ontario Chamber of Commerce campaign to oppose a $15 minimum wage and fairness. These new measures will cut directly into temp agency profits, and the industry will do everything in its power to stop these changes.

We are building a fighting fund to spread the word about our new rights, organize workshops in neighbourhoods, hand out lawn signs and grow the reach (and muscle) of our movement. Will you contribute? Please click here to make a donation. Every little bit helps.

By making a donation, coming to a local event or publicly calling out bad bosses such as Tim Hortons, your participation makes the growth of this decent work movement possible. Thanks to your energy and commitment, we know that we will win $15 and Fairness for ALL workers, including for temp agency workers.

By Sara Mojtehedzadeh and Brendan Kennedy

Employers who use temporary employment agencies will no longer be able to evade liability for workplace accidents, the Star has learned, as new legislation promises to hold them responsible when temps are injured or killed on the job.

Last year a Star investigation showed how companies use temp agencies to cut costs and limit liability for accidents because temp agencies were considered workers’ so-called employer of record at the provincial compensation board. As a result, the agency took the financial hit if a temp got hurt, not the place where they were actually injured.

Since the labour law reforms we won came into effect on January 1, millions have seen improvements in their wages and working conditions. While most employers are adopting these changes and respecting the spirit of the new workplace laws, there are, sadly, some greedy corporations like Tim Hortons, refusing to share the wealth.

Demand action from Tim Hortons: 

Over the past weeks, we've organized an incredible series of mobilizations, first across Ontario then throughout the country in support of workers at Tim Hortons. The February 13 action alone saw more than 300 Tim Hortons restaurants visited by #15andFairness supporters to deliver valentine's greetings and labour rights information to the workers (check out the video). The pressure we've created is working!

“The public relations debacle related to the minimum wage increase in Ontario is causing tremendous downward pressure on the value of the Tim Horton’s brand,” wrote Peter Proszanski, the attorney representing an association of Tim Hortons Franchise owners -- reported CTV News.

On Thursday, March 15 let's use all social media platforms at our disposal to call attention to Tim Hortons' ongoing attacks on workers' rights. Click here right now to sign up and add your voice. If enough people join the online action, a one-time message will be sent out simultaneously from all of our social media profiles to tell Tim Hortons to treat workers better.

Together, we have the power to pressure Tim Hortons and force the corporation to do the right thing. Here is how you can help:

By Matt Galloway

The province's proposed bill aimed at closing the wage gap does it by ending the secrecy around wages. Among other changes, the proposed bill would require job postings to include salary ranges. Navi Aujla, who's worked a lot of factory jobs and encountered the culture of secrecy around wages, speaks about her experience. We also hear from labour lawyer Fay Faraday.

Listen to CBC Story

By Kate McGillivray

Equal Pay Coalition co-chair says new legislation only covers ‘tiny proportion’ of the labour market

Women who have spent years advocating to close the pay gap between male and female workers say that a new piece of legislation unveiled by Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne on Tuesday doesn't go far enough.

If passed, the legislation would eventually require all employers with 250 workers or more to come clean with their employees and with the province about how much they pay, along with a number of other measures designed to close the wage gap between women and men. 

But Fay Faraday, a lawyer who co-chairs the Equal Pay Coalition, says the bill will only apply to a "tiny proportion of the labour market" and leave the rest of female workers in the dark about how much their male counterparts are earning.

"Here in Ontario, the government's own statistics show that as of December 2015, 98 per cent of employers in Ontario have 49 or less employees," she told CBC Toronto, calling the bill a "timid approach" to a thorny issue.

She said she wants to see all employers with 10 or more employees included in the new rules

Compounded by the number of women who work part-time and in traditionally "female" fields that are poorly remunerated, women earn about 30 per cent less than men, according to the province — a gap that has remained stagnant for the last decade.

'It feels very unfair'

As a temp who did general labour in smaller factories and warehouses in the GTA, Navi Aujla spent years in workplaces that wouldn't be required to follow the new transparency rules.

She said during that time, she never knew if she was earning anything close to what her male co-workers were.

"Not knowing is very disheartening and it feels very unfair," she said. "It was a common practice not to talk about [wages]. People were getting paid all sorts of different rates."

At present, non-unionized workers can be "disciplined or even terminated" for talking about their pay, said Faraday —something the new bill would prohibit.

Aujla, who now works as an organizer at the Worker's Action Centre, called the bill a "step in the right direction" but said she would like to see the legislation extend to "all workplaces."

Leaving out marginalized women?

Beyond the sheer number of women who are employed at smaller workplaces, including smaller workplaces also matters because of the kind of women who work there, said Colette Prevost, director of advocacy and communications at YWCA Toronto.

Women who are Indigenous, racialized, or new to Canada tend to work in smaller businesses, as do women in smaller communities with less employment options, she said.

"They're working in retail, they're working in restaurants, they're working in the social service sector," said Prevost.

Faraday also points out that Indigenous, racialized, and disabled women face even steeper wage gaps with men. In the case of Indigenous women, the pay gap is 57 per cent, she said. 

"[The pay gap] is something that's compounded by all other forms of systemic discrimination in our society," said Faraday. 

Employers are already legally required to deliver non-discriminatory pay and have been for decades, she pointed out, arguing that any employer of any size should be able to prove that they pay based on experience and ability, not gender. 

"Time's up, employers. You've had five decades to get your house in order. Prove that you're compliant with the law," she said. 

Read the CBC Story

International Women’s Day – March 8 – emerged from the struggles of women workers around the world. From the multi-racial garment workers strikes in New York and Chicago at the turn of the 20th century to the women workers of Russia whose 1917 International Women’s Day strikes triggered a revolution that ended World War I, women have always been a key part of the struggle for decent work.

That’s why March 8 is a perfect opportunity to talk about why we need to keep fighting for $15 and Fairness.

• Women and workers of colour are over-represented in low-wage, precarious employment
• Nearly 60% of minimum wage earners are women
• 35% of minimum wage earners are workers of color
• Women shoulder a greater burden of family caregiving, and often must choose part-time work in order to manage these responsibilities
• Workers of colour face racism in the labour market and are all too often in part-time employment involuntarily

The labour law reforms we have achieved together are so important! Here is what we’ve won so far:

Equal Pay (in effect as of April 1, 2018)

- Equal pay for part-time, casual and temp agency workers who are doing substantially the same work as their full-time counterparts is a tremendous step forward and will go a long way toward closing the gender and equity pay gap.

Personal Emergency Leave

- 10 days of job protected emergency leave for those in workplaces with fewer than 50 employees will provide some newly gained modest security for nearly 1.7 million workers.

- That 2 of these 10 emergency leave days are paid is a significant win for millions more workers, especially for women.

- 10 days (and up to 15 weeks) of job-protected leave in the case of sexual or domestic violence -- a big step forward for women workers. The first 5 days are paid.

Easier access to unions

- Women and workers of colour have better wages and working conditions when they are part of a union and can bargain collectively in the workplace. That’s why extending access to unions is a key win.

Fairer hours – but not until 2019

- Improved scheduling provisions, including a minimum of 3 hours regular pay for on-call workers is a serious win for women workers and workers of colour. Similarly, 3 hours pay for a worker whose shift is cancelled with less than 2-days notice is also crucial.

- Likewise the improvements in the calculation of holiday pay for part-time workers are also an important victory (this is already underway, unlike the scheduling provisions which will come into effect on January 1, 2019).

A $15 minimum wage – but not until 2019

- The $15 minimum wage won’t be in place until January 2019. If a hostile provincial government is elected on June 7, they could stop the minimum wage increase and reverse our gains. In June 2017, we need to elect a government that will support a real $15 and Fairness agenda.

Saturday, March 3
Toronto: International Women’s Day Rally & March

If you are in Toronto, join the Fight for $15 and Fairness contingent at Toronto’s International Women's Day rally and march on Saturday!

We will be focusing on why the changes in Bill 148, Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act matter to women and workers of colour; supporting Tim Hortons workers (who are mostly women and workers of colour); and promoting the March 23 public forum with Bhairavi Desai from the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. Click here to download the leaflet.

The campaign will also have some fun placards (click here to download for your own events) and stickers that jam the Tim Hortons brand. Click here right now to let us know you'll be joining the contingent. This year, the campaign has been given space to speak at the indoor rally, so come early to get your seats! If you can't come in the morning, join us for the march. We'll be queuing up at 12:45 pm outside OISE.

11:00 am: Indoor Rally at OISE (252 Bloor Street West)
1:00 pm: March to City Hall
2:00 pm: Justice for Tina Fontaine Rally (at City Hall)

See you on the streets at International Women's Day events happening throughout the week in communities across Ontario. Together, we will win $15 & Fairness for ALL!

By Sara Mojtehedzadeh

Calls to the Ministry of Labour’s employment standards hotline have soared following sweeping updates to the province’s workplace laws that took effect Jan. 1.

The provincial information centre fielded 26,704 calls from workers with queries about their rights or potential abuses in January of this year, up 60 per cent from 16,742 the previous month, the Star has learned. The volume of enquiries is almost 30 per cent higher than January 2017.

Opinion

Regardless of what you think about Wynne, the minimum wage increase was long overdue and the tactics used by Tim Hortons are inexcusable forms of bullying.

Flora writes, “That’s what businesses need to do to stay in business,” but that’s a lie.

Most businesses that are employing minimum wage workers in Ontario are big businesses. Many of them, like Tim Hortons, are raking in billions of dollars in profits. The CEO of Tim Hortons’ parent company, RBI, made $8,183,504 last year and Tim Hortons generated $3 billion US in revenue for RBI.

To own a Tim Hortons, any potential franchise owner needs a net worth of at least $1.5 million. Meanwhile, when minimum wage workers were working full-time last year, they were still living below the poverty line.

Flora also writes, “she increases the minimum wage just so people can pay more for their bread?”

In case Flora hasn’t noticed, prices have been going up ridiculously even when the minimum wage was frozen for 12 of the last 20 years. Workers in Ontario haven’t been able to keep up and they are the engines of this economy.

So I say Tim Hortons is a bully.

Navi Aujla

Read the Brampton Guardian Story 

By Daniel Tencer

"They have a brand that is in trouble."

Every year, Tim Hortons' Roll up the Rim contest results in some happy winners, and a whole bunch of disappointed customers holding "please play again" cups.

This year is no different, but with the coffee-and-doughnut chain embroiled in controversy over its response to minimum wage hikes, some customers are taking the chance to criticize Timmies over its treatment of employees.

Tim Hortons' announcement of this year's Roll Up The Rim — which started on Feb. 7 — was met with some pointed questions online.

"Have you ensured Ontario workers in your franchises aren't stripped of benefits yet?" one Twitter user asked.

Many others have taken the opportunity to criticize the popular brand.

The controversy began last month, when news reports began to emerge that some Tim Hortons franchisees — including the children of the chain's co-founders — were rolling back paid breaks and dental and medical benefits for their employees.

The move came in the wake of Ontario's minimum wage rising to $14 per hour at the beginning of January, a move broadly opposed by the restaurant industry. The province's minimum wage is set to rise again, to $15 an hour, next year.

Head office sought to distance itself from the controversy, publicly criticizing franchisees who rolled back paid breaks and benefits. But labour activists say the company has not taken further action to prevent franchisees from making those moves.

It's too early to tell whether the controversy will harm Tim Hortons' bottom line. But what is clear is that the brand was already facing headwinds even before the minimum wage hikes.

Parent company Restaurant Brands International reported this week that sales have flatlined at comparable Tim Hortons outlets (meaning those that have been open for more than a year). Sales fell 0.1 per cent in 2017, and have been flat or falling for five consecutive quarters.

"They have a brand that is in trouble," Mark Satov, strategy advisor at Satov Consultants told BNN last week. "They have a lot of negative press."

Some analysts take a more optimistic view. Peter Sklar of BMO Capital Markets predicted in a client note last month that the "negative publicity should die down in the coming weeks."

But so far, the public pressure remains on Tim Hortons. This week, labour activists, including the Ontario Federation of Labour and the Fight For $15 and Fairness campaign, sent Valentine's cards to workers at more than 200 locations, to show that the public "values and supports" them.

Read the Huffington Post Story

By David Shum

Tim Hortons employees at over 200 locations across Ontario received special Valentine’s Day cards and chocolates from workers’ rights advocates on Tuesday in a show of support for improved working conditions.

The action comes after several franchises slashed workers’ benefits and breaks after the province raised its minimum wage on Jan. 1.

“I think it’s shameful that the corporation has responded to the minimum wage increase by cutting meal breaks, by making workers start to pay for uniforms, by cutting hours and by taking away tips,” Deena Ladd of the Workers’ Action Centre told Global News at a Tim Hortons location in downtown Toronto Tuesday morning.

Over the past month and a half, protests have been held across the province in response to some Tim Hortons locations that have clawed back workers benefits, paid breaks and other perks as a result of the minimum wage increase in Ontario to $14 an hour from $11.60.

“Whether the workers belong to a union or not, they deserve to have respect and dignity in their workplace,” said Chris Buckley, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour.

“We’re going to caution these bad bosses to get their hands out of the workers’ pockets, pay them accordingly, treat them with respect and dignity or we’re coming after them as well.”

The protests began after Jeri Horton-Joyce and Ron Joyce Jr., the children of the brand’s billionaire co-founder Ron Joyce, rolled out the controversial measures at two Cobourg, Ont., locations they own.

By Nikki Jhutti

Tim Hortons locations were the focus of more rallies in Kingston on Tuesday. Tim Hortons locations were the focus of more rallies in Kingston on Tuesday, while other local employers were honoured for paying their workers a living wage.

Kingston and District Labour Council hosted a pre-Valentine’s protest and handed out valentines for Tim Hortons’ workers.

The rally was held in response to the chain’s recent cuts to employee’s hours and benefits.

“To let them know that we support them in spite of the cuts that a lot of Tim Hortons workers have been seeing,” said Lesley Jamieson with the Kingston and District Labour Council. “You know, one of the largest public sector employers in Kingston has been cutting paid breaks, has been reducing full-time hours from 40 to 32 hours.”

Across town, it was a different story. Living Wage Kingston honoured four local employers for their commitments to pay their employees a living wage or higher. The organization says according to their calculations, the living wage in Kingston is $16.58 an hour — that’s based on a family of four with two working parents.

“On Jan. 1, you know the minimum wage went up enough to get people to the poverty line and you know certain employers have unfortunately taken steps to put people back below it again,” said Cam Jay, co-chair of Living Wage Kingston. “Forty per cent of the working people in this town make less than $30,000 a year.”

The organization honoured Kingston Community Health Centres, Loving Spoonful, Open Door Media and Kingston Municipal Non-Profit Housing Corporation with living-wage certificates.

Open Door Media has only been around for three-and-a-half years but CEO Ben Bowen knew right away he needed to pay more to attract the right employees.

“You either manage your expenses to the bottom which is paying your people as low as possible, minimum wage would obviously be that basement, or you go out and get the best people and the best people are not cheap,” said Bowen.

Loving Spoonful has been paying a living wage for the last three years and executive director Mara Shaw says staff are sticking around because of it.

“I can tell you that no one has quit since we’ve done that, you know people aren’t leaving so we have no staff turnover, we’ve got really highly-engaged staff that are sticking around,” said Shaw.

Kingston Community Health Centre employs about 175 people. Three months ago, officials there decided to bump staff to a living wage. CEO Mike Bell says it makes business sense to think about employees.

“It is a movement and I think it’s gaining energy and other organizations are starting to note that it’s just the right thing to do. We acknowledge that it’s not as easy for every business to do something like this but for those who can and are putting more thought toward it, it’s just wonderful for Kingston,” said Bell.

And while Living Wage Kingston honours those employers who go above and beyond for their staff, the Kingston and District Labour Council says it will continue to fight for better wages and working conditions for all.

Read the Global News Story

安省劳工团体在全省 30 个市镇，组织了向 Tim Hortons 咖啡连锁店员工献爱心卡和巧克力的活动，同时也抗议部分雇主, 因为安省提高最低工资，而削减员工工作时间及福利的做法。杨捷的报道。

Watch the OMNI Story

(TORONTO, ON) -- On February 13, Valentine’s cards with messages of love and solidarity – as well as information about new workers’ rights from the Ministry of Labour – will be hand-delivered to hundreds of Tim Hortons outlets across Ontario.

Everyone can play cupid this February 13. To participate in the day of action and download the special valentine’s card, click here.

While millions of workers are benefiting from labour law improvements that came into effect on January 1, 2018, workers at Tim Hortons continue to face reprisals at the hands of parent company Restaurant Brands International.

The February 13 day of action is part of an ongoing campaign to win a $15 minimum wage and fair working conditions for all workers. The campaign is committed to further legislative changes that can curb the kinds of abuse experienced by frontline workers at Tim Hortons.

Representatives from the Ontario Federation of Labour and the Fight for $15 & Fairness Campaign will kick off the day with deliveries at the following locations:

8:00 AM
Meet at the Tim Hortons at 246 Bloor Street West
(Northwest corner of Bedford & Bloor)

    Media availability:
    Chris Buckley, President, Ontario Federation of Labour
    Deena Ladd, Coordinator, Workers’ Action Centre
    Media Contact -- Jared Ong, cell: 647-273-5285

8:00 AM
Meet at the Tim Hortons at 2150 Bloor Street West
(Northeast corner of Glendonwynne Rd and Bloor)
Media contact -- Brynne Sinclair-Waters, cell: 647-226-7184

10:30 AM
Meet at the Tim Hortons at 335 Parliament Street
(Northeast Corner of Dundas & Parliament)
Deena Ladd, Fight for $15 and Fairness
Media contact -- Deena Ladd, cell:416-836-2379

10:30 AM
Meet at the Tim Hortons at 444 Yonge Street
(Southwest corner of College & Yonge)
Media contact -- Beixi Liu, cell: 647-269-1963

Tim Hortons valentine’s visits will take place in 30+ cities across Ontario, to arrange local interviews please contact the following event organizers who have media availability:

The following regional community and labour organizations are also leading events as part of the Tim Hortons Day of Action, and they can be reached for comment:

-30-

For further information and to arrange interviews:

Meagan Perry, Communications Director, Ontario Federation of Labour
Email: [email protected] l 416-948-5720

Nil Sendil, Communications Coordinator, Fight for $15 & Fairness
[email protected]  l 647-710-5795

Toronto, ONTARIO – Don’t believe the spin from the business press. That’s the message coming from the $15 and Fairness campaign.

According to Pam Frache, Coordinator of the Fight for $15 and Fairness, the Statistics Canada data released on February 9 show provinces that have significantly increased their minimum wage rates in 2017 are doing better than they were this time last year. What’s more, she says, these provinces are actually outperforming their lower-wage counterparts, as their unemployment rates are declining most quickly among the provinces.

Here’s what the Statistics Canada data actually say:

Canada has added 289,000 jobs while the total number of hours worked has increased by nearly three percent (2.8%). The national unemployment rate, meanwhile, has declined by 0.8 percentage points, dropping from 6.7 to 5.9 percent.

In Ontario, unemployment is falling even faster.

The data show employment in Ontario grew by 104,000 jobs year over year and the unemployment rate declined by 0.9 percentage points to 5.5% – a rate of decline that is tied for the second-fastest among provinces. While there were slightly fewer part-time jobs in January 2018 compared to January 2017, these declines were substantially outweighed by a gain of more than 150,000 full-time jobs – a sign of a strengthening labour market. These improvements took place at the same time employers were preparing for the January 1, 2018 minimum wage increase to $14.

In Alberta – the first province to chart a path to a $15 minimum wage – employment rose by 46,000 year over year, as large gains in full-time jobs more than outweighed the modest decline in part-time jobs. Alberta’s unemployment rate has fallen by 1.7 percentage points since January of last year – by far the largest decline among the six provinces with falling unemployment rates during the period.

By contrast, New Brunswick – a province with one of Canada’s lowest minimum wage rates at $11.00 – experienced an absolute drop of 5,800 in the number of jobs, pushing the unemployment rate 0.2 percentage points higher to 9.1 percent. The other three Atlantic provinces – all of which have minimum wage rates well below $12 per hour – also saw rising unemployment rates.

In Manitoba, where the minimum wage is a mere $11.15, the province experienced a small increase in part-time jobs year over year, partially offset by a decline in full-time jobs. The unemployment rate of 5.6 percent was just 0.3 percentage points lower than the previous year.

“Clearly, the data released today suggest that raising minimum wages does not lead to job loss, but in fact can contribute to a stronger economy through increased demand,” said Frache. “Moreover, raising minimum wages has a large, direct, positive impact on the incomes of low-wage workers. Suggesting otherwise is intellectually dishonest and ideologically driven.”

The Fight for $15 and Fairness is comprised of hundreds of community, labour, student and faith organizations across Ontario. http://www.15andfairness.org/ 

For more information and to arrange interviews, contact:
Pam Frache, cell: 416-578-3472 or email: [email protected]

By Sara Mojtehedzadeh

More than half of all campus jobs have at least one indicator of precarity, a new report says, with temporary roles steadily on the rise over the past two decades and more employees juggling multiple jobs.

The study released Thursday by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found that while temporary workers accounted for 26 per cent of the college and university workforce in 1998, they made up 38 per cent in 2016. The proportion of temporary employees holding more than one job also increased from 2 per cent to almost 6 per cent over the same time period.

Nadine Sookermany has been part-time faculty at George Brown College for almost 12 years, juggling it with a job in the not-for-profit sector.  (EDUARDO LIMA / METRO FILE PHOTO)

“The data demonstrates that there are shifts happening,” said Erika Shaker, the CCPA’s director of education and outreach.

“There was a lot of concerns raised about the impact it’s actually having on students too. We’re looking at working conditions, but those working conditions are also learning conditions.”

Using data from the Labour Force Survey, the report assessed what it called three indicators of precarity in campus roles: temporary workers, multiple job holders, and unpaid work. Around 53 per cent of post-secondary employees now experience at least one of those indicators, the study said.

The proportion of those who experience none of those indicators has dropped from a high of 58 per cent in 1999 to 47 per cent in 2016. While the share of workers with just one element of job insecurity has remained stable at around 40 per cent, the share experiencing two of the indicators has almost tripled from 5 per cent to 14 per cent.

The report also solicited input from campus staff, some of whom described being unable to raise their students’ concerns or safety issues with their employer for fear of losing work, financial insecurity, and mental health issues.

Nadine Sookermany has been part-time faculty at George Brown College for almost 12 years, juggling it with a job in the not-for-profit sector and as a single mother.

“Teaching was my bread and butter. It was good pay. It made a big difference in terms of whether I could pay rent or not,” she said. “So the obvious choice was to try and secure full-time employment.”

But those opportunities, she found, are increasingly rare. Instead, she is left wondering anew each semester how many courses she will get to teach and what contracts will be available. Ultimately, she decided to take a full-time role as the head of a small non-profit — a role that could also evaporate if the organization does not get core funding.

“It reflects the systemic issues that exist in our society that people … are sometimes afraid to talk about as well for fear of being targeted or excluded,” she said, adding groups like women and people of colour are disproportionally impacted.

The issue provided significant impetus for last year’s five-week long strike by Ontario college faculty, which was ultimately ended by back-to-work legislation passed by the provincial government.

The CCPA study looked at all job categories on campus, from academic instructors to student services and plant operations. It found that full-time university professors as a proportion of the campus workforce crept down from a high of around 20 per cent in 1999 to 15 per cent in 2016. Overall, according to the study, traditionally stable jobs like librarian roles have dwindled while research and teaching assistant positions, which are more likely to be temporary or part-time by design, are on the rise.

The growth in research and teaching assistants outpaced university enrolment, indicating that “perhaps work that might have been performed by another category of employee is being shifted to a job category that is already inherently less stable,” the study said.

Temporary workers are increasingly likely to work part-time and to work unpaid overtime, which Shaker said may be partly driven by the increase in more precarious job categories like TAs.

“There’s sort of a stacking effect, or compounding effect,” she said.

“I think it does raise issues of how we ensure that we are not reproducing vulnerabilities and we’re not creating a workforce that is literally contingent on people who can’t afford to say no,” she added.

Not all job categories on campus are experiencing a rise in precarity: the majority of student service, administrative, and plant operations workers are still full time and have remained a stable proportion of the workforce. Overall, the report says, job insecurity on campus is “on the rise, though not equally and not for everyone.”

The report notes that student fees, rather than public sources, make up an increasingly large part of funding for post-secondary institutions.

“Public funding has not kept pace with enrolment,” Shaker said. “And we are looking at institutions that are to some extent pursuing a low-wage business model. What that doesn’t factor in is the human cost and ultimately the cost on the education that these institutions are providing.”

“These public institutions are in a very influential position to actually take a leadership role and push for the change we need,” she added. “Because we know that precarity is not a healthy way to build communities.”

Read the Toronto Star Story.

By Dean Dettloff

On Jan. 1, 1.1 million low-wage workers in Ontario greeted 2018 with the promise of a better paycheck. As part of Bill 168, passed by Ontario’s governing Liberal Party, the province’s minimum wage jumped from $11.60 (CAD) to $14 per hour, and it will rise again to $15 in 2019. The increase comes after a significant push by workers and activists, especially those in the Fight for $15 and Fairness campaign, a diverse coalition including labor advocates, unionized and non-unionized workers, and faith communities.

It will come as no surprise that Canadian economists are divided on the benefits of raising the minimum wage, but proponents say the hike is desperately needed following decades of wage stagnation that has led many Canadians to take on significant debt.

The success of the minimum-wage campaign came largely from grassroots organizing, says Deena Ladd, coordinator of the Workers’ Action Centre, which functions as an organizing hub. “The highlight has been supporting different groups to come forward and find their place in the movement,” says Ms. Ladd. “It was really interesting to see how the campaign was able to, instead of being restrictive, facilitate people’s ability to organize around what they felt comfortable doing.”

Among those different groups was a coalition of faith leaders who signed a statement supporting the wage increase and a number of other labor reforms, some of which also made it into Bill 168. Ms. Ladd says the faith community was mobilized when organizers in training with the Workers’ Action Centre began to think about how to expand the fight to their own personal networks.

“I would say probably 60 percent of [trainees] were part of faith communities,” says Ms. Ladd. “They went to their local mosques or churches or otherwise, and more than just listening and telling people about the campaign, they asked their faith leaders if they would support it and put on workshops.” To see a multifaith community come together with workers in health care, transportation, food service and other industries was unique and exciting, Ms. Ladd says, and helped galvanize the movement.

A report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a research group that has been studying income inequality, says if the minimum wage had been $15 at the beginning of 2017, it would have meant a raise for 23 percent of Ontario’s population, including 27 percent of women and 19 percent of men in Ontario. The report says an increased minimum wage in the province will especially benefit immigrants, indigenous and other low-income workers.

Of course, the wage hike has not been welcomed by everyone. A number of businesses have started to eliminate benefits previously granted to low-wage workers, most notably the popular fast food chain Tim Hortons in response. Reports of Tim Hortons franchisees rolling back paid breaks and prohibiting employees from accepting tips led to protests in Ontario and across Canada throughout January.

Despite the province providing a tax cut to small businesses to offset the effects of the wage, some have described the increase as a “small-business killer,” as well as the cause of price increases at some businesses.

Not all small-business owners feel the same way about the minimum wage increase, however. “I think it’s awesome. Every employee deserves to make an amount that is livable, and $11.60 just isn’t, especially in Toronto,” says Chris Watton, who opened The Sidekick, an independent comic book store and cafe in East Toronto, almost three years ago. “I’m happy that more people will make an amount that helps them pay their rent. I was also working for minimum wage not so long ago, and I remember what it’s like.”

Starting a niche business in a city increasingly known for high rent and a high cost of living is daunting, but The Sidekick has become a neighborhood staple, and though it means payroll expenses will go up, Ms. Watton is unfazed by the change.

“It looks really bad if you’re a small-business owner and you’re telling your employees they’re not worth $15 an hour,” says Ms. Watton. “I think big businesses don’t really have an excuse. To say the person who makes it possible for that business to be open by working there every day is not worth a living wage should be an embarrassment.”

Ms. Ladd agrees, adding that the backlash has exposed the greed of major corporations and what she calls a double standard regarding income inequality. Though public conversations about raising the minimum wage stir up fears of price increases and closures, Ms. Ladd says, “people don’t ask the same questions when they hear a C.E.O. is making $8 million. ‘They must deserve that.’ But a poor person making $14 an hour, God forbid, they should have a paid meal break, 15 minutes where they’re paid $6.”

While some businesses have aggressively opposed the change, a Forum Research poll said two-thirds of Ontarians support the wage increase. With the eventual goal of $15 per hour, Ontario joins Alberta, which passed legislation to raise its minimum wage to the same level, effective in October of this year. The two provinces will have the highest minimum wage in Canada.

Bill 168 is a major victory for workers and the Fight for $15 and Fairness, but Ms. Ladd says the fight is far from over. Now, she says, organizers are focusing on informing workers about their new rights they have and about how to protect them moving forward.

On June 7, Ontario will hold provincial elections, and the Canada’s major parties are already weaving Bill 168 into their campaign narratives. The Progressive Conservative Party says it would delay the wage increase until 2022, while the New Democratic Party is critical of what it suggests is opportunism behind the Liberal Party’s support for the raise. The incumbent Liberal Party is touting Bill 168 as a matter of moral responsibility, and the policy is popular with voters who only last year gave Kathleen Wynne, the Liberal Ontario Premier, a mere 12 percent approval rating.

Referring to political opponents, Ms. Ladd says, “We want their hands off the gains people have made. We have to effectively take the backlash [from the business community] on and build people’s confidence that this is the way to go, that the low-wage alternative is not good for us.”

While the Fight for $15 and Fairness turns to defending its wins, Ms. Watton looks forward to growing her small business to provide better wages for her employees. “I’m very lucky that good people apply and don’t leave. I’m pretty stoked about my staff. If I could afford to pay them what they’re really worth I would, and that’s the goal.”

Read the America Magazine Story.

We are gearing up for another day of action in support of Tim Hortons workers!

On February 13, we hope you and a friend (or two or three) will join us to hand deliver some Valentine’s Day love to the workers at Tim Hortons. These drop-ins should take no more than 10 minutes each. Will you join us?

The action on February 13 will include hand-delivering a special Valentine’s Day card to the workers (click here to download the card in 11" x 17" tabloid size  or click here to download the card in regular letter size). In addition to the card, we also have leaflets (click here to download) that can be distributed to the customers inside Tim Hortons restaurants, asking them to take action in support of workers. 

Click here to register your action(s)! If you’re part of a community group, local union, student group, labour council or faith community see if your group can take responsibility for visiting a number of restaurants over the course of the day. We have also compiled a “Tip Sheet” in case you would like some tips and inspiration for your own actions, you can download it here.

Check out this 30-second video announcing the February 13 action!
Click to share on Facebook | Click here to share on Twitter 

Keep Fighting for $15 and Fairness

The $15 minimum wage and the fairer scheduling provisions of Bill 148 won’t take effect until January 1, 2019 and we have a big election standing between us and these new rights. Consider ordering lawns signs and banners (download the 2-page order form here) so that we can decorate Ontario with our signs.

We know that the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party voted against Bill 148 and has said that if they form government, they will postpone the implementation of the $15 minimum wage. That’s why we must keep fighting for $15 and Fairness until every worker has it. When the PC Party formed government in the mid-1990s, it gutted workers’ legal protections under the law.

Meanwhile, the situation facing workers at Tim Hortons shows how much more work we have to do to ensure workers have decent wages and working conditions, even with the gains made under Bill 148. We want to make sure we use the weeks ahead to campaign for additional laws to better protect workers against bad bosses. Imagine if the law provided a paid 15 minute break for every three hours worked, if workers could join unions across a franchise or if workers were protected under the law when they organize to enforce their rights.

That’s why your role in this campaign – from fighting for better labour laws to supporting workers at Tim Hortons – is so crucial. It’s also why you should be incredibly proud of everything we have been able to accomplish together.

UPCOMING EVENTS: Join one near you!

There are numerous actions and events being organized across Ontario! If you don’t see an action in your area, let us know how we can help you get one going!

Tuesday, Feb 6
MISSISSAUGA
Action - Tell Tim Hortons to treat its workers fairly!
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM | Tim Hortons (151 City Centre Drive, Mississauga) | Click here for a map
Come out to tell Tim Hortons: Reverse the clawbacks! Restore workers’ wages & benefits! We love the workers at Tim Hortons but we hate bad bosses.
To RSVP and share on Facebook, click here. 

OTTAWA
Fight for $15 & Fairness Ottawa Organizing Meeting
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM | 25One Community, 251 Bank St, 5th Floor | Click here for a map
Ottawa $15 & Fairness supporters have organized successful solidarity rallies and outreach at Winterlude in support of Tim Hortons workers. But some other local businesses have also been attacking workers' wages and benefits. We're organizing a response to support those workers coming forward. Plus we've got Know Your Rights workshops and IWD to plan for. Come out and join the action (meeting at the 5th floor)!
To RSVP and share on Facebook, click here. 

Sunday, Feb 11
OSHAWA
We Are Oshawa General Meeting.
2 PM | 61 Charles St, Oshawa Room 216 | Click here for a map
Join We Are Oshawa's first meeting of 2018 to discuss further organizing around $15 and Fairness, future Tim Hortons actions and more! The year has kicked off with an incredible solidarity for workers under attack by bad bosses, help us build on this.
To RSVP and share on Facebook, click here.

Monday , Feb 12
EAST YORK
Sign Making Party to Prep for Tim Hortons Action!
5:30 PM - 9 PM| Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL), 2nd floor | Click here for a map
Join the Ontario Federation of Labour on Monday evening to help make signs for the February 13 day of actions at Tim Hortons stores! We will provide materials for sign making, we will also give you the materials for the action on Tuesday and do a quick training on how to pull off the action if you're leading one! Everyone is welcome!
To RSVP and share on Facebook, click here.

Tuesday, Feb 13
ONTARIO
Action - Show Tim Hortons workers some Valentine's Day love
THROUGHOUT THE DAY | A Tim Hortons restaurant near you!
On February 13, we are going to hand deliver some Valentine’s Day love to the workers at Tim Hortons. This time, the goal is to visit as many restaurants as possible in smaller groups involving 2 or more people. If you think you can visit a Tim Hortons restaurant on February 13.
To RSVP and share on Facebook, click here.

Tuesday , Feb 13
TORONTO
Toronto-Wide Organizing Meeting
5:30PM – 8:00PM  | 720 Spadina Ave, Suite 223 | Click here for a map
There is a provincial election coming up in June and we know that the Conservative Party and the corporate lobby are already organizing to roll back the labour law reforms we've won. That's why we must stay mobilized to win $15 & Fairness for ALL workers. Come to the next city-wide Fight for $15 and Fairness organizing meeting!
To RSVP and share on Facebook, click here.

By Jenny Cowley and Nelisha Vellani

Higher percentage of servers' tips being shared amongst other staff

A number of popular Canadian restaurants have increased the amount of tips servers must share with their colleagues, CBC's Marketplace has learned. And many servers say that money is being doled out to higher-paid staff in lieu of a raise.

"Tipping out" is a common practice in which servers pay into a pool that managers then distribute to non-tip-receiving staff such as hostesses, bussers and kitchen workers.

As businesses grapple with increases to minimum wage, some have cut employee hours, reduced benefits or found other ways to offset increased costs.

In a hidden microphone investigation, Marketplace visited seven randomly selected restaurant chains that had raised servers' tip out percentages since Ontario's minimum wage went from $11.60 to $14 on Jan. 1 (those who serve liquor in licensed establishments saw their minimum hourly wage rise from $10.10 to $12.20).

Many large family dining chains calculate tip out as a percentage — typically between two and five per cent — of each server's total food and beverage sales each shift. If 10 tables each spend $100, the server's tip out could be between $20 and $50.

Apart from Quebec, which does not allow restaurant owners to enforce tip sharing, there are no federal or provincial regulations governing tip out amounts.

Most of the restaurant locations Marketplace visited had bumped the tip out by one percentage point.

For instance, The Keg went from four to five per cent. East Side Mario's from 2.5 to 3.5 per cent.

Earls, a chain with 56 locations across Canada, increased its tip out by 0.5 percentage points, but it had the highest total tip out, at 5.5 per cent.

An employee at Moxie's, which has 66 locations, told Marketplace their tip out was expected to increase to 5.75 per cent, from 4.75.

Servers 'aren't happy'

Ontario and Alberta will both have a $15 minimum wage by this time next year, and in several other provinces, the minimum wage increases each year on a certain date. With those increases, there is pressure on some restaurateurs to also give a salary hike to higher-paid workers, often as an incentive to keep reliable and valuable staff.

"We, the servers, have to pick up the slack," said one employee at a Keg location. "The servers aren't happy about it, but there's nothing we can do."

A server at a popular family dining chain in Alberta says it isn't fair to supplement the higher-paid workers' wages with those of lower-paid ones.

"I am a little frustrated," said Grace Ford. "There's days where I worked 12 hours, and I still give out $80 of my tips that I've worked all day for to people who sometimes mess up [customers'] food … a customer gets mad, it's me who in the long run suffers from it.

"There's money taken out of my pocket that I worked so hard for, and it just disappears and goes to other people who already make more money than I do."

Out of pocket

In statements to Marketplace, the Ontario Ministry of Labour said, "Tip pool money (including tip outs) can only come from an employee's tips or other gratuities, not from any other source."

But tip outs must still be paid when servers don't get tipped, or earn less in tips than what they would have to contribute.

In a restaurant with a five per cent tip-out policy, a server still has to tip out $5 on every $100 tab.

Some employees Marketplace spoke to said they've sometimes had to pay out of their own pockets to make their tip-out contribution.

At one Moxie's location a server told CBC, "The amount of times I've … pretty much had to give the restaurant money out of my pocket, it's a lot."

A server at a Montana's said, "There [were] times that I had a party of 12 … they didn't tip me because they were upset with the food that they got, nothing to do with my service. And I actually paid to come to work."

Restaurants respond

"Employers are feeling very confident to be able to start changing the tip pool and how it's distributed amongst the staff," says Deena Ladd, a workers' rights advocate.

"And I would say to employers that, you know, part of you running your restaurant is based on customer satisfaction. Do you really want your customers knowing how you're treating your workers?"

She says restaurant owners should be creating a tip pool that is not "taking it out on servers" and that all the employees feel is fair.

In a statement, Earls told Marketplace, "Our people are our greatest asset, and our priority has always been to make sure all roles contributing to the service experience are fairly compensated." 

Moxie's said it is confident that all of its policies are lawful and fair.

Sunset Grill referred Marketplace to a CBC story last month that reported the increase in tip outs was made to "bridge the unfair pay equity gap for all non-serving staff."

The Keg, East Side Mario's, Kelsey's and Montana's did not respond to requests for comment.

Restaurants Canada, the group representing the industry, said in a statement, "Tip-pools and tip outs are a way to recognize the efforts of the entire team — from the server to the kitchen staff to the hosts and the bussers."

The group would not publicly disclose its member restaurants. Earls told CBC the organization's statement accurately reflects its point of view.

'Find other ways'

Ford says it's wrong to take more from servers.

"They should stop raising the money that's coming out of my pocket and find other ways to give them higher wages — or increase food prices even," she said.

An Ottawa restaurateur also disagrees with hiking tip outs for servers.

"We felt that some of the models that we're seeing elsewhere is a bit of robbing Peter to pay Paul," said Ivan Getz, owner and manager of Union Local 613. "When we make decisions here, my staff know exactly how much money I make. When we make strategic decisions, they're involved in that process."

His solution? Shaving dollars off his profits and slight increases to menu prices.

"The customer wouldn't even notice it."

Read the CBC News Story.

By Scott Neigh

Pam Frache is the Ontario coordinator of the Fight for $15 and Fairness campaign, which has won major victories around minimum wage increases and reforms to labour law in 2017. And this year, with a provincial election looming, they are facing a major backlash from big business. Frache talks with Scott Neigh about the overall trajectory of the campaign, about the backlash, and about fighting to defend what they won last year.

It is generally true that when social movements or communities-in-struggle win something, that is rarely the end of the story. Whatever powerful interests have been beaten back to win gains for ordinary people tend to retreat temporarily, regroup, and then come back all the fiercer for having been shown to be vulnerable. Movements must then figure out how to defend their gains and, even better, figure out how to embed what they have won in the political landscape such that rolling it back is no longer feasible.

The Fight for $15 and Fairness campaign in Ontario is a good example. Though minimum wage struggles have a much longer history in the province, the current campaign began in 2013 in an intiative spearheaded by the Workers Action Centre in Toronto. There was little movement infrastructure to start with, but in the years since, a province-wide network of workers, community groups, unions, anti-poverty organizations, workers centres, faith groups, health providers, and labour councils has taken shape and, in several stages, pushed forward an ambitious agenda.

In 2017, in the face of growing pressure from this movement, the Liberal provincial government of Premier Kathleen Wynne introduced and ultimately passed legislation making sweeping changes to employment standards. Though the labour law reforms still leave much room for improvement, they are, according to Frache, an "extraordinary start" in terms of improving the lives of low-wage and precarious workers. And despite their earlier insistence that they would not do so, the Liberals ended up giving in to the wage demands too -- the minimum wage went from $11.60/hr to $14/hr as of January 1, 2018, and it is scheduled to go up to $15/hr on January 1, 2019.

While the legislation was being debated, there was no shortage of opposition from corporate interests. And since the minimum wage hike took effect at the beginning of the year, the reaction from the business lobby has been loud and fierce. While it has largely been framed as a defence of small business, actual small business owners seem to be taking a range of positions on the issue, while large corporations and institutions beholden to them drive the backlash. With a provincial election scheduled for June 7, 2018, the big business lobby seems keen to elect a government that will roll back the recent gains by low-wage workers.

Resistance to this big business backlash has been widespread and spirited. Some of it has been spontaneous – for instance, in various cities instances have come to light of businesses retaliating against workers who benefit from the minimum wage hike by clawing back various kinds of perqs and benefits, and in many cases there have been spontaneous local campaigns to shame the businsesses into relenting.

The Fight for $15 and Fairness itself has been doing a number of things to defend the recent gains and to make them harder for any future government to roll back. An important piece of that is doing trainings in a wide range of contexts, particularly with people who do frontline work related to employment, to make sure that as many people as possible know how the new legislation benefits them, and to get as many people as possible accessing the benefits and rights to which they are now entitled. Another piece involves countering scaremongering by the big business lobby by circulating solid research on the actual likely impacts of the minimum wage hike.

Of course, they are also using the movement infrastructure built over the last five years to mobilize people. In particular, they are part of the movement to defend Tim Horton's workers who have had various benefits clawed back at some franchises, despite the fact that the hard work of the mostly low-wage workers at Tim Horton's generates billions of dollars in revenue and hundreds of millions of dollars in profit each year for its parent company, Restaurant Brands International.

And in terms of the provincial election, Frache said, the ultimate goal is to "build a movement so strong that no political party wants to mess with us."

Image: Modified from an image created by Errol Young and used with the permission of the Fight for $15 and Fairness.

Listen to the Rabble.ca Podcast

Read the Rabble.ca Story.

By Martin Regg Cohn

There’s a missing ingredient in the battle still brewing at Tim Hortons.

Never mind the conventional narrative of family-owned businesses versus their vulnerable employees. It has more to do with the economic power imbalance when business (big and small) wages war against minimum wage workers who aren’t organized to fight back.

By Jacqueline Hansen

Jacqueline Hansen looks at why more women than men are still at the bottom end of the income ladder

http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1144174147517

By Aleksandra Sagan

Many companies have bumped the hourly pay for employees who were making close to the new $14 an hour minimum

Nick Cluley and his wife, who have always paid their Coffee Public employees more than minimum wage, have boosted everyone’s pay by $1.25 an hour since Jan. 1 — not just those earning below $14, as a new Ontario law required.

They did that “to avoid tensions that might come from more experienced people, you know, being crunched right up against the same salary as someone that just started,” he said.

The new starting wage is $14.75, though the staff average is closer to $15.45, he said, adding they raised prices by about 10 per cent on everything they serve in their Toronto and Port Hope, Ont., shops.

From small mom-and-pop shops to a discount retail giant, there are already examples of companies that have bumped the hourly pay for employees who were making close to the new $14 an hour minimum — suggesting Ontario’s recent minimum wage hike is affecting more than just the lowest paid workers.

There’s little question that a minimum wage hike in Ontario will have a “trickle up” effect to raise wages for other workers, said Bernard Wolf, a professor emeritus at York University’s Schulich School of Business in Toronto.

“The question is simply how much and how pervasive that is,” he said, adding it’s likely a considerable number of employers in Ontario — where the minimum wage rose to $14 on Jan. 1, 2018 — will make such a move.

That ripple effect through the economy comes as employees who find minimum wage has now risen close to what they’re earning ask for raises to reflect their comparative skill level, Wolf said, or because their cost-of-living has increased as the price of goods goes up to offset the higher labour cost.

For employers already making the move, they benefit from positioning themselves as the good guy compared to other companies that raised the ire of consumers for clawing back employee benefits and other perks instead, he said.

Union Local 613 co-owner Ivan Gedz raised wages for all his kitchen staff to $16 in November, after realizing his Ottawa eatery could not only meet the new minimum in January, but surpass it.

The raises, which amount to between 50 cents and as much as $4 per hour depending on the employee, reflect Gedz’s belief in equality and because he realized the situation presented an opportunity to be an industry leader, he said. He raised prices on some items to offset the hit to his bottom line.

But small businesses aren’t the only ones setting a higher bar.

Walmart Canada, which employs more than 95,000 associates, increased its starting minimum wage on Dec. 23, 2017 just ahead of the Ontario-wide hike, said spokeswoman Anika Malik, adding all the company’s associates earn more than their provincial minimum wage.

“All pay bands also moved up accordingly to maintain appropriate relative compensation at all levels,” she said. The company isn’t cutting any roles, and employees will still be eligible for bonuses and performance increases, Malik said.

Meanwhile, one coffee chain has applied the pay increase to more than just their Ontario-based employees.

JJ Bean Coffee Roasters, which has more than a dozen locations across Toronto and Vancouver, first increased wages in Toronto on Dec. 17, 2017 and followed suit in Vancouver on Jan. 14, 2018, according to a letter from its senior leadership team.

Its national starting wage is now $14 an hour, and it increased wages for all employees making below $20 hourly. The company increased prices at its cafes by one to three per cent.

“We believe people have intrinsic value and that everyone who takes part in the journey of coffee — from farmers to baristas — deserves to be fairly rewarded for their work,” the letter reads.

Read the Finacial Post Story.