Minimum wage, gender wage parity, the fight for $15 and fairness, and other movements are part of a continuing effort to enable millions of workers to earn better, fairer wages, benefits, safety, and job security. However, as Professor Carlo Fanelli writes in his Labour Day op-ed on Huffington Post Canada, the fight for a living wage has been revived.
A demonstrator marching at the Annual Labour Day parade in Toronto on Sept. 1, 2014. TORONTO STAR VIA GETTY IMAGES
“The living wage … sets a higher bar than the minimum wage, reflecting what working families need to bring home based on the actual costs of living in a specific community. In other words, economic need is a central component of the living wage concept and reflects the failure of minimum wages to address the issue of income adequacy.”
Living wage movements are gaining traction in Ontario, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Yukon Territory, and the Northwest Territories. In Ontario, one of the last acts of the Wynne government was to introduce the Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act. in 2017. However, the new Ford government has already signaled it will not proceed with that legislation in its current form.
Read the entire blog post on Huffington Post Canada. See more news Prof. Fanelli’s media website.