Killer living wage - please, tax me more Calgary

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

As others have said this isn't an increase in the minimum wage so it won't effect most small business. What it does is put a floor of the wage scale that companies doing business for the city have. Say if company A pays it's workers $8/hr while company B pays it's workers $13/ hr. Company A can make a lower bid on a contract and win the contract. The city is saying they don't want to a part of labour usury. It may not be of practicable use in good times but in a recession where greedy employers can take advantage of the more desperate, it will be the moral thing to do.

Greed doesn't drive business decisions in recession. Survival with a decent balance sheet does. Quite frankly if paying people more ruins the economics for types of business than said type of business will either be staffed by cheaper labor or failing that (Due to an artificial feel good city initiative or a mandated higher minimum wage), the type of business will either scale back or just not go ahead at all and take away from the overall job stock available for the population.


http://www.despair.com/potential.html

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

Greed doesn't drive business decisions in recession. Survival with a decent balance sheet does. Quite frankly if paying people more ruins the economics for types of business than said type of business will either be staffed by cheaper labor or failing that (Due to an artificial feel good city initiative or a mandated higher minimum wage), the type of business will either scale back or just not go ahead at all and take away from the overall job stock available for the population.


http://www.despair.com/potential.html

Hey, I'm not saying all business's are greedy, but the temptation, to pay lower wages during a recession when the employer has his pick of many job applicants, is there, whether he can afford to pay more or not. It's the law of supply and demand, and for society to function, there needs to be some checks as the Wall street fiasco has driven home.

In this case, if the company can't survive when competing with others paying the same wages, they either improve their practises or go out of business. They can't make up their deficiencies by paying lower wages.

[RougeUnderoos]

Skyrocketing unemployment, poverty, socialism, lost jobs in Pincher Creek...

Did you all read a different article than I did?

The article I read says that city employees and people contracted out to do city work will be making this $13.25 minimum.

I had a gander at the city's job site and there are a few people (baby sitters, waterslide watchers) that do make less than $13.25, so there might be a few people in town who get a raise. The vast majority of the city's employees make more than this already.

It's not a minimum wage for every business in town to follow.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

Hey, I'm not saying all business's are greedy, but the temptation, to pay lower wages during a recession when the employer has his pick of many job applicants, is there, whether he can afford to pay more or not. It's the law of supply and demand, and for society to function, there needs to be some checks as the Wall street fiasco has driven home.

In this case, if the company can't survive when competing with others paying the same wages, they either improve their practises or go out of business. They can't make up their deficiencies by paying lower wages.

So for society to function businesses should be forced to pay higher than the going rate for new workers because some of them might be able to afford it? So as a reward for running a business so prudently that it performs admirably in a recession, they have to be saddled with paying over the market price for labor?

I agree with your second paragraph up until the last sentance. I don't see how the economy is ahead in a situation where there are unemployed workers in a situation that they are willing to work for a particular wage and there are businesses that need their labor at said wage to survive, but a hiring transaction cannot take place due to laws banning employment at that wage. The means in addition to unemployed workers you have unemployed business owners. Where are these people going to work? and out of whose pockets are their wages going to be paid? By all means if a business needs cheap labor to survive but it can't find laborers at that price then business practices need to improve.

Also what has the 'Wall Street fiasco' as you put it in your own words 'driven home' about the need for checks in hiring wage policy of businesses? I don't even see how this is related. If it's a general outcry that there might be some places where new regulation is needed I can agree with you. But blanket anti free-market policies as a knee-jerk reaction to what caused the credit crisis wouldn't be prudent.