UN Platform for Action Committee Manitoba (UNPAC)

Submission to Minimum Wage Board

Date:

June 30, 2005.

Submit to:

Board Secretary
Manitoban Minimum Wage Board
614-401 York Ave.
Winnipeg, MB R3C 0P8

1. Who We Are

The UN Platform for Action Committee Manitoba (UNPAC) was established in 1995 after the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China. At the conference, representatives from 189 countries, including Canada, voted unanimously to adopt the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (PFA) which embodied a new international commitment to the goals of equality, development, and peace for all women everywhere. Canada is a signatory of the Platform for Action. The Province of Manitoba and 45 women from Manitoba were present in Beijing for the conference and parallel NGO forums.

UNPAC’s mandate is to work for the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action as well as other United Nations agreements that advance women’s equality. UNPAC supports the objectives of the Platform for Action by working through community action and with other organizations, locally and globally, for equality, development, and peace.

Since May 2001, UNPAC has focused on the area of Women and the Economy, one of the Platform for Action’s 12 Critical Areas of Concern. Through our website and our video, Banging the Door Down: Women and the Economy, we promote women’s economic literacy in Manitoba. UNPAC is currently initiating a project in the area of Gender Budgets — a tool for education, and for economic and social analysis.

2. Background

There is a common notion that if the poor are patient, if they just wait a little bit longer they will benefit from the wealthy. In other words, in time the wealth of the rich will benefit the poor. From our perspective, we do not see this to be the case in Manitoba. The issue of minimum wage highlights this conflict.

The province of Manitoba has been experiencing economic growth. The Honourable John Harvard, Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba declared in the Premier’s November 22, 2004 Speech from the Throne that the “province has enjoyed a strong rebound in 2004.” Indeed, “Manitoba ranks first among provinces for growth in earnings.” However, despite the encouraging increase in financial stability for the Province of Manitoba there has been no significant improvement or overall change to the elimination of child poverty in Manitoba since 1989.1  Although the GDP has been consistently rising for the past 15 years2  the economic growth of our province has done little to improve the situation of our children. Manitoba has the second highest rate of child poverty in the country. Female lone parent families remain the poorest of all family types in Canada.

Children live in poverty because the households that they live in and the people they depend on live in poverty. In 2002, an astonishing 65.8% of low-income families with children were working families.3  Many children see their parents — usually their mothers — working hard and working full time, yet this does not improve their situation.

The desired intention of a minimum wage is to keep people from poverty4;  minimum wage was established so that families would not be exploited and would have the ability to pay for their basic needs such as shelter, food and clothing. Currently, Winnipeg Harvest, the Winnipeg central food bank, is seeing a continued increase of working families using their resource.5  Basic needs of families are not being met. In other words, minimum wage is not keeping up with inflation and the cost of living. Rather than protecting people from poverty, it is ensuring that they stay in poverty.

The current minimum wage at $7.25 an hour supports one individual working full-time; this wage comes close, though is still inadequate, to keeping her out of poverty. However, add one child to that equation, or two parents working fulltime at the minimum wage with three children, and they are all living well below the poverty line.

Beyond the wage, many minimum wage workers work hard in unpleasant occupations and conditions. Minimum wage jobs, while they may not require extensive training, are frequently high-stress and demanding jobs such as: food service, call centres, cleaning, and retail stores.

  1. 15 Years and Counting: Manitoba Child Poverty Report Card 2004. Social Planning Council of Winnipeg.
  2. 15 Years and Counting: Manitoba Child Poverty Report Card 2004. Social Planning Council of Winnipeg.
  3. 15 Years and Counting: Manitoba Child Poverty Report Card 2004. Social Planning Council of Winnipeg.
  4. Black, Errol & Shaw, Lisa.“The Case for a Strong Minimum Wage Policy” in Jim Silver (ed.), Solutions that Work: Fighting Poverty in Winnipeg (Winnipeg: Fernwood, 2000).
  5. Lezubski, Darren, et al. “High and Rising The Growth of Poverty in Winnipeg” in Jim Silver (ed.), Solutions that Work: Fighting Poverty in Winnipeg (Winnipeg: Fernwood, 2000).

Statistics don’t tell the story. A recent Low-Wage Community Inquiry organized by the Just Income Coalition allowed many Manitobans to hear first-hand, through personal stories, the challenges for families and individuals living on low wages.

3. Minimum Wage And Women’s Human Rights

As UNPAC pointed out in a March 2005 Fast Facts published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Manitoba’s low minimum wage policy keeps women poor. Information gathered by Statistics Canada help clarify why the issue of low minimum wage increases the inequality of women. Two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women; twenty per cent of Manitoba women live in poverty. The unequal financial and economic situation that many Manitoban women find themselves in, compared to men, is a key contributor to the inequality that Manitoban women face. Manitoba’s low minimum wage affects women more than men.

A significant number of low wage earners are lone parents, usually women. Over 40% of female lone parent working families have an incidence of low income. Manitoban children are poor because their mothers are poor. Low minimum wage disproportionately affects women, thus their children. We have calculated that a single mother of two needs to work 80 hours/week in order to even reach the poverty line as defined by Statistics Canada Low-Income Cut-Off.

At the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, at which the Province of Manitoba was present, countries signed on to an agreement stating that they must:

Review, adopt, and maintain macroeconomic policies and development strategies that address the needs and efforts of women in poverty. (Beijing Platform for Action, Women and Poverty Strategic Objective A.1)

As UNPAC understands the Platform for Action, the Government of Manitoba has an obligation as well as a moral commitment to use policies such as minimum wage to reduce women’s poverty. A minimum wage that is below a living wage contradicts Canada’s and Manitoba’s international human rights commitment under the Platform for Action.

Raising min wage is not a one-stop solution to alleviating poverty, including child poverty, in Manitoba. However it’s one relatively simple and straightforward thing that a government can do that costs nothing. Maintaining the current low minimum wage policy maintains an undesirable society for many Manitobans, not only those who are surviving on minimum wage, but for all of us who believe that equality and equal opportunity is one measure of our province’s success. Raising minimum wage to a living wage gives some of poorest people in province an immediate raise in pay.

4. Recommendations

We suggest the following recommendations:

  1. We support the Just Income Coalition recommendation that Manitoba’s minimum wage be increased to $8.00 immediately. Rather than the annual 25 cents increases we recommend an increase of $1/year until a living wage rate of $10/hour is reached by 2007.
  2. We recommend that a policy be implemented to adjust the minimum wage annually to cover increases in the cost of living. This would remove the minimum wage debate from the political arena and instead inscribe it into policy.
  3. We recommend that the Manitoba government focus on creating jobs with inherent dignity and respect. Low-paying jobs with few prospects for advancement and low social value will not lead to the health and happiness of Manitobans nor to the economic success of our province.