A
joint statement from the Communist Party of Canada (Ontario) and the YoungCommunist League (Ontario)
Last year, Premier Wynne said she wanted to be Ontario’s
“social justice Premier”. She said she
would take action to increase social assistance rates and to raise the minimum
wage.
But her inaction on starvation level social assistance
rates, and her decision to permanently embed a poverty level minimum wage, is
earning her the title of Ontario’s social injustice Premier.
Wynne’s government is following other Liberal and Tory
governments in Canada: to drive down
wages and living standards, attack labour and democratic rights, reduce taxes
on the corporations and the rich, cut services and privatize, privatize,
privatize.
No
Friends in the Legislature
The Liberals have been all too happy to parrot the
policies put forward by corporate employers and their lobby groups. This
includes the Retail Council of Canada, which is supported by Toys ‘R’ Us, and
the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association, which represents Tim
Hortons and McDonald’s.
The very modest $14 minimum wage being fought for by
youth, labour, anti-poverty and social justice groups around the province, has no
friends in the Legislature. The NDP is
non-committal. The Tories would
eliminate the minimum wage altogether if they could (in keeping with the
right-to-work-for-less legislation they want for Ontario). The Liberals want to make sure the minimum
wage is wrapped in cement, never rising beyond the annual inflation rate.
This
is Austerity
That’s why Big Business supports indexing – it ensures
that the minimum wage will never rise, that its real value will remain at 2010
levels. Millions of workers in Ontario
will be permanently stuck in deep poverty and insecurity while super-profits
continue to rise, filling corporate coffers and lining the pockets of the
1%.
Only the Communist Party supports the $14 demand, though
it does not currently sit in the legislature – something voters may want to
change in coming elections.
 |
| Feb 15th Raise the Wage action inside Toronto's Eaton Centre |
A
Living Wage
Can you live on $11 an hour? $352 a week take-home? That’s what the government is proposing. But you wouldn’t be able to eat and pay the rent
(unless you live in a rooming-house).
Could you live on
$14 an hour? $548 a week
take-home?
Many are forced to live just above the basic poverty line.
But you’ll never own your own home, and you’ll pay more
than half your wage for rent. You won’t
be able to afford child care if you have children, and you’ll never send them
to university. You won’t have nice holidays, you’ll rarely eat in a
restaurant, and you likely won’t have a car.
But you’ll work very hard, probably at more than one job, and you’ll
likely be laid off several times in your work life. And when you retire, you’ll have no pension
or savings.
A
Substantially Higher Minimum Wage
Many organizations fighting for a $14 minimum wage think
it’s too low. So do we. While supporting the $14 campaign, because it
will take a mass united campaign to win this fight, we think the minimum should
be pegged at $19, and indexed from
there.
The minimum wage is not charity, it’s the lowest legal
wage an employer can pay a worker.
Governments speaking for employers will peg it as low as
they can. Governments representing
working people will peg it much higher to raise the floor on wages for all
workers. People’s needs or corporate
greed – that’s the choice here.
Higher wages mean more purchasing power, and that’s economic
stimulus – a good thing in a flagging
economy.
Good
Jobs and Better Wages = a People’s Recovery
Good jobs with good pay mean real economic growth in
industry, manufacturing, construction, service sector and public services – a
good thing for working people and youth.
And good for Ontario.
Big Business and their right wing governments have bullied
the public with the mantra that corporate tax cuts – and now wage cuts – create
jobs.
But the estimated $15 billion in corporate tax cuts, plus
corporate tax rate cuts that make Ontario the lowest corporate tax jurisdiction
in the industrialized world, have generated the highest levels of youth and
long-term permanent unemployment in decades.
Real unemployment is close to one million, and youth unemployment is
twice as high as the provincial average.
Permanent, full-time, and well-paid manufacturing and industrial jobs
have been replaced by part-time, precarious, minimum wage jobs located in the
retail and food industries. A whole
generation is being abandoned to corporate profiteering and greed.
Raise
Corporate Taxes – Tax the Rich
Meantime, the biggest corporations are sitting on $750
billion in dead capital – much of it tax cuts – that could and should have been
in the public treasury, for public investment in job creation and in an
emergency program of jobs for youth; in
a substantially higher minimum wage and fixed incomes, in quality, universal
education and healthcare, affordable
housing and childcare, and in policies and programs where people’s needs trump
corporate greed.
Mass
Action and the Coming Election
A provincial election will be called within weeks, before
minimum wage legislation is passed.
Important issues like the minimum wage, jobs and job
losses, accessible education, affordable housing and rents, climate change, the
environment, and sustainable development, equality rights, democracy, and
social justice need to be on the agenda.
So does the Tories’ ”right-to-work-for-less” legislation that threatens
all workers – young and old.
Escalating mass protests and actions leading up to the
election can put these issues on the agenda and
lead to a better result for workers and youth on election day.
Prescription
for a People’s Recovery
You can check out our 10 point Prescription for a People’s
Recovery at www.communistpartyontario.ca. Please take a look and tell us what you
think.
Working people, youth, and the unemployed can count on the
Communist Party and the Young Communist League to continue fighting for working
people – and for real and fundamental social change – before, during and after
the election. Another Ontario is
possible, urgent, and worth fighting for.
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