Last week, the New Brunswick Common Front for Social Justice started a lobby week on behalf of workers in New Brunswick.
Their lobby document outlines several obstacles faced by New Brunswick workers, including low minimum wage, being fired without cause, and pay inequity between people of different gender or race.
Common Front’s provincial coordinator Abram Lutes says that as of right now, New Brunswick workers have only one act that protects them, and it’s not doing enough.
Here is Abram Lutes discussing what Common Front’s demands are, and how they could help the entire province:
Q: What is this lobby week all about?
A: This lobby week is about our new lobby document Justice for New Brunswick Workers which centers around the Employment Standards Act. The Employment Standards Act is the basic labor law in New Brunswick. It establishes the baseline rights for workers in the workplace and obligations their employers have to their workers. One of the things we’ve learned coming out of this pandemic is that there are a lot of workers, including essential workers, who have the Employment Standards Act as their only legal protection in the workplace. And looking at the Employment Standards Act, there are a lot of rights and duties that are established there. But we felt that there were also a lot of things missing, that workers have been rallying for and speaking out about over the course of this pandemic.
Q: The first demand on that document is the immediate increase in minimum wage from $11.75 per hour to $15 per hour for the sake of tackling poverty. The document also says that New Brunswick stands to gain 1.4 billion in GDP growth by eliminating poverty. I’m wondering how eliminating poverty can actually benefit the government’s GDP growth.
A: That number 1.4 billion comes from research that we did together with the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives Nova Scotia office, and a couple other community groups that deal with and represent some of the same issues that we work with across the Atlantic provinces. We often think there’s a trade off between addressing poverty and the economy. But really, it’s more about what kind of economy we want to have. These calculations are based on what kinds of costs does having people in poverty have on our economic life, and they’re actually pretty significant in terms of increasing health care costs, increasing the sort of sunk costs that people have to spend to manage the impacts of poverty. Whereas if we address those by making sure that everybody has sort of basic level of dignified living, those people are then actually able to go and spend their money on things that fuel economic activity, and also frees up some government spending from those poverty related expenses.
Q: I’m also curious about why you’re starting with $15 an hour as what you want the minimum wage to increase [to], since you acknowledge in the document that that’s not actually the living wage.
A: The $15 is based on the fact that $15 has been the goal for a lot of social movements and organizations that have organized low wage workers for a long time, but we recognize that we have to be looking beyond that. The challenge is that there often is some adjustments related to large spikes in the minimum wage, and while that’s not our main concern, we did want to be a little bit accommodating about that. So the increase of $15 immediately is about a 25% increase, which is still pretty significant, but it’s consistent with big increases that we’ve seen in other provinces that haven’t really impacted the economy negatively. Like Ontario, when they increased it by almost 21% in 2014, that was manageable for a lot of businesses. So we felt that 25% was something that we could get to fairly quickly. Then we recommend planned increases each subsequent year until we reach something like $20 an hour, which would be reflective of a living wage based on our calculations.
Q: If raising the minimum wage and tackling poverty actually helps the province economically, why do you think there’s such an opposition to raising the minimum wage? I mean, it just got raised by a nickel last time.
A: I think there’s a couple of things. On the one hand, there is opposition from business. In some cases, that is just straight up greed. In some cases, especially with small businesses, there are concerns about their ability to finance things, but I think that governments have found ways to cushion smaller businesses as they transition to higher wages in a lot of cases. In the case of nonprofits, the government has sort of supported them in being able to provide higher wages and benefits to their employees. On the other hand, there’s also some really outdated economic thinking that the minimum wage is just a cost, and wages are just a cost, to the economy. Whereas we know that we actually need people to have the capacity to spend and save and invest, who aren’t just business owners to have a healthy economy.
Q: I’m moving on to the next demand on the document, which has to do with sick days. The demand is that all workers no matter what their job is, should have 10 job-protected sick days annually. I’m curious if COVID-19 has impacted policies surrounding sick days in any workplaces that you know of, or did COVID-19 influence your decision to include this in your demands?
A: COVID-19 definitely brought this demand to a head for a lot of people. This recommendation is based off one that the New Brunswick Federation of Labor also put out earlier. So it’s definitely been raised as an issue for workers because of the pandemic, and the decision to include it is definitely also part of that. We have seen Ontario and Nova Scotia look at paid sick leave legislation this year. Quebec and PEI both require it. We have seen some companies increase the amount of paid sick leave they offer their employees out of recognition that this does actually help people’s overall health as well as containing the spread of the pandemic. So we think that the time is now there’s definitely a recommendation or recognition there that it needs to be implemented.
Q: I can easily see an argument against including sick days, especially in this particular context of COVID-19, which would be “Once the majority of the global population is vaccinated, we won’t need those sick days anymore because COVID-19 will be manageable.” Why is it still important to have sick days after COVID-19 is more manageable in our climate?
A: Well, there are a lot of health issues that paid sick leave goes a long way to addressing. So not only does people being able to stay home without facing a loss of wages help with the COVID-19 pandemic, we know that it also helps contain the common flu and the common cold when people have cold symptoms or flu symptoms. They feel comfortable staying home and treating those for a day or two rather than going into work and spreading it to their co-workers. We also know that it’s really important for mental health for people to be able to not feel pressured all the time to go into work when they’re feeling like their mental health is under stress for a variety of reasons. There’s a variety of kinds of leaves that are recognized in the employment standards that are important for workers to have, but they’re all unpaid.10 paid sick days is is a step towards making that actually economically possible for a lot of workers, to be able to take time off for those things rather than having to face a wage cut effectively to take time off.
Q: On the topic of paid leave, you also emphasize vacation pay in your document, and I’m wondering why that is.
A: We talk about vacation pay because vacation pay is in the Employment Standards Act already. There’s a recognition that people should have the opportunity to accumulate vacation pay and take a vacation, but it’s just very prohibitive to only be able to accumulate vacation pay when you been working for the same employer for eight years, which is not very common for a lot of low wage workers. A lot of low wage workers move between employers fairly frequently. As well as only accumulating it at 6% after eight years, it’s very unlikely that people will actually accumulate enough leave to take a vacation over the course of their career. If you start accumulating vacation pay once you start work, and maybe start accumulating a little more after five years, we recommend starting vacation pay at 6% and then going up to 8% after five years of continuous employment, that means that more people are actually going to be able to take advantage of a vacation pay.
Q: Another demand in that document is that those who make more than minimum wage should make some overtime wages. I’m wondering why it’s important that those who make more than minimum wage also make overtime.
A: Right now, there is overtime in the Employment Standards Act, but it only really applies if you make exactly minimum wage. So even if you make a couple cents over, you’re not strictly eligible for overtime pay. So even workers who are making $12 an hour or $13 now, which is still not a lot of money, are missing out on the opportunity to get overtime pay. The threshold is also incredibly high, you don’t really start getting paid overtime until you work 44 hours a week. 44 hours is a long week already, so we’re actually recommending lowering that threshold to 40 hours, which is still a pretty long week, but is a little bit more reasonable in terms of recognizing when people work. An extensive amount of time in a single week.
Q: I am thinking off the top of my head of a couple different professions that would impact specifically, those who have a very specific set of skills who worked very long hours. Would this by any chance impacts people like nurses and construction workers?
A: Absolutely. In fact, one of the reasons that this recommendation is in there is from conversations with workers in construction and in the skilled trades who have mentioned that they are being excluded from overtime, even though they work quite long hours in many situations.
Q: This next demand is pretty straightforward, you would like to see the employers pay for things like uniforms that are required by the laborers to wear while they’re working. That’s pretty straightforward, but out of curiosity, have you heard that there’s a particular field or job that is impacted by the uniform requirement more than others?
A: More than others, definitely, if you’re working in heavy industry there are more expenses associated with this. But a variety of jobs require people to buy their own uniforms or equipment, even somewhere like Sobey’s or McDonald’s people sometimes have to buy their own shoes or buy their own shirts with the company logo. You’re not even on the shift schedule until you purchase those things and you have those things to wear. So this makes it really difficult for people to actually start working when they’re ready to work when they have to fund this upfront expense, and then wait for those things to arrive or be available to them before they can start working.
Q: The three-strike rule that’s outlined in this document as well, why implement that as a policy around termination?
A: So this is sort of a push towards giving more workers access to what’s called progressive discipline, which is a framework that means that employers are able to discipline their employees, but employees actually face a series of steps before they’re dismissed, and have an opportunity to maybe rectify the situation. The reason for this is, even though we don’t have at-will employment in Canada, which is something you have in the United States and some other countries where employees can be dismissed for no reason, it’s still fairly easy to get fired somewhat arbitrarily. You do have to be given your two weeks notice or two weeks pay, but if your dismissal is unfair, or not reflective of a violation of your terms of employment, it’s very difficult for workers to contest that or challenge that if they’re only given one notice in writing before they’re dismissed.
Q: Pay equity legislation is also outlined in the in the list, specifically pay equity in the private sector. Why is pay equity in the private sector important?
A: We have pay equity in the public sector, which means that if you work in the public sector, and you happen to work in a job that is predominantly staffed by women, and you compare it to a job that’s predominantly staffed by men that has comparable qualifications, comparable working conditions, and comparable requirements in general, then you’ll get paid a comparable amount. We don’t have that in the private sector. In the private sector, you can’t be discriminated against on the basis of gender if you’re working the same position, if you both have the same role you can’t be discriminated against on the basis of gender. But what often happens is we have roles that have comparable requirements for education and skills and similar working conditions that tend to be dominated by women versus other roles tend to be dominated by men, and the male-dominated roles are paid more, even though the work is very comparable. So pay equity legislation, the private sector means that those comparable roles are going to be paid at the same amount. It’s equal pay for equal work.
Q: Just to close up here, I know that it’s your lobbying week. Do you have like a timeline after this week? When you are hoping this might be discussed and/or implemented?
A: Well, we only have a few commitments from MLAs is to raise this issue in, say, the legislature or in their caucus or in Executive Council, because we have met with some ministers. We are fairly confident that we’ll be able to get some momentum on this. There’s some delays, we haven’t been able to meet with some this week because it’s very busy week for them, so we’ll be following up next week with them. What we hope to do is build momentum over this for this over the summer, and revisit it in the fall and see where we’re at. If we still need to campaign on this, we’re going to keep campaigning on it.
Q: Do you know how many MLAs you’ve managed to commit?
A: Well, we have one MLA who has committed to raising all of these issues, Kevin Arseneau, and we’ve had some positive reception on two or three other MLAs.
Q: Out of curiosity, have you spoken with MLA Megan Mitton about this yet? That is this region’s MLA.
A: I haven’t had the opportunity to speak with Megan Mitton, and that’s only because she’s on maternity leave. Her staff told us that they were very interested in the proposals but that they couldn’t commit to having a sit down meeting and and raising legislation or anything like that. There’s a couple of MLAs who are indisposed for reasons beyond their control that we aren’t sort of bothering to track down at this stage. Maybe when they’re able to return to their full duties, we’ll have that conversation with them.
Q: Anything to add?
A: One of the things [that causes] pushback when you do lobbying, and something we’ve heard is his concerns about, is the impact on small businesses, the impact on the economy, and so forth. I think we’ve been very thorough in pointing out how the question isn’t really between workers and the economy. It’s do we want to have an economy that empowers workers, or do we want to have one that doesn’t? If you look at things over the long run, there are benefits to the economy and even to businesses in implementing some of these policies. It’s the role of the government to ensure that they’re implemented in a way that is effective and conducive to that.
