More than 20 mayors - including a handful from northern B.C. - have joined the B.C. Federation of Labour in calling on the B.C. Liberal government to increase the minimum wage.
Mayors from Williams Lake, Fort St. James, Mackenzie, Terrace and Prince Rupert signed a joint letter sent to B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell calling for an increase of the minimum wage to $10 from $8, as well as an elimination of the $6 an hour training wage.
The B.C. Liberals introduced the $6 training wage - $2 per hour below the minimum wage - in November 2000, they said, as a way to encourage businesses to hire inexperienced young workers. After 500 hours at the starting wage, workers are bumped up to the minimum wage.
Mayors in Power River, Trail, Burnaby, Victoria, Delta, Vancouver, Port Moody, North Vancouver and New Westminster were also among the municipal leaders who signed on to the letter.
Mackenzie mayor Stephanie Killam said Wednesday it's important for people to be able to live above the poverty line. She noted that in her community, 175 kilometres north of Prince George, during the worst of the forestry downturn people on minimum wages had a hard time.
At one point, all of the forest manufacturing facilities in Mackenzie were shut down, putting an estimated 1,600 people off the job. In the past year, a pair of sawmills and a pulp mill have restarted, putting more than 400 people back to work.
Killam also added that it's important that people feel good about the wage they are earning.
Advocates of raising the minimum wage also argue it is good for the economy, as low-income earners generally spend all of their income in local communities. Killam said she agrees with that contention.
Recently, the issue of supporting an increase in the minimum wage came before city council, however it was turned down in a split vote. Councillors Don Bassermann, Garth Frizzell, Shari Green and Cameron Stolz voted against the support, while mayor Dan Rogers and councillors Debora Munoz and Brian Skakun were in favour.
The call had been for council to send a letter to the premier reiterating council's support for an increase in the minimum wage, a position adopted in 2007 by a previous council.
Instead, council voted 4-3 in favour or referring the issue to the policy advisory committee for a report.
The B.C. Federation of Labour, which represents the province's 450,000 unionized workers, has had a campaign to raise the minimum wage since 2007.
The umbrella union organization points out that B.C.'s $8 minimum wage has not been increased since, something every other province has done in the past year. Nova Scotia recently raised its minimum wage by almost five per cent to $9.65.
"Other provinces have made the connection between raising the minimum wage and combating poverty," said B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair. "We need to make the same connection here in B.C. and raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour with future increases linked to increases in the cost of living."
The B.C. Liberal government has shown no indication they are considering raising the minimum wage soon.
At the recent Union of B.C. Municipalities convention in Whistler, B.C. Labour Minister Murray Coell would only say the government will consider in the future whether to raise the minimum wage.
