For about 40,000 workers in the province, today comes with a nice 75 cents-an-hour pay raise.
It's the last of three regular minimum-wage increases Premier Christy Clark announced last year.
Coinciding with International Worker's Day today, all minimum wage staff in B.C. now bring home $10.25 per hour. Liquor workers remain at $9 an hour, however, but they receive a substantial amount of their wage in tips, vaulting them over the minimum.
Clark's bold move got plenty of attention last year, since it was a dramatic reversal from her predecessor, Gordon Campbell, who steadfastly refused to raise minimum wage after he took office in 2001. Campbell not only froze minimum wage at $8 an hour, he brought in a $6 an hour training wage for young employees with no experience.
Clark got rid of the training wage and announced the three-part minimum wage hike as part of her Families First portfolio. Under Campbell, $8 an hour had been the highest in Canada when he took office in 2001 and was the lowest in the country by the time he left
With Clark in charge, minimum wage went up to $8.75 last May 1 but it was still the lowest in Canada even after that hike. In November, it went up another 75 cents to $9.50 and again today to $10.25.
Put another way, minimum wage has gone up 28 per cent in the last year.
That sounds excessive on the surface but no one else in the province, and certainly not MLAs, saw their wages frozen for a decade.
If Campbell had budgeted annual minimum wage increases at the reasonable level of 2.5 per cent, minimum wage would have been $10.25 an hour last year and it would be $10.51 an hour today.
To listen to some segments of the business community reacting to Clark's announcement last spring, raising the minimum wage was tantamount to declaring war against the province's small- and family-operated businesses.
The frothing-at-the-mouth Fraser Institute said increasing B.C.'s hourly minimum wage from $8 to $10 would cost B.C. more than 52,000 jobs, with employment for the 15 to 24 age group decreasing between three and six per cent.
The complete opposite happened.
In year-over-year comparisons between March 2011 and this past March, the last month available for numbers from B.C. Stats, the provincial unemployment rate fell from 8.2 per cent to 7.1 per cent and there are 38,000 more people working in B.C. than there were a year ago.
Even at the time, cooler and smarter heads in the business sector prevailed over the
anti-worker rants from the Fraser Institute.
The Prince George Chamber of Commerce came out in favour of the minimum wage hikes after they were announced by Clark. When the business group surveyed its 830 members, 128 responded and 81 per cent of them agreed with an increase and more than half agreed the minimum wage should be $10.
"I think it says that businesses that are members of the Prince George chamber care a lot about their employees and recognize that $8 is not enough to make a living," said
then-chamber president Roy Spooner.
Paying a fair minimum wage is important.
Along with the Employment Standards Act, it prevents worker exploitation. For thousands of B.C. families, the difference between $8 and $10.25 an hour is the difference between relying on the food bank to eat and buying their own groceries.
But a decent minimum wage is good for business, too. Studies have shown that workers are more loyal to their employer when they receive a fair wage. They are more likely to spend at their employer's business and less likely to steal from it or turn a blind eye when others steal from it. They more enthusiastically promote their employer. They take less sick days off.
Meanwhile, young workers receive a wage that can better support them while they complete post-secondary education.
Smart business people know the success and failure of their businesses hinges on the quality and productivity of their workers.
Paying them a fair wage for work received is just good business.
