Sunday, January 07, 2018

It is us against them


 Ontario,  Canada’s most populous province, announced last year that it would raise its minimum wage to C$15 (US$12) an hour by 2019. The first phase went into effect this week, hiking the minimum wage for workers from C$11.40 an hour to C$14.00.


It emerged that employees at two locations of Tim Hortons, Canadian coffee chain, would no longer be paid for breaks and would have to cover at least half the costs of their health and dental benefits.

The owners of the two stores, Ron Joyce Jr and his wife, Jeri Horton-Joyce – who are the son and daughter of the chain’s co-founders – said in a letter to employees that the changes were due to the increased minimum wage.

One employee said that changes would leave them with about C$100 less a month, rendering null the minimum wage increase. Another employee lamented the loss of fully covered health benefits. “Sounds like you are penalising your staff."  One employee said that the owner of four franchises in St Thomas, Ontario, was now forcing employees to pay for their own uniforms – a cost that can run as high as C$100.

 Some argued that the Liberal government had been naive to expect businesses to passively swallow the costs of the wage hike, while others pointed to the Tim Hortons website, which notes that any prospective franchisee must have at least C$1.5m in net worth and C$500,000 in liquid assets.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/06/ontario-premier-minimum-wage-rise-tim-hortons-coffee-chain

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