Considering my second job is serving, and my wage will go up with the minimum wage increase, I should be excited right?
But I feel as though the joy that automatically accompanies this increase is a bit superficial and should be approached, like everything politicians love to announce, with skepticism.
The minimum wage will be raised to $8.75 on May 1. It will increase to $9.50 on Nov. 1, before hitting $10.25 in May 2012. The $6 training wage will be repealed as of May, and there's a separate minimum wage for liquor servers.
The minimum wage for alcohol servers is currently $8 an hour. It will rise to $8.50 on May 1, $8.75 on Nov. 1, and $9 in May 2012.
I think it's kind of like the initial excitement Canadians felt when the Loonie started going up and up to the point where it's basically worth the same as the U.S. dollar until Canadians realized Americans weren't coming to play and spend in Canada as much and that the bargain prices across the border had become dramatically more attractive.
Yes, I think it's good that fast food restaurants will no longer get away with paying $8 an hour to those who live below the poverty line.
My first real job (other than mucking out horse stalls for riding lessons) was working customer service at McDonald's in Mission and I can genuinely get behind any initiative to pay those employees more.
You deal with a lot working at a fast food restaurant delivering speedy, friendly and efficient service and often for people who don't realize they're talking to a person and not a McMenu.
The current minimum wage pays full-time employees $1,280 per month. Now, take a minute and imagine how quickly that entire cheque would disappear into rent, groceries, daycare and car payments Gone.
This increase could mean more than 4,000 additional dollars annually for a full-time employee, which isn't nothing but not that many employers actually pay their employees such a low wage unless they're servers who earn their living on tips.
In 2009, only 41,000 British Columbians earned minimum wage or less that's not even one per cent of the province's population.
So who is shelling out these wage increases?
Well, it'll have to come from everyone involved because restaurant owners sure don't have money lying around with the current economy, the new harmonized sales tax and rising food prices. Add in the harsher drinking and driving laws that ensures a lower chequebook balance and that's why a restaurant near you has likely closed in the past six months.
The immediate fear becomes job loss and numerous business owners across the province have said this is a possibility.
If a restaurant makes $500,000 per year and its wage cost is generally 30 per cent, or $150,000, and the wage goes up 30 per cent, that's a $45,000 increase.
What budget does that come from? Most restaurants and pubs, who will likely be the hardest hit, are already down this year.
I would predict business owners will have to decrease the number of servers in a restaurant, which results in poorer quality service, which in turn results in less tips and probably a lower return overall.
Or maybe the number of hostesses, who don't serve alcohol but do receive a bit at tip-out, will decrease.
Jim Sinclair, president of the B.C. Federation of Labour, took issue with the job-losses threat, however, calling it a "bogeyman."
"I don't believe businesses make it or break it on these kinds of wages," he said.
Then what will? Businesses are not indestructible.
I say let the economy dictate salaries there will always be employers who pinch every penny they can get and don't pay their staff properly, but most good employers know that happy employees are better employees in general.
Then again, maybe I have too much faith in people.
