CRFA's Alberta Lobbyist
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Mark von Schellwitz Vice President, Western Canada T: 1-866-300-7675 E: mark@crfa.ca |
A new approach to Alberta’s minimum wage
(May 31/10) Following its minimum wage freeze for 2010, the Alberta government is preparing to review its minimum wage policy.
The foodservice industry creates thousands of entry-level and part-time job opportunities in communities across Alberta. To continue doing so, we need a new approach to the minimum wage. Labour costs already account for one third of our sales and minimum wage rates have increased much faster than inflation.
Given the current economic uncertainty, and the ever increasing cost of key inputs such as energy, labour, and food, CRFA is urging the province to help foodservice operators by recommending the following actions:
- Eliminate the existing policy of linking minimum wage to the previous year’s annual wage inflation. The existing policy does not reflect current labour market conditions and fails to provide operators with enough notice to revise labour budgets and adjust minimum wage. Minimum wage adjustments need to be done in small, easy steps to absorb increments; at least six months notice should be given before implementing any minimum wage increase.
- Introduce a training wage for the first 500 hours of work for new employees (as other provinces have done) to recognize the considerable costs of proper training. Giving operators this flexibility helps ensure more students are afforded invaluable first time job experience.
- Introduce a gratuity differential, which is a lower minimum wage for servers in licensed establishments (as in Quebec and Ontario), recognizing the significant income earned by liquor servers. Giving operators this flexibility makes it easier to devote more of their labour budget to attract and retain hard to find, back-of-house, non-tipped employees. The differential would be put in place by freezing servers’ wage rates during the next general minimum wage increase. Wages would not be rolled back.
Government will only act if they hear from you. Please fill out this petition and return it to CRFA.
If you have any questions, contact Mark von Schellwitz at mark@crfa.ca.
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