Winnipeg city council rejects living wage proposal

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This article was published 22/02/2024 (569 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The push to pay City of Winnipeg employees a living wage has been shot down.

Councillors Cindy Gilroy and Matt Allard raised the motion at council’s meeting Thursday.

It would require all city staff to be paid a living wage by next year. It would also bind contractors hired by the municipal government and organizations it funds to meet the same standard.

The proposal had called for city staff to determine the amount of a living wage, including whether the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ recommendation of $19.21/hr is fair.

Council voted 11-4 to send the matter to the mayor’s cabinet for consideration.

“This is a fairly big policy decision that we would be making if we moved forward with this today,” finance chairman Coun. Jeff Browaty said.

“I think it would be prudent for us to spend some time to look at numbers, to look at implications, and to just bore out everything that has been said here today.”

Allard and Gilroy, who had also raised the issue in December, were among those who voted to refer it to the mayor’s committee (executive policy committee).

Mayor Scott Gillingham said the policy could have far-reaching financial ramifications in terms of contract talks with unions that represent city workers.

“In my understanding, if you’re a labour leader, you’re going to be asking that the job classifications receive a corresponding bump … it should be part of collective bargaining, and that’s where this decision ultimately belongs,” he said.

Canadian Union of Public Employees president Gord Delbridge told the meeting the city, as an employer, can’t keep up with salaries paid by the service industry and some city workers have to use a food bank to feed their families.

After the vote, Delbridge said he doesn’t believe several councilors, including Mayor Gillingham, will ever vote in favour of a living wage requirement due to their conservative leanings.

“I think the reason why it was referred back (is that) the mayor felt that he was going to lose it, and so he thought instead of losing it, and just having this being implemented, he would rather send it back for costing, try another avenue of trying to shut it down,” he said.

If implemented, it would be a significant jump for around 600 city employees who earn less than that amount, including those that make the provincial minimum wage of $15.30/hr. That applies to some 311 staff, library shelvers, and summer students.

Delbridge said 19 municipalities are classified as “living wage employers” in Canada. A 2018 Probe research poll found 81 per cent of those surveyed supported a living wage policy being adopted in Winnipeg.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca