New labour laws - $15/hour min - 3 weeks vacation

[woodee]

I am an employer of a small manufacturing company of between 20-30 employees. Raising minimum wage to $15/hr is a non issue. We only have a few new hires at $14/hr. Everyone else $15 and above. My biggest problem is absenteeism. Usually at least one worker per day calls in sick.
What are the rules regarding 10 emergency leave days? I see that now I have to pay for 2 days, sigh. That's just like having two more stat holidays. Another $8 or $9000 off the top. Death by a thousand cuts.

 

[GameBoy27]

Will she be around to implement it...?

She's currently on a vote guying spree. Add the $15 minimum wage, free meds for anyone under 25 and 25% hydro bill reduction to the list.

The problem for Patrick Brown on minimum wage is if he disagrees, he's shooting himself in the foot. There's a lot more people on minimum wage than there is minimum wage employers.

 

[LeeHelm]

All it will do is add to inflation. If companies have to pay higher wages they will just pass it on to the consumer. You think McDonalds wont raise the price of a burger now that they will have to pay $3 an hour more to staff. It wont help the poor at all since the bang for their buck will simply fade away with the higher prices.

A typical liberal response. You can only charge so much for a burger. People will simply stop going to the restaurants. Either that or the restaurants will turn to automation. The day is coming soon when there will be only one or two employees at restaurants like McDonald's. Soon after that there will be no one working at the stores except to make deliveries. With autonomous vehicles coming online, there is no reason the process can't be fully automated.

Idiotic liberal policies like this have already driven mom and pops' out of business. I guess now the ware is being waged on the rest of the businesses. Look around big box stores are closing everywhere. That is because labor costs are far cheaper for online stores. Soon most of those jobs will be replaced by automation too.

 

[LeeHelm]

I am an employer of a small manufacturing company of between 20-30 employees. Raising minimum wage to $15/hr is a non issue. We only have a few new hires at $14/hr. Everyone else $15 and above. My biggest problem is absenteeism. Usually at least one worker per day calls in sick.
What are the rules regarding 10 emergency leave days? I see that now I have to pay for 2 days, sigh. That's just like having two more stat holidays. Another $8 or $9000 off the top. Death by a thousand cuts.

It is a non issue for you. You have to pay what you pay to attract the talent that you require. Or you simply want to pay what you pay. Nothing wrong with that. How much is someone working as a clerk at a convenience store worth? $15 + 3 weeks vacation? PLEASE!

 

[Gobroncosgo]

How desperate do you have to get re-elected to do this? This is going to kill small businesses. The absenteeism and vacation changes are staggering.

 

[shrek71]

The $15 per hour minimum wage was first tried in Seattle a few years back. Doing so had lots of unintended consequences. Ie. Right out of the gate, you saw the introduction of automated ordering kiosks at McDonalds stores. Many employee perks that they enjoyed at their lower salary went away (benefits, paid for parking, free food and drinks at the office, etc) all went away. There are many articles on this on the internet.

This is going to be a bad plan as it will be on the backs of business owners. The low skill minimum wage earners will be the ones that suffer the most as they won't be able to find a job to get skills, every entry level minimum wage job will require experience.

Cheers

 

[rgkv]

i was stoked at 15 to be making even $8/hr at second cup.

Started my first full time job, think I was 17,,, got big bucks I tell ya.
Starting pay, a whole, $1.67 hr. Cleared 48 bucks a week....Yup I tell ya, after room and board. Mother said " you work, you pay"
5 bucks would fill up the gas tank and get a case of beer... Life was good.
Got busted for that one... Purchasing and possession of alcohol under the age of 21....that's way back boys and girls...

 

[tombrady12]

i feel like there should be different rules for small business owners vs. bigger corporations. a mandatory min of $15 is fine for mcdonalds, but for the mom and pops who just hire students who are being supported by their parents anyway? come on now. i was stoked at 15 to be making even $8/hr at second cup.

There will be a lower minimum wage for students under 18.

 

[rhuarc29]

If you ask any unbiased economist who isn't a hack, they will not tell you that. They will tell you that Yes there will be a negative impact on jobs/hiring (particularly by small businesses), but there will also be a positive impact on the economy from putting more money into low income people who will end up spending all that money back into the economy (vs. the wealthy who have a greater tendency to squirrel it away into savings).

I absolutely agree with a redistribution being best for the economy. However, this is 100% the wrong way to go about it.

 

[rhuarc29]

I am an employer of a small manufacturing company of between 20-30 employees. Raising minimum wage to $15/hr is a non issue. We only have a few new hires at $14/hr. Everyone else $15 and above. My biggest problem is absenteeism. Usually at least one worker per day calls in sick.
What are the rules regarding 10 emergency leave days? I see that now I have to pay for 2 days, sigh. That's just like having two more stat holidays. Another $8 or $9000 off the top. Death by a thousand cuts.

YES, you get it! As a small business owner, it's not the $15 minimum wage that gets me, it's the insane disruption of absenteeism. I don't know what industry you're in, but the schedule for my employees is interlaced, meaning one employee skipping out for the day causes a cascading effect on everyone else. This leads to inefficiencies, delays, hits to reputation and so on in a never-ending butterfly effect. So yeah, mandating 10 days of leave is scary to me.

 

[rhuarc29]

Great politics, how many voters will disagree with $15 min ? Rent control, 17% hydro cut ('biggest cut in Ontario history', please ignore the preceding largest increase in Ontario history).
I remember working FT where there were PT earning more than me.

I guess we'll find out if people are stupid enough to get suckered into such tactics, and not to look at it's long-term effects.

 

[AJstar]

I guess we'll find out if people are stupid enough to get suckered into such tactics, and not to look at it's long-term effects.

This is Ontario, how many successional Liberal Gov't in a row.
Each even more corrupt & wasteful than it's predecessor.
Of course they will go for it. Free Money even if its yours.

 

[PornAddict]

This is Ontario, how many successional Liberal Gov't in a row.
Each even more corrupt & wasteful than it's predecessor.
Of course they will go for it. Free Money even if its yours.

30 year from now Ontario go to end up like Greece! Bankruptcy and broke and hopefully teacher and unions get their pension cut & pay cut like Greece today. Rioting in the street.

 

[shack]

The $15 per hour minimum wage was first tried in Seattle a few years back. Doing so had lots of unintended consequences. Ie. Right out of the gate, you saw the introduction of automated ordering kiosks at McDonalds stores. Many employee perks that they enjoyed at their lower salary went away (benefits, paid for parking, free food and drinks at the office, etc) all went away.

Some loss of benefits, but I am sure most employees would readily trade those off for an increase of their basic pay, 25% in some cases.

 

[shack]

hopefully teacher and unions get their pension cut & pay cut like Greece today. Rioting in the street.

Hopefully?

You'd rather see anarchy than the plan working out, even if it goes against your personal philosophy?

You sound like a nice person.

 

[glamphotographer]

It's nothing more than an ploy to win over votes. The NDP are gonna announce a $16 min. wage. Patrick Brown will continue to say "We need to continue our study and research, blah, blah, blah".

 

[angrymime666]

people should be paid what their labour is worth. most unskilled labour is not worth 15 an hour. when people specialize or have training/education typically they are not paid minimum wage. this could be a cluster fuck chain reaction to the labour market. people who are already paid above minimum wage(skilled labour) now earn that same or near as unskilled labour. so does that mean people who are skilled labour will be given a raise? probably not......

people should be paid what there skills are worth, not what is fair.

 

[fuji]

If you ask any unbiased economist who isn't a hack, they will not tell you that. They will tell you that Yes there will be a negative impact on jobs/hiring (particularly by small businesses), but there will also be a positive impact on the economy from putting more money into low income people who will end up spending all that money back into the economy (vs. the wealthy who have a greater tendency to squirrel it away into savings).

A real economist who isn't in the pocket of a particular faction will tell you that what the net impact will be is very difficult to say and depends to a large extent on your view of how people will behave.

If economists could predict the net outcome with the certainty with which you seem to believe they have, our economy would be a utopia.

This is accurate.

 

[rhuarc29]

people should be paid what there skills are worth, not what is fair.

Some would argue that's one and the same. Some from both sides of the issue.
I happen to believe that what we've been seeing, this pooling of wealth at the top and this living on credit at the bottom, is very bad for our economy, and that some effort has to be made to correct the issue. But this is not it! This will hurt all classes. We are less competitive now, which will lead to less investment in Ontario, fewer jobs, more pressure to implement automation or to outsource unskilled labour, increased prices, small business going under, less tax income, more debt, etc. It WILL help a small subset of the lower class in the short-run; those lucky enough to keep their jobs. But in the long run they'll hurt too.

Our leaders have simply lost it! Wishful thinking, with no common sense to back it up. Makes me want to run for office just to set things straight, but I don't have the charisma, nor the stomach for it.

 

[rhuarc29]

This is accurate.

It's partially accurate.