In 2019, Ford called the $15 minimum wage a job killer. Now he loves it. Next year, we’ll see if working\u002Dclass voters do, too
Ford’s generosity will also drive up public sector wage costs. Ford’s other new pal, Ontario Public Service Employees Union president Smokey Thomas, noted that 15,000 of his members will also be getting a raise. That’s the cheap part of the deal. At the end of 2019, the Ford government brought in legislation that limited broader public sector wage increases to one per cent a year for three years.
On the bright side, Ford’s media event with key labour leaders was an entertaining spectacle and certainly enlightening for anyone who might mistakenly have thought Ford was pro-business. The PCs’ new slogan is Working for Workers. It’s somewhat more subtle than Looking for Voters, but not much. Still, it’s far from clear that this week’s announcement will help the PCs in next year’s election. They are lusting for labour, but abandoning long-time supporters in business. Ford tried to justify the blow to business by pointing to government support for entrepreneurs during the pandemic. That’s not going to help much next year.
The challenge for a government trying to please organized labour is that there is no such thing as enough. Dias was happy to call a $15 minimum wage a starting point, but what he’d really like is a city-specific “living wage” that would be more than $20 an hour in Toronto.Article content
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