[van-announce] Reminder: Fight Campbell's Training Wage Campaign Meeting

[Mike Krebs]

*Please Distribute Widely*

Fight Campbell's Training Wage Campaign Meeting
Monday September 16th 
6 PM @ SFU Harbour Centre 
515 West Hastings (Fletcher Challenge Room), Vancouver

Organized by the Anti-Poverty Committee

6 PM: Panel discussion featuring
Lisa Wulwick, Anti-Poverty Committee
Representative from Red Directions Native Youth
Magazine (TBA)
Jeff Keighley, Canadian Auto Workers ‘Starbucks
Unstrike for Justice and dignity’ campaign
Adrian Fu, Anti-Poverty Committee
Ali Yerevani, Anti-Poverty Committee
Other panelists TBA.

7 PM: break

7:15 PM: Discussion on how we can build an effective
strategy against the training wage and plan actions
against this attack on low-wage workers. 

On-site childcare provided. Please email apc at resist.ca
to register.

Endorsers of the Anti-Poverty Committee’s demand to
end the training wage:
End Legislated Poverty, Redwire Magazine, Vancouver
Status of Women, BC Coalition of Women’s Centres,
Victoria Status of Women Action Group (SWAG), Ethical
Environmental Consulting, Direct Action for Free
Transit (DAFT), Sound Resistance!, Council of
Canadians (Richmond Chapter), Progress (The Richmond
Coalition on Provincial Issues), Kootenay Cuts, Colour
Connected Against Racism, Social Justice Kamloops,
Kamloops Society for Health and Income Options. 



Original endorsement letter:

Fight Campbell’s Training Wage

To Whom It May Concern:

This is a letter from the Anti-Poverty Committee
inviting your organization to endorse our demand to
end the $6 training wage, and attend our upcoming
‘Fight Campbell’s Training Wage’ Campaign meeting.
This meeting is happening Monday, September 16th, at 6
PM. It will be held at the SFU Harbour Centre, located
at 515 West Hastings Street (downtown Vancouver). 
When the training wage was first introduced in
November, we knew that this was not really a 'training
wage' at all, but simply a new $6 minimum wage. Now,
less than a year since it first came into effect, the
obvious has been proven. Aside from its legal use,
which is itself an unnacceptable attack on young
workers, we have seen numerous cases where people who
should be 'exempt' from the legislation are being hurt
by the training wage. Some examples are: 

Workers are being told that because they don't have
experience in a particular industry, they would have
to work for $6 an hour (in one case, the employer said
that the worker didn’t have experience in a ‘pizza’
restaurant, despite having worked at many other
restaurants).
Workers already employed at $8 and hour or higher are
fired without cause and then replaced by new workers
at $6 an hour.
In one situation, a worker who recently immigrated to
Canada was told by their new boss that they wouldn't
be paid $6 if they agreed to work for one week for
free. 

All of these situations are illegal. They are also
proof that the training wage was designed as an attack
on all workers, despite claims that only people
without previous experience would be affected. But the
training wage was designed to be abused. Very little
information is available about when an employer can
and can't use the training wage, so in many cases
people don’t even know that they are being illegally
paid the training wage. This attack was made even
worse by changes to the Employment Standards Act,
where one has to fill out a 'Self-Help Kit’ and try to
resolve the issue they have with their boss before
Employment Standards will even consider their claim.
This is like giving a letter to somebody who robs you
asking for your things back. Even when people know for
sure that they are being paid the training wage
illegally, there is little that they can do about it
on their own. The 'proper channels' provide next to
nothing for exploited workers, and are not really
designed to be used in the first place. 
Combined with other cutbacks, the impact of the
training wage on poor people becomes even more
devastating. The cuts to childcare subsidies and other
welfare benefits is forcing single parents to find
work that clearly isn’t there. Now, entering the
labour market at $6 an hour, parents will not be able
to pay someone else $8 an hour for childcare. This is
a gross attack on parents and their children. 
We, the Anti-Poverty Committee, are asking your
organization to endorse our demand to end the training
wage, and we encourage you to attend this meeting
and/or provide material support for this intitative.
Our expenses/resource needs for these actions include:
Transportation (bus tickets for people traveling to
the meeting)
Promotional materials (poster/leaflet production,
photocopying, etc.)
Money to pay for childcare
Please feel free to contact the Anti-Poverty Committee
if you have any questions. We can be reached by phone
at (604) 682-2726, or by sending an email to
apc at resist.ca.

In Solidarity,


Mike Krebs
Steering Committee member, Anti-Poverty Committee
 


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