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The economic, rational reasons why a $15 an hour minimum wage helps Ontario.

Fifty (50) professional economists say it’s a good thing.

Might want to take a look – –  see July 4th media release

Canadian economists issue open letter in support of a $15 minimum wage in Ontario

TORONTO, ONTARIO–(Marketwired – July 4, 2017) – Ahead of Ontario’s public hearings on Bill 148, Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act, over 50 economists across Canada have penned an open letter supporting a $15 minimum wage. The signatories of the letter explain that a higher minimum wage is not only an economically responsible measure, but also a much needed one.

The full text of this letter is below, and can also be accessed at http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2017/06/29/economists-support-15-minimum-wage-in-ontario/.

We, the undersigned economists, support the decision to increase the minimum wage in Ontario to $15 an hour. Raising the wage floor makes good economic sense.

Today, Ontario’s minimum wage is $11.40 per hour. Adjusted for inflation, this is barely one dollar higher than its value in 1977. Yet over the same four decades, the average productivity of workers has increased by 40%. And the prevalence of minimum wage work is spreading. Around 1 in 10 Ontario workers make minimum wage today, with a large increase in this proportion over the last two decades.

Low wages are bad for workers as individuals. An individual working full-year, full-time on the minimum wage can still fall short of the poverty line. The situation for minimum wage workers trying to support families is no better—and evidence shows that this is increasingly what is asked of minimum-wage workers. The stereotype of the teenager living at home making minimum wage is out of date: over 60% of workers earning minimum wage in Ontario in 2015 were over the age of 20, as were over 80% of those making $15 or less.

But low wages are also bad for the economy. There are good economic reasons to raise the incomes of low-wage workers. Aggregate demand needs a boost. While Canada escaped the harshest impacts of the 2007-08 financial crisis, our country has also seen a slowdown in growth. We risk further stagnation without reinvigorated economic motors. As those with lower incomes spend more of what they earn than do those with higher incomes, raising the minimum wage could play a role in economic revival, improving macroeconomic conditions.

For years, we have heard that raising the minimum wage will kill jobs, raise prices and cause businesses to flee Ontario. This is fear-mongering that is out of line with the latest economic research. Using improved techniques that carefully isolate the effects of minimum wage increases from the remaining noise in economic data, the weight of evidence from the United States points to job loss effects that are statistically indistinguishable from zero. The few very recent studies from Canada that have used these new economic methods agree, finding job loss effects for teenagers smaller by half than those of earlier studies and no effect for workers over 25.

There are many possible reasons for minimum wage increases to lead to little or no job loss. Studies have found lower turnover, more on-the-job training, greater wage compression (smaller differences between higher- and lower-paid workers) and higher productivity after minimum wage increases. In short, raising the minimum wage makes for better, more productive workplaces.

The business lobby has also suggested that any minimum wage increases will simply be passed on as higher prices. First, the above-mentioned improvements will offset some part of the higher labour costs to business. Second, there is no instantaneous, automatic mechanism between higher labour costs and higher prices. Some of the costs not absorbed by increased efficiency may go to price increases, but these are likely to be small and, for low-wage workers, offset by higher incomes coming from rising wages. Furthermore, if we remember that over 1 in 4 workers in Ontario makes under $15 per hour, we should not treat slightly higher inflation as the main criterion of successful policy; instead we should focus on the substantial benefit to low-wage workers, their families and the economy as a whole.

Across North America, recent years have seen more minimum wages increases, some quite substantial. And so far, none of the doom-and-gloom predictions have come true. Seattle and the municipality of SeaTac, two of the first to institute minimum wage increases, continue to thrive even after increases. Of course, more rigorous studies will have to be conducted (as scientists we are excited by the prospect of new data to analyze) but so far the effects of minimum wage increases have been in line with the expectations of those of us who believe that raising the minimum wage is a positive step for workers and the economy.

Economics may be known as the “dismal science” but on the issue of the minimum wage many economists are ready to admit that the weight of evidence points to a strong case for raising the minimum wage. 600 of our colleagues in the United States, 7 Nobel Prize winners among them, signed a letter urging the United States government to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour from the current $7.25—in percentage terms an even larger increase than that from $11.40 to $15 in Ontario. A further letter calling for a staged increase of the federal minimum wage to $15 was signed by 200 economists. There is no consensus against raising the minimum wage among our profession; indeed, the emerging understanding is quite the opposite.

We believe that raising Ontario’s minimum wage to $15 an hour is a good idea and one that is economically sound.

1. Abdella Abdou, Brandon University
2. Fletcher Baragar, University of Manitoba
3. Michael Bell, Manitoba Teachers’ Society
4. Sheila Block, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives – Ontario
5. Hassan Bougrine, Laurentian University
6. Michael Bradfield, Dalhousie University
7. Jordan Brennan, Unifor
8. Robert Chernomas, University of Manitoba
9. Robert W. Dimand, Brock University
10. Catherine Douglas, University of British Columbia
11. Lynne Fernandez, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives – Manitoba
12. Kelly Foley, University of Saskatchewan
13. Marc-André Gagnon, Carleton University
14. David Green, University of British Columbia
15. Marjorie Griffin-Cohen, Simon Fraser University
16. Pierre-Antoine Harvey, Centrale des syndicat du Québec
17. Rod Hill, University of New Brunswick
18. Ian Hudson, University of Manitoba
19. Mustapha Ibn Boamah, University of New Brunswick
20. Gustavo Indart, University of Toronto
21. Iglika Ivanova, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives – British Columbia
22. Andrew Jackson, Carleton University
23. Mohsen Javdani, UBC Okanagan
24. J. Rhys Kesselman, Simon Fraser University
25. Anna Klimina, University of Sasketchwan
26. Marc Lavoie, University of Ottawa
27. Marc Lee, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives – British Columbia
28. John Loxley, University of Manitoba
29. David Macdonald, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
30. Angella MacEwen, Canadian Labour Congress
31. Hugh Mackenzie, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
32. Brian MacLean, Laurentian University
33. Fiona MacPhail, University of Northern British Columbia
34. Joan McFarland, St. Thomas University
35. Anthony Myatt, University of New Brunswick
36. Lars Osberg, Dalhousie University (past President of the Canadian Economics Association)
37. Patricia E. Perkins, York University
38. Mathieu Perron-Dufour, Université du Québec en Outaouais
39. Craig Riddell, University of British Columbia (past President of the Canadian Economics Association)
40. David Robinson, Laurentian University
41. Louis-Philippe Rochon, Laurentian University
42. Michal Rozworski, Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations
43. Toby Sanger, Canadian Union of Public Employees
44. Mario Seccareccia, University of Ottawa
45. John Serieux, University of Manitoba
46. Garry Sran, Alberta Union of Public Employees
47. Jim Stanford, McMaster University
48. Kaylie Tiessen, Unifor
49. Peter Victor, York University
50. Jesse Vorst, University of Manitoba
51. Barry Watson, University of New Brunswick
52. Armine Yalnizyan, Public Economist
53. Vicki Zhang, University of Toronto

An Ontario $15 an hour minimum wage has franchisors and their minions crying “The Sky is Falling”

Maybe franchisors could stop gouging their franchisees on forced, tied couponing, buying of supplies, renovations and services?

A good summary in the Globe and Mail today, entitled, Ontario seeks public input on $15 minimum wage:

Businesses are strongly opposed to the increase, particularly the quick pace of it. A coalition of groups including the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, Restaurants Canada and the Canadian Franchise Association are sending Premier Kathleen Wynne a letter Monday, slamming the “arbitrary” increase.

“Many Ontario employers, especially small businesses, are now considering closing their business because they do not have the capacity to successfully manage such reforms,” they write.

That way, they could afford to pay their 400,000 to 600,000 Ontario staff a living wage.

Just like the 50 professional economists say they could/should.

Which shareholder enables the franchisee class-action game?

The informal franchisee leaders. The organizers. The “white knights”.

When the class-action fraud sausage explodes, You can’t really blame the lawyers for pandering to your lack of wholeness, wisdom, and confidence.

Can you?

Who profits when a $500-million Canadian class-action franchise lawsuit happens?

The least likely are individual franchisees.

That may or may not happen especially when 98% of all lawsuits never make it to trial and withstand an appeal.

The negotiations are held between the 2 lawyers. Franchisees are decision takers.

Parties:

• Franchisor (defendent) – the only payer, repeat player, credence good monopolists, (happier to pay 2 law firms a lot rather than a little to hundreds of franchisees)
• Franchisor’s Specialized Law firm – only one in Canada, repeat player, expert credence good provider, member of franchisor association
• Franchisees (plaintiff) – one time player, only non-credence good player, unskilled but unaware
• Franchisee’s Specialized Law firm – only one in Canada, repeat player, expert credence good provider, member of franchisor association

Both CDN law firms (one for the franchisor, one for the franchisee) at this level are businesspeople, first and foremost.

The two law firms act as rent seeking coercive monopolists.

The chief weapon of sea pirates, however, was their capacity to astonish. Nobody else could believe, until it was too late, how heartless and greedy they were.

The worst thing that could possibly happen to anybody would be to not be used for anything by anybody. Thank you for using me, even though I didn’t want to be used by anybody.

Kurt Vonnegut (1922 – 2007)

Congressman Nixon had asked me why, as the son of immigrants who had been treated so well by Americans, as a man who had been treated like a son and been sent to Harvard by an American capitalist, I had been so ungrateful to the American economic system.

The answer I gave him was not original. Nothing about me has ever been original. I repeated what my one-time hero, Kenneth Whistler, had said in reply to the same general sort of question long, long ago. Whistler had been a witness at a trial of strikers accused of violence. The judge had become curious about him, had asked him why such a well-educated man from such a good family would so immerse himself in the working class.

My stolen answer to Nixon was this: “Why? The Sermon on the Mount, sir.”

The most important message of a crucifix, to me anyway, was how unspeakably cruel supposedly sane human beings can be when under orders from a superior authority.

Blue MauMau reports: Tim Hortons Franchisees Get Bum’s Rush at Annual Meeting

Annual meetings are supposed to be an opportunity for shareholders to communicate to management.

Exterior of the Tim Hortons coffee shop at the corner of Scott St. and Wellington St. East is photographed on March 3, 2017. (Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail)

It appears 3G Capital executives feel themselves above Ontario corporate law.

To wit… In the June 5th Globe and Mail article by Marina Strauss: Franchisees shunned at Tim Hortons parent company annual meeting

“Tim Hortons franchisees who traveled to Tim Hortons’ parent company Restaurant Brands International (RBI) annual shareholders meeting in Oakville, Ontario, Canada yesterday were in for a shock. CEO Daniel Schwartz, in an apparently highly unusual move at RBI or any other publicly held company, did an end run around them and ended the meeting without entertaining questions from anyone in the audience.

“I’m astounded,” John James (J.J.) Hoey, a franchisee in Mississauga and an organizer of the Great White North Franchisee Association, said later. The association was formed in March to speak for Tim Hortons restaurant owners and raise concerns about the effects of RBI’s cost-cutting.

…In an interview later, Mr. Schwartz said the company is in “constant dialogue with our restaurant owners. We’re always willing to speak with them.” — Marina Strauss, The Globe and Mail

But apparently not publicly at the shareholders meeting, for one.

RBI, controlled by Brazilian private equity firm 3G Capital, is quick to adopt its cost-cutting strategies at its acquired targets, a proven 3G strategy to rapidly boost profits.

…Peter Sklar, retail analyst at BMO Nesbitt Burns, said he was surprised RBI didn’t take questions from shareholders. “It’s unusual for investors not to have the opportunity to question management during the annual meeting,” he said. “I’ve never seen that before.” — Strauss, The Globe and Mail

RBI also owns Burger King and Popeyes.

Full article”

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