Labour pains
Why the workers’ holiday should be more than just a day off work
BY Ellen Russell and Mathieu Dufour
Photography by Glenbow Archives NA-1791-9
“Well Done, Labor! To You We Owe Prosperity.” Don’t get recognition like that much these days, do you? This is a quote from an ad in the Halifax Herald, published just before Labour Day in 1929. You’ll find it reprinted in Craig Heron and Steve Penfold’s excellent 2005 book about Labour Day, The Workers’ Festival: A History of Labour Day.
It reminds us that the holiday was intended to celebrate workers, and was an occasion to reflect on giving them their due. Since the 1880s, when Labour Day began to take shape as local workers’ demonstrations and parades, fighting for the eighthour workday and better wages and supporting striking workers have been prominent aspects of the September holiday.
Now, reflection on economic justice for workers has all but disappeared. Employers have always preferred barbeques and softball tournaments to critical questions. Hey, you’re getting a long weekend. Isn’t that enough to float your boat? It shouldn’t be. All of us who earn wages and salaries in this country have some serious thinking to do about how work is valued in today’s economy. Are we getting what should be coming to us?
Our research for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives on income inequality for the Growing Gap project indicates the answer is no - we have found some very troubling trends concerning wages. (The full study is available at GrowingGap.ca.) Canadians’ average real wages - wages adjusted for inflation - have not increased in more than 30 years. Yet over the same time period, Canada’s economy has grown by 72 percent. The benefits of economic growth are just not showing up in workers’ pay cheques. From a historical perspective, this is troubling. Previously, economic growth was shared with workers in the form of rising real wages. Between 1961 and the mid 1970s, these grew every year.
But now the economy grows and average real wages stay still. This represents a serious challenge to the mantra that economic growth is good for everybody. The business lobby constantly tells us that a rising tide lifts all boats. Sure, some wages increase. Between 1997 and 2005, those with higher hourly wages saw an average real increase of 5.74 percent, as their hourly wages went from $23.32 to $24.46 (in 2005 dollars). But lower-paid workers had a pay cut: Their hourly rate dropped from $14.87 an hour in 1997 to $14.75 in 2005. And the lowest-paid workers? After adjusting for inflation, the average provincial minimum wage has decreased from $9.14 in 1976 to $7.32 in 2006 in terms of 2006 dollars.
Of course, with a growing economy and great corporate profits, it is possible to pay workers more. But workers are encouraged to believe that they are not entitled to higher wages. This perception is fostered by the constant barrage of studies and the talking heads who front them sounding the alarm about Canadian productivity growth. And once Canadians are persuaded that we are a productivity basket case, it is not too great a leap for the public to conclude that lazy workers don’t deserve more pay.
Time for a reality check on the blame-the-worker mentality. We looked at four different measures of labour productivity, and any way you consider it, workers’ productivity has been steadily rising for more than 40 years.
This fact is a serious indictment of the rising-tide-lifts-allboats logic. Most economic models predict that real wages should rise as productivity rises. It’s just not happening. Thanks to data that stretches back to 1991, we can calculate what would have happened if Canadians’ pay cheques had risen in step with productivity growth: Canadian full-time workers would be earning an average of $10,000 more now to reflect their contribution to increased productivity.
Thirty years is enough time to wait for the rising tide to lift your boat. The economy has been growing, productivity is up. The yachts have been rising quite nicely, thank you. Workers are entitled to a lot more than a long weekend.
