British Columbia Federation of Labour

Reaching out to talk primarily with young people at cultural events in the Lower Mainland, volunteer petitioners for the B.C. Federation of Labour have received enthusiastic responses and thousands more signatures in support of the campaign to boost the province’s minimum wage to $10 dollars an hour.

Since the beginning of July, more than 2,500 people have signed the petition calling for a higher minimum wage at the Warped Tour concert and the Vancouver Folk Music Festival.  That brings the total number of signatures to more than 17,000. 

If you haven’t yet signed the petition, please click here.

Meanwhile, local politicians in two more B.C. communities have voted to back labour’s efforts to win a raise for our lowest paid workers.  Thanks to the lobbying efforts of the East Kootenay District Labour Council, Sparwood and Elkford are the latest local governments to ask Premier Campbell to boost the minimum to $10 an hour.

To date politicians in 21 communities have backed the call for a higher minimum wage, including Surrey, North Vancouver City, Nanaimo, Prince George, Burnaby and Port Alberni.  Labour council activists are also gearing up to seek support from councils in at least 15 additional communities between now and September.

Despite the booming economy, almost 250,000 B.C. workers are paid less than $10 an hour, according to recent figures from Statscan. That means one out of every nine people in the paid labour force earn below poverty level wages.

And low paid jobs in the province are growing faster than overall employment.  Between 2000 and 2006, total employment grew by 13.2 per cent, while the number of jobs paying between $8 and $10 an hour grew by 25.5 per cent.