Direct City of Greater Sudbury employees, excluding students, currently earning less than $16.98 per hour will have their pay bumped up to this living wage level on July 1.
The living wage, as estimated by the Ontario Wage Network, has been promoted as the amount required for workers to cover basic family living expenses.
“I feel very strongly that we should be moving forward with the people who are at the bottom of the pay scale in the City of Greater Sudbury,” Ward 9 Coun. Deb McIntosh told her colleagues during Tuesday’s finance and administration committee meeting, urging other employers in Sudbury to follow suit because “it’s the right thing to do.”
Approximately 225 to 250 city employees will be affected by the change, which city council agreed to on Tuesday.
McIntosh requested the report on a living wage from city administrators earlier this year alongside Ward 7 Coun. Mike Jakubo, and put forward this week’s successful motion for the city to adopt a living wage.
The $16.98-per-hour figure “provides for a basket of goods that a family or an individual would use, but it does not include saving up for retirement and it does not include saving up for a child’s education,” McIntosh said during the meeting. “So, even $16.98 doesn't really cut it, but it’s a start.”
The living wage plan city councillors agreed to on May 17 was one of a few options presented by administration, and will come at a 2022 cost of approximately $217,000 and a 2023 budget impact of approximately $424,000, at which time it will affect a full year’s worth of salaries.
Adopting the cost of a full living wage certification, which includes students ($525,000 per year) and externally contracted service contractors ($150,000 to $200,000) would have carried a cost of approximately $1.16 million per year.
After the meeting, McIntosh explained to Sudbury.com that focusing on only direct employees, minus students, is a good starting point and that the city’s living wage policy could be expanded in the future.
“I would like to include students, because people make the assumption that students live with mom and dad, but there are a lot of students who are living on their own and putting themselves through school with these part-time jobs,” she said, adding that kids are also saving up for post-secondary education and in some cases are supplementing their family’s income.
Although the living wage motion passed, it wasn’t without its hurdles during Tuesday’s meeting.
Ward 11 Coun. Bill Leduc asked that the motion be deferred until next year due to his concerns related to its ramifications on all taxpayers, but seniors in particular.
Ward 1 Coun. Mark Signoretti shared in Leduc’s concern.
“Everyone deserves a living wage, absolutely, but at the same token, what about our seniors who are on a fixed income?” he asked. “I think if we’re going to do this I just want to know where the money is going to come from.”
Ward 5 Coun. Robert Kirwan supported the motion’s deferral so it can be dealt with in next year’s budget, “rather than halfway through a budget year.” He also expressed concern about it affecting collective bargaining.
The money will be drawn from the city’s year-end position and the ongoing cost is likely to be placed on the annual tax levy, city financial planning and budgeting manager Steve Facey said.
In the end, city council was almost unanimous in voting in favour of the living wage for direct city employees minus students, with Leduc the lone holdout.
Ward 8 Coun. Al Sizer was absent from the meeting, and although Ward 2 Coun. Michael Vagnini was present virtually, he did not submit a vote.
Although Tuesday’s finance and administration committee meeting decision still needs to be ratified by city council as a whole, the fact that both meetings are made up of the same group of people and that it received near-unanimous support this week points to a likelihood it will pass.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
