BY JASON THOMPSON
Ward 2 Councillor Claude Berthiaume said the City of Greater Sudbury took a step backwards Wednesday night when they rejected the idea of implementing a fair wage policy on city construction projects.
Councillors at the priorities committee meeting opted instead to uphold the status quo, and to continue to allow free market forces to dictate the cost of labour.
Fair wage is a mandatory minimum wage set at rates which are very similar to those paid to unionized labour, therefore raising the cost of doing business for some companies.
Both the provincial and federal governments have a fair wage policy in place, along with five other cities in Ontario, including Toronto, Hamilton, London, Oshawa and Thunder Bay.
According to a report presented to the committee last night, the fair wage policy wouldn?t have any financial implication for large companies since they are already paying union rates.
The non-union contractors, or Ma and Pa type operations, would be affected by this and wouldn?t be able to compete for city tender.
According to the report, about 30 percent of construction costs on a project are wages, a number that would increase under the fair wage policy.
The city?s manager of supplies and services, Darryl Mathe, who presented the report to the committee, said only trade unions were in favour of the policy while the Chamber of Commerce, building contractors and architects all rejected the idea.
Mathe recommended to the committee that since the majority of stakeholders were against the policy, councillors should also turn it down.
Ward 6 Councillor Janet Gasparini was in favour of the status quo, arguing that the city has gotten itself into trouble in the past as a result of interfering with business practices.
Gasparini cited the city's "loopy" by-law mandating how retail stores set their business hours as a precedent for not interfering with business practices. Ward 1 Councillor Terry Kett agrees, wondering why Sudbury should join the small minority of cities with a fair wage policy in place.
Ward 2 Councillor Ron Bradley said the fair wage policy would amount to nothing more than a "big costly headache" for the city.
Only Councillors Ron Dupuis and Claude Berthiaume voted in favour of the policy, saying that in a community where 60 percent of the working population earn less than $10 an hour, a fair wage policy makes sense.
"We missed an opportunity to show some leadership in adopting this fair wage policy," said Berthiaume. "Government is interrelated in business, in this case, it (fair wage) applies to contracts for the city... The upper levels of government both have a fair wage policy. Why can't we do it here?"
