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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2017-06-08, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JUNE 8, 2017. PAGE 5. Other Views We agree: everybody hates the boss Small business owners may be unhappy that they'll pick up the tab to help Premier Kathleen Wynne's Liberal government get re-elected but I doubt few people will feel sorry for them. Wynne has come up with a brilliant strategy to try to overcome her terrible popularity ratings leading up to next year's election: take credit for giving a pay raise to up to one-quarter of the province's employees who currently make less than the new minimum wage of $15 an hour — and have the cost picked up by small business owners who make up a tiny proportion of the population. Many years ago I wrote a play about a man who'd always been an employee and thought he'd moved up the social and economic ladder when he inherited a business from an uncle. A new businesswoman acquaintance, however, brought him down to earth. Back in those days when national unity preoccupied us all she told him: "Everybody hates the boss. It's the one thing Canadians are united on." Most of us have misconceptions about people who own their own businesses. I know when I was a farm kid going to a town school I thought the merchants on main street were rich. They may have been better off than many others in our town at that time, but later when I began working with store owners, I found out most weren't nearly as well off as I'd thought. Their employees probably thought they were rich, though. We have exaggerated ideas of our boss's wealth. We know they're not making multimillion -dollar salaries like bank presidents or social -media whiz -kids but they're still business people, after all, so they must have a lot of money. And if they don't pay us what we feel we deserve then it's Keith Roulston From the cluttered desk because they're hoarding money for themselves. Few are the employees who see the big picture of the business they work for. Seldom do people understand how the job they do contributes to the ability of that business to reward them for their work. For many workers there's the idea that there's a big pot of money somewhere and they're not getting their share because of the greedy boss. Few people see the hard reality that there's only so much money coming into the business and perhaps there are limitations on how much it can grow. Of course there have been many bosses over the years who have contributed to this perception. It wasn't only fictional creations like Ebenezer Scrooge that gave bosses a bad name. I've known some employers over the years who made me cringe in the way they treated their employees. Often, however, business owners are doing their best to treat those who work for them fairly, but can't afford to pay more. Then there's the idea that because you're the boss, you get to do anything you want and your employees will pick up the slack. In our family we've often had relatives who work for big business or government urge us to take Florida vacations or lengthy trips. When we plead we're too busy they invariably say: "Well you're the bosses, aren't you? Just take time off!" Few people, even most employees, notice that in a small business, the owner is usually the first one at work in the morning and the last one to leave at night. A business has to grow to a certain size before employers can afford the kind of management backup that lets them take more than a minimal holiday. But the perception of the greedy boss persists, and probably will make few sympathize with employers as they see their wage costs increase by up to 35 per cent. One leftish commentator on television said that if employers couldn't afford to pay the new wage they didn't deserve to be in business anyway. Yet while most people see the justice of paying employees better, they will likely fight any higher prices that result from increased wage costs. Three-quarters of employees in the hotel industry, for instance, earn less than the new minimum wage. But at a time when people are already refusing to pay hotel rental rates and are turning to middle-class people renting out rooms on Airbnb, hotel owners are unlikely to be able to raise their rates. How many hotel maids and kitchen staff, often new immigrants to Canada, will lose their jobs? Similarly, 60 per cent of retail employees earn less than $15 an hour but shoppers are already complaining they pay too much at stores and are buying online. If prices go up to cover higher wages more people will abandon stores for internet shopping. Few of them will feel guilty that U.S. online retailers might pay their workers $6.50 an hour. That's just the reality of the marketplace, after all. Bosses, though, aren't reacting to market realities when they pay less than we think they should. They're just being greedy and must be legislated to pay more, whether they can afford to or not. You're not going to Wynne that way The Ontario Liberal Party has left a bad taste in the mouths of a great many rural residents of the province. One need look no further than the response to Premier Kathleen Wynne's attendance at the International Plowing Match last year to get a feel for just how unwelcome some of the changes the Liberals have implemented have been in the province. Whether it's the soaring price of utilities like electricity (without the infrastructure spending to justify it), the drama around potential power plants or the fallout from the Green Energy Act, the Liberal government, both under Wynne and her predecessor Dalton McGuinty, has a lot of egg on its face. I like to joke I became conservative (small c) when I bought a house and started paying taxes, and, like all good jokes, there is a grain of truth there. When I started realizing just how much a bloated government at any level can cost, the idea of a less -involved government certainly did seem appealing to me. That's not to say I am little 'c' or big 'C' conservative or little '1' or big `L' liberal either, it's just a statement: less involvement means less people, less people means less taxes, less taxes means more money in my pocket and more money in the community around me. If I hadn't gone through that experience of realizing just how much taxes take from my paycheque (both before and after it is in my hands) and come to that realization, the recent actions of the Liberal Party would certainly have made it that much easier for me to make a decision. Governments don't cut things because they want to, they cut things because they are being pressured to reduce costs or trying to curry favour for upcoming elections. Governments also don't make drastic changes unless they are seeking support for an upcoming election. The more drastic the change or the cut, the more ground they are hoping to make up. A token reduction in electrical costs and the recent announcement of a (drastically) increased minimum wage in the province are perfect examples of a government and a party scurrying to try and keep themselves in power. I don't have a problem with either move in principle, however the latter of the two is poorly thought-out at best and a killing blow for rural small business at its worst. There are plenty of economists arguing whether the new minimum wage is a good thing or a bad thing, but a common thread among many of those arguments, be they for or against, is the fact that it is a drastic hike that could have small businesses scrambling to cover the difference. Another recurring theme in what I've seen/read is the fact that the timeline is just too tight. In 18 months, employers are going to need to raise wages by 32 per cent. Alberta has a similar minimum wage system right now, however its government phased in the $15 goal over four years, not under two. Maybe $15 is a good minimum wage. There seems to be arguments for that, however what's good for the city goose isn't always great for the rural gander. Whereas a city business might see an increase in people shopping as a result of more money being available, out here where we actually produce the food and electricity those cities rely on, you can't expect a huge influx of customers to cover the spread between a minimum wage of less than $12 and $15. Another excellent question I've seen is, "what happens with the people who currently make more than minimum wage but might be reduced to a minimum wage position as a result of the change?" Should they immediately expect a 32 per cent increase in wage? Should they accept the fact that their position and pay, which has taken training, education and years of work to build up to, is now just as valuable as any entry-level or student position? There are just far too many questions for the increase in minimum wage to be considered anything except a stab at re-election. We need to expect better of our governments and our elected officials like Wynne. I'd say, when it comes time to vote, send a message but that would be saying I support the left or the right and that's not the point here. The point is that we need to get more out of the people that we elect to represent ourselves. So, don't wait to send that message. Write letters, take to the internet and talk to your local representatives. Make sure the message gets through: votes can't be bought by these last-minute, Hail Mary actions. Final Thought Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're probably right. — Henry Ford Shawn Loughlin ALIMIllik Shawn's Sense Planting the seed Who would have thought that when Listowel native Paul Thompson brought a group of actors to Huron County for a few weeks such a ripple effect would have been created. Thompson, then the artistic director of Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto, brought the actors to Goderich Township in 1972. He accused many Toronto theatre -types of "navel gazing" and suggested a bit of a road trip after connecting with Huron County through Ted Johns, one of its native sons. I have never seen The Farm Show. It was created 10 years before I was born and it's not exactly the kind of show that can be remounted. Not without that original group of actors and creators anyway. But I feel like I know more about it than I do any other play — except for maybe Glengarry Glen Ross, one of my favourites. So Thompson brings a collection of actors to Huron County that includes Miles Potter, Anne Anglin, David Fox, Ted Johns, Janet Amos and others — not to mention his and Anne's infant daughter Severn and look at all that's happened as a result. The Farm Show itself spearheaded a revolution of Canadian storytelling. It was a new way of telling stories on stage that had never been told before: our own stories. It marked the beginning of a special time in the Canadian arts and what happened on those Goderich Township farms and in Ray Bird's barn in 1972 played no small role in the revolution. Just a few years later, The Farm Show directly inspired James Roy, Anne Chislett and Keith Roulston to create the Blyth Festival. Just this week, we have a story about a number of Festival alumni who are nominated for Dora Mayor Moore Awards this year. The list is not short. I don't even need to get into the importance of the Blyth Festival on the local, provincial and national scales. Most locals know what the Festival has accomplished in its nearly 45 years of producing new Canadian work. Then there was Peter Colley's I'll Be Back Before Midnight, which is its own tribute to the culture and community developed out of The Farm Show. There is also Michael Healey's The Drawer Boy, which is still being produced today. It has been one of the most successful Canadian plays of the past 20 years. And now The Drawer Boy film was the subject of a special event held in Blyth over the weekend at Memorial Hall as part of the Alice Munro Festival of the Short Story. The film (and the play) was discussed at length during the special event. While Huron County residents might find the story to be charming and interesting due to its local connections, it has connected with audiences all over the world. The film itself has been created by a Mexican immigrant who made his way to Canada nearly 15 years ago and a group of Toronto actors. Talk about a story that translates well the world over. So when you look at this forest of artistry, it's impossible not to trace its DNA all the way back to The Farm Show seed, from which all of these projects grew. Just think: If Paul Thompson had never thought outside the box with a radical idea to pluck some actors out of the city, where would we be today? How different would Huron County's artistic landscape look? How different would the country's artistic landscape look? Luckily for us, Thompson did look beyond the theatre's four walls and the rest is history.