Interns, Connect! Event | Photo Courtesy : tripleC (CC0)

New Democratic Party promises $15 minimum wage by 2019

Canadian workers have had to settle for less and in recent years part-time workers, many of whom are students, have had to work for low wages and endure unpaid internships.

Students in Ontario are tired of doing precarious work and unpaid internships that should be paid, for exposure and a reference. On Sept. 24 the Interns Connect! forum was held at the Centre for Social Innovation to discuss the issues around precarious work.

In collaboration with the Communication Workers of America (CWA), the Canadian Interns Association and the Workers’ Action Centre, the discussion focused on workers’ rights to organize and the difficulties faced by those in precarious positions.

“I think the concerns around internships are really driven by a larger set of problems in our society,” said panelist Andrew Langille who is a labour lawyer in Toronto. “Be it income as well as precarious work, fragmented school of labour markets ambition and certainly a social safety net that isn’t keeping up to the changes in the economy, which is very much frayed.”

With the Federal election taking place on Oct. 19, the New Democratic Party (NDP) is the only party that has promised to hike the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2019.

“At the Workers Action Centre we see the issue of unpaid internships as part of a continuum of unpaid work that it’s not just young people facing unpaid wages and unpaid work,” said Deena Ladd, a workers’ advocate at the centre.

NDP leader Tom Mulcair says on the NDP website that all Canadian families deserve a fair wage and a decent living. The NDP says by the end of their first term the federal minimum wage would be $15 an hour and would benefit about 100,000 workers.