Although a new reduced minimum wage for student workers comes into force later this month month, local businesses in Sundre do not all plan to immediately roll back hourly rates for their young employees.
“Personally, I don’t think I could do it,” said Marty Mennear, owner of the Sundre IGA, one of the community’s largest employers who has often extended opportunities to people under the age of 18.
Mennear expressed reservations about taking away something once it has been already been given.
“If someone had an increase or was started at a certain level, to roll them back because of an issue that’s not their fault isn’t right,” he told the Round Up last Thursday morning during a phone interview.
A new minimum wage of $13 per hour will be in effect on June 26 for students under the age of 18 who attend school up to Grade 12, post-secondary or vocational school. The Employment Standards (Minimum Wage) Amendment Regulation was signed on May 26, bringing it into force 30 days later.
Employers will be able to lower the wages of students currently making at least $15 per hour—even if they were hired prior to the regulation taking effect — unless the student is in a collective agreement with a fixed wage.
Moving forward, Mennear said student employees at Sundre IGA will likely be hired starting at the new $13 per hour student minimum wage.
“If they’re doing really well and we want to keep them, we’ll give them an increase,” he said, adding the issue has more to do with an individual’s performance.
“It’s not about the amount, it’s about the person.”
While he said some student workers still live at home and do not have major expenses to worry about, Mennear also recognizes that not every teenage employee just wants an Xbox. Some, he said, are either already out on their own or perhaps even trying to save for costly post-secondary education and expressed a preference for considering wage increases on a largely case-by-case basis.
Nicci Doyle, owner of Backwoods Bakery and Café, seems to have a similar philosophy.
Although Doyle currently has only one employee under the age of 18, she has no intention of reducing their hourly wage.
“I definitely wouldn’t roll back,” she said.
“She has been with me for a year. She’s trained up, she’s a seasoned worker — she’s built up that experience,” said Doyle.
“She absolutely deserves to stay at the wage she’s at.”
However, as Sundre enters the peak visitor season, the change is bound to be welcome by entrepreneurs seeking to hire additional hands for the summer, who are often students seeking temporary work before going back to school in the fall, she said.
“For small business owners, especially with the economy, I think it’s a smart move for sure.”
But while Doyle anticipates starting future student employees at the new rate, experience and performance will be the main factors in determining a worker’s wage, she said.
Chris Vardas, who owns Original T’s and Cedar’s Pub, only has a few student employees working as dishwashers, and was not certain whether he planned to reduce their hourly wage once the change comes into effect.
Most of his employees are more than 18 years old, so the minimum wage rollback will not have a substantial impact on his bottom line, but he said the change will help a little.
Although Vardas had not yet committed one way or another when he spoke with the Round Up, he said, “At the end of the day, you can’t pay a minor the same wage as an adult.”
“I don’t think it’s fair they get paid the same as somebody who’s been here longer and is of age.”
As is, he said student workers do not have much incentive to work as hard as their elder, more experienced peers, adding a full or partial rollback to the new student minimum wage would give them an opportunity to work harder to earn a higher rate.
But even though he was contemplating the possibility of rolling back the wages of the few students under his employ, Vardas added he would decide when the change goes through later this month.
“That’s something I got to sit down and figure out,” said Vardas.
