Former N.L. service workers say minimum wage increase is a long time coming

Three former service industry workers say working for Newfoundland and Labrador's minimum wage was mentally and physically exhausting — and not sustainable.

The minimum wage in Newfoundland and Labrador is $12.75, the fourth-lowest in Canada. On Tuesday, the provincial government announced it will increase to $13.20 on April 1. 

Marley Power supported herself by working minimum and low wage jobs in St. John's from 2014 until 2021. She said the low wages forced her to make desperate choices, especially during the first few years.

"Honestly, it was awful," Power said in an interview for CBC News. "There were so many weeks I had to choose between … paying my bills or paying for food."

While working for minimum wage, Power said, she made about $650 every two weeks, and, if she had to take a sick day, even less. Newfoundland and Labrador does not have paid sick days, though labour action groups have been calling for change in light of COVID-19.

Since she wasn't making enough to pay her bills, Power said, her credit rating was "destroyed" and she's only now building it back up. She used the Metrobus because she could not make enough to afford a vehicle.

Though she had steady work and received occasional raises during her time at a St. John's café, she had to get creative to scrape by.

"I would try to do everything to make toothpaste and shampoo and stuff last. I used to cut open the bottle then scrape the inside out, so I could go another few days without having to buy those necessities."

Power said she would sometimes limit herself to two meals a day. She also had two cats to take care of.

"I would … choose feeding them over feeding myself some weeks," she said.

Power said her mental health was also negatively impacted by people asking when she would get a "real job."

"It was real to me," she said. "It's the job that I worked full time. Why is it any less than what you do full time, especially if you're coming in here for a coffee every day?"

By the numbers

Though the majority of minimum wage workers are young, they aren't all teenagers.

According to 2020 data from Statistics Canada, about 43,500 residents of Newfoundland and Labrador make $15 or less an hour, and 35,300 of them are workers over the age of 19. According to data from the same year, 12.5 per cent of minimum wage workers stay in their job for five years or more.

If someone in Newfoundland and Labrador works about 40 hours a week at $12.75, that gives them between $1,800 and $1,900 to pay living expenses like rent, utilities, groceries, medical bills, cellphone bills and transportation each month.

A 2019 study from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives calculated a livable wage in St. John's as $18.85 an hour, though in an interview with CBC News last week, director Christine Saulnier said the pandemic has likely increased that amount.

Jacquelyn Redmond worked in the service industry from 2018 until last October. She's a music student, and had to balance hours of rehearsal with work, teaching and other obligations. She said attempting to live off minimum wage while in school was "exhausting and time consuming."

She said she found there weren't enough hours in the day to get everything done while taking care of her mental and physical health.

"You're not getting what you need to get done done," she said. "Long-term stress is not healthy for anybody." 

Burnout

Lillian Woodford worked two low-wage restaurant jobs before a serious car accident forced her to start collecting employment insurance late last summer. She said she's been able to make ends meet while working minimum- and low-wage jobs through careful budgeting and planning, though it's been a struggle.

"It just comes with the sense of nervousness every month, nervousness every time a bill comes through and just a constant fear of, 'OK, like what if … I'm not able to make it this month?"

Woodford said she had to start doing school full time instead of part time so she could work more.

"It was really the only way that I could find a way of budgeting where I wasn't kind of drowning underwater."

At one point, while working three jobs at once, she began to burn out.

"There was months on end where I was barely getting sleep. I wouldn't have any time to do anything to kind of live my life," she said.

Woodford said she's now looking to get back into the workforce — and she may soon find herself working minimum or low wages once again.

"It's not a good life. It's not a happy, sustainable life. It's very difficult," she said.

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