NEWS RELEASE  

January 17, 1996  For Immediate Release 

MINIMUM WAGE LAWS ARE UNFAIR AND SHOULD BE ABOLISHED  

"Minimum wage laws kill jobs and give many workers no choice but to go on welfare."  

Yorkton - Today Garry Breitkreuz, MP for Yorkton-Melville, made available copies of his presentation to the Saskatchewan Minimum Wage Board calling for the Board to "Abolish the Minimum Wage!". In its advertisements the Board asked the question: "What is a fair minimum wage for Saskatchewan workers?" Breitkreuz' answer: "Whatever the employee and the employer think is fair through a freely negotiated voluntary contract. Certainly it is not FAIR to be forced by the government to be unemployed at $5.35 per hour rather than unemployed at $5.00 per hour."  

Here are some of the "UNFAIR" things mandatory minimum wage laws do: 

• denies workers the freedom and right to negotiate their own wage contracts, 
• forces employers to pay employees more in wages than their work generates in sales,
• forces employers to lay off workers whose work no longer worth the minimum wage 
• forces employers to reconsider hiring plans and possibly never hire new workers 
• forces employers to raise prices rather than lay off workers 
• increases prices for consumers and adds to inflation 
• severe impact on workers in specific industries: restaurants, tourism, seasonal businesses 
• forces workers to remain unemployed rather than accept work at a lower wage 
• forces the unemployed to accept indignity of welfare rather than the dignity of a job 
• kills employment chances for youth, women, visible minorities, unskilled, lower paid workers 
• denies young workers the chance of getting on-the-job-training and work experience 

"I consider even a low-paying job as a stepping stone to a better future and welfare as quicksand. Mandatory minimum wage laws give many workers no choice but to turn to welfare. Young people tell us that they can't get a job because they don't have 'experience', and they can't get experience because they can't get a job. Tens of thousands of young people are now caught in this government imposed 'Catch-22'," Breitkreuz deplored. "Government should be expanding young people's choices not limiting them by imposing minimum wage laws on workers."  

Breitkreuz asked the Board, "If minimum wages are good then why shouldn't they be $10 per hour or $20 per hour? They will give all the reasons I have noted above. If union leaders think minimum wages are such a good thing then why don't they ask the government to raise the minimum wage to be equal to the average wage paid in their plant? Union leaders will say that it would result in their employer laying off a number of their workers

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For your copy of Breitkreuz' "Abolish the Minimum Wage" paper please call: 

Yorkton: (306) 782-3309 

Ottawa: (613) 992-4394