Paid to be poor : Report of the 2005 Manitoba Low Wage Community Inquiry

We organized by the Just Income Coalition to collect respectfully disagreed and decided to hold a commu- information about the circumstances and conditions nity inquiry into the effect of low wages in Manitoba of life and work for low paid workers in Manitoba and in the hope that the government might at last hear recommend policy directions to the Manitoba gov- and take action. [...] The Inquiry is the fourth major attempt of the Just Income Coalition to bring to the Government In October 2004, the The experience of the of Manitoba persuasive evidence of the urgent need Coalition presented the hearings in Winnipeg, to increase the minimum wage to a level that will government with a sur- Brandon and Thompson raise workers in full time minimum wage jobs out of vey by Probe Resea [...] The Just Income Coalition is undertaking a com- munity inquiry to gather information from Terms of Reference: Manitobans that will shed necessary light on the causes and consequences of low-income work and To accomplish the purpose and goals of the Inquiry, possible initiatives (community and government) for the panel of hearers shall convene to: addressing it. [...] In recognition of the overrepresentation of women and Aboriginal people among those with low-income and the need to be inclusive, one of the Winnipeg hearings took the form of a sharing circle where par- ticipants and panelists sat side by side and shared 5 their experiences in an informal setting. [...] He is also a past chair (2001) of the been selected, a meeting was held for them to meet Minimum Wage Board of the Province of Manitoba, some of the planning committee members and each and, until recently, an editor of the British Journal of other, to become familiar with their task, and to Industrial Relations.