The hidden costs of health care wage cuts in BC

THE HIDDEN COSTS OF HEALTH CARE WAGE CUTS IN BC By Marc Lee and Marcy Cohen APRIL 2005 The Hidden Costs of Health Care Wage Cuts in BC By Marc Lee and Marcy Cohen April 2005 A companion piece to this paper, The Pains of Privatization: How Contracting Out Hurts Health Support Workers, Their Families and Health Care by Jane Stinson, Nancy Pollak and Marcy Cohen, looks at the impact of contracting o [...] Any errors and the opinions presented in this paper are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. [...] Why are we willing to cut the wages of workers at the low end of the income ladder, many of whom are among the most vulnerable and marginal workers in the province? [...] The following sections of the paper give a detailed consideration of the context and events leading up to the wage cut, followed by an analysis of the survey findings on the financial, psychological and organizational impacts of the wage cut. [...] First of all, how have you adjusted financially to the decrease in wages?” The results can be seen in Figure 1. The single most pervasive impact of the wage cut reported by the majority (61.0%) of respondents was that it forced them to reduce or defer personal expenditures.