Minister Tom Lukaszuk: working hard for Albertans … to screw the poor!

Some of the hundreds of working poor and unemployed who lined up for a meal at the 2009 Edmonton & District Labour Council Labour Day Picnic last fall. When it comes to Alberta’s minister of labour, Tom Lukaszuk, pictured below, there’s more union members need to do than hand out burgers.

What’s the good of organizing billion-dollar handouts and boondoggles for ultra-rich oil companies and their ilk if you don’t also get to really screw the poor?

Really, any old government can donate bazillions of taxpayer dollars to their pals in business. That’s what being “fiscally conservative” is all about, isn’t it? At any rate, those kinds of involuntary taxpayer donations to billionaires are pretty much standard operating procedure among governments everywhere on this continent, as we’ve seen ever since the economy went south. What do you think the “Alberta Competitiveness Act” is supposed to do? Why do you think we Albertans are trying to capture all that carbon?

But, c’mon folks, there’s more to life than just signing cheques! If you’re really looking to have fun, you’re going to want to put it right to someone and see if you can actually make them squeak with pain! Generally the poor don’t fight back very effectively, so they make a terrific target.

At least, that seems to be the operating philosophy of Alberta’s Conservative governments of late. Given that, you’ve sort of got to admire newly minted “Employment and Immigration” Minister Thomas Lukaszuk’s announcement last week that a previously promised plan to raise the minimum wage by 12 cents to keep up with the increase in the cost of living was cut, cancelled, dropped, dumped, out the window … fuggediboudit!

This guy really rocks! Not a month into his job as the minister of the Crown responsible for labour and he’s kickin’ the proverbial crap out of the poor. And now there are a lot more poor people in Alberta – thanks to that aforementioned recession and the cost of keeping body and soul together in this expensive place.

Well, OK, if the public screams loud enough, the mentally ill will get their toiletries and fruit juices back. But don’t think for a minute that Premier Ed Stelmach’s government isn’t going to have some fun with folks who can’t fight back – like kids trying to pay the highest tuition fees in Canada and the always kickable working poor.

Not only that, but Mr. Lukaszuk’s got a great sense of humour. Listen to what his press release had to say about why he’s screwing the working poor out of a promised raise in one of Canada’s most expensive provinces: “Ensuring Albertans in entry-level positions keep working, and that our province’s small businesses remain viable and competitive through global economic recovery, Alberta’s minimum wage of $8.80 per hour will remain as is through 2010.”

“‘This decision reflects what government feels will both protect jobs during these uncertain economic times and support the economy,’ said Thomas Lukaszuk, Minister of Employment and Immigration. ‘In addition to freezing the minimum wage, I will also request an all-party committee review of our current policy, ensuring that our approach is what’s best for Albertans.’”

So that’s it, we’re protecting jobs! Does anyone actually believe this market fundamentalist baloney? OK, a couple of college students taking market-fundy economics courses at Preston Manning University (formerly the University of Calgary) might actually fall for this codswallop. (Stand by for comments from spotty faced “libertarians.”) But all the grownups – including Tom Lukaszuk, his public relations flack and the economics professors who peddle this piffle – know in their hearts it’s pure horse pucky.

Making sure that chain convenience stores don’t have to pay their employees 10 bucks an hour like they have to in Nunavut is really going to give Alberta a leg up in the battle for global economic dominance with the Koreans. Oh, wait... that and the fact we don’t have a plan to do anything except ship out our raw materials.

What’s more, any business in this economy that really can’t afford to pay its minimum-wage employees $1.20 more per hour to give them parity with Nunavut, let alone the piddling increase promised in Alberta, isn’t going to stay in business long anyway. It’s a bitter irony that a $10-per-hour wage that any viable business could afford would make such a huge difference to the working poor. (If you work a full year of 40-hour weeks at the minimum wage in Alberta, you’d make $18,304. At $10 per hour, you’d make $20,800.)

Meanwhile, according to Mr. Lukaszuk’s press release, the MLAs are all going to talk to each other about how smart they are to keep a lid on the minimum wage. That should be fun, and there should be a buck or two in it for our well-heeled MLAs. (Government MLAs are already paying themselves an extra $12,000 or so a year over and above their generous salaries to meet with each other in secret. When he’s not kicking the working poor, Mr. Lukaszuk defends this practice.)

Mr. Lukaszuk’s “news” release, by the way, didn’t mention the country’s top minimum wage – it split hairs between provinces and territories so it could pretend that a lower rate was the top minimum. Too embarrassing for the richest province to be shown up by a poor territory, one supposes – easier just to fudge your way out of the facts than own up to the truth, eh?

Despite all the costs of cutbacks and recession, this policy flip-flop won’t save the government a dime and does nothing for the economy because money that the poor don’t have won’t get spent on the local businesses that serve them. (The well off, by comparison, will happily continue buying German-built BMWs, Swiss-made watches, Malaysian-assembled Korean electronics and Mexican holidays at their usual brisk pace.)

Mr. Lukaszuk’s kick at the poor won’t increase the number of people hired in this province by a dozen. This is about short-term greed, keeping as large as possible a pool of desperate working people who want decent jobs but will settle for anything, and making sure the top dogs stay on top. Everybody knows it. Certainly Mr. Lukaszuk does because, notwithstanding the ridiculous and misleading name of his ministry, he is in reality minister of labour and surely must know something about his job!

Speaking of labour, unionized working people generally support the idea of a fair minimum wage for pretty obvious reasons. And while they can’t be prevailed upon to vote in a block, or often even in their own interests, they are more likely to go out and vote to achieve the goal of simple fairness for their fellow human beings.

Mr. Lukaszuk’s riding, Edmonton-Castle Downs, has one of the highest percentages of unionized working people in Alberta, if not the highest.

In the 2004 general election, Mr. Lukaszuk beat his closest rival by only three (3!) votes, and that after a judicial recount.

In the 2008 general election, he did much better. The Liberal and NDP votes both increased marginally (by 66 votes for the Libs and 29 for the New Democrats) and there was some small variation among smaller fringe parties’ vote tallies. Mr. Lukaszuk’s total vote, meanwhile, increased by 2,080 over 2004. Go figure!

With a strong Wildrose Alliance candidate to split the vote on the right, however, it really should be possible for working people who live in this riding to demonstrate to this minister what they think of his efforts to ensure that Albertans can only keep working in entry-level positions, or however it was he described it.