Frances LeBlanc, chair of the New Brunswick Coalition for Pay Equity. Image: Inda Intiar/Huddle
Frontline workers in various sectors, including the care industry, will receive a wage top-up of about $500 for 16 weeks, Premier Blaine Higgs announced Wednesday.
The first phase of this program will cover employees in early learning and child care facilities, home support, special care homes, community residences and group homes, homeless shelters and food banks, and domestic violence outreach and transition homes. Workers must be full-time and earn $18 an hour or less to be eligible.
The top-up payments will be made by employers every four weeks, except for child care facilities. Workers at early learning and child care facilities will see their wages topped up retroactive to May 19, and the payments will be adjusted to align with existing payment schedules.
Other sectors will be paid retroactively from March 19 to July 9. Employers will then be reimbursed by the departments of Education and Early Childhood Development or Social Development.
The province will draw funding from a federal government program announced in April aimed at boosting the wages of essential workers who earn less than $2,500 a month.
The New Brunswick Coalition for Pay Equity said it’s pleased about the move.
“We’re glad that the important work of care attendants from the majority of the community caregiving sector, as well as early childhood educators, is being recognized. All too often, this predominantly female workforce is systematically underpaid and undervalued,” says Coalition chair Frances LeBlanc in a release.
“The COVID-19 crisis has made us aware of our reliance on care-giving and child care services. We are now calling on the government to develop a long-term plan to ensure that wages in these services reflect the value of their work,” she added. “Let’s aim for pay equity.”
Higgs said the provincial government plans to look at boosting the wages of essential workers – especially those in nursing homes – who don’t qualify for the federal program because they make more than the wage cap. He said nursing home workers have seen their workload grow during the pandemic.
“We’ll never please everyone but I think that would be a recognition worth understanding,” he said.
Funding for this second phase of the top-up program, which won’t fit the federal criteria, will come out of the provincial government’s coffers.
Re-think About Job Gaps Due To Temporary Foreign Worker Ban Possible
When asked by a reporter about whether he’s re-thinking his decision to restrict temporary foreign workers from entering New Brunswick, Higgs said he’s determined to ensure farmers and seafood processing plants can meet their staffing needs.
“I said from the very beginning the decision was made at the height of the Covid crisis, where that was going and minimizing the risk to our province. That has subsided somewhat,” he said. “I said I won’t let them go without employees and I meant that, I won’t. And if we don’t fill the roster in the next few days of what’s needed right now, then there will be decisions made to ensure that we can meet the needs.”
So far, he said, only about 250 people have signed up through the job matching platform launched on May 4. There are approximately 600 positions that need to be filled within the agriculture and aquaculture sectors.
“Given the magnitude of unemployment in the province, one would suggest I would have expected it to be much higher, and yes, frankly I certainly did,” he said.
Higgs said that the province is “battling” a situation related to employment insurance and more recently, the Canada Emergency Response Benefit – “the $2,000 a month to basically stay home and just wait.”
He says this is an issue that needs to be faced now or in the future “because it’s hurting the economy in our province overall.”
He also said that food security will be a major priority in the coming years, but that the agricultural industry needs to be supported by government and industry. Wages for workers need to be a factor that’s discussed, he added. Residents also need to support it.
“It has to be supported in terms of buying local – not just the farmers market but the food chain,” he said.
He says the goal would be self-sufficiency and sustainability of farmers, and an ability to feed the general public at home, and possibly abroad.
Higgs also says he’s “very concerned” about next year and what the federal transfer payment would amount to, “because I don’t know what’s left in the federal government given the projections of the hole that’s been dug federally.”
A version of this story was published in Huddle, an Acadia Broadcasting content partner.
