Dear Editor: Re; Salute to Labour Unions, special section, Burnaby NOW, Aug. 30.
The Burnaby NOW's salute to labour unions was a most concise account of how bad things are in the job market in B.C. It's all there! The government's policy of allowing temporary foreign workers to replace people from B.C.; the American big box companies; Tim Hortons and McDonald's hiring them; how the labour relations tribunal didn't back the contracts for Zellers employees, and on and on!
For his part, B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair said he is trying to rectify the situation by raising the minimum wage from $8 an hour to $10.25 and now $12. What good will that do? To my mind it will only encourage employers to hire even more temporaries and cut hours down to compensate.
Last but not least, your editorial hit the nail on the head when it pointed to the fact that Generation Y people - those born between 1980 and early 2000 - are not looking to unions for help and are more interested in hockey, cruising the Internet and vacations, generally speaking.
Jim Sinclair's hope that "government, industries and unions work together" is a nice dream that won't ever happen - at least not in my lifetime.
To my way of thinking, all three have created this problem in the first place.
Vivienne Jarvie
Burnaby
