This Living Wage Campaign has a simple aim: we want to ensure that everyone who works at SFU gets paid a LIVING WAGE. A Living Wage is defined as a wage to cover a family’s basic expenses. This is a broadly inclusive goal, with the aim of ensuring that everyone who contributes to the SFU community makes a living wage, whether they work in food service, cleaning or research capacities at the University."

We have this aim because we feel that our University should provide:

- Fair Trade working conditions in our own campus
- An ethical work environment where quality education and research thrives
- Leadership and community engagement in providing practical solutions to child poverty
- Support to tomorrow’s students by ensuring their parents get paid a Living Wage today

Check out the website: http://livingwagesfu.wordpress.com/join-us-get-involved/

Learn more about a living wage in this 2 minute YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJnpyFJUbb4

Like Living Wage at SFU on Facebook to get more updates and support the initiative: https://www.facebook.com/livingwagesfu?ref=ts&fref=ts

Sign the Petition: http://livingwagesfu.wufoo.com/forms/z7x3p9/

WHAT IS A LIVING WAGE:

The living wage is calculated to enable working families to pay their basic expenses and lift them out of poverty. It is calculated based on what it costs to live in a specific community, so living wage amounts will vary across the province as living expenses vary.

The expenses included in the living wage calculation include food, clothing and footwear, shelter & transportation based on the Market Basket Measure (MBM), an index of expenses developed by the Human Resources & Social Development Canada to provide a perspective on low income. Additional expenses include child care, provincial Medical Services Plan (MSP) premiums, non MSP-covered health expenses, limited education amounts for parents, and a contingency amount to provide a two-week cushion in the event of job loss, illness, etc. Based on this methodology The Living Wage rate for Metro Vancouver is $19.14/hr.

WHY A LIVING WAGE AND WHY AT SFU?

SFU has long been a University that is committed to strengthening the wider community through practical and creative initiatives. In fact one of the core aims of the University is that it will become a “public square” to which British Columbians might look for productive dialogue on important issues of the day.

There are not many more important issues in BC at the moment than tackling our shamefully high rate of child poverty. The number of working poor in BC has risen over the last number of years and has been a key contribution to the ongoing crisis of child poverty in BC.

- BC has had the highest child poverty rate in Canada for eight years.
- Low wages is one of the key reasons for child poverty in BC- 48% of the poor children in BC – 55,700 children – live in families with at least one adult working full-time, full-year.

Large universities like SFU need more than educators, administers and managers to function. Cleaners, security staff, food service workers, childcare workers, and research assistants are also essential to ensuring that the University maintains high educational standards to make sure it can deliver its high educational standards. We see these people every day. They prepare our meals. They clean up after us. They take of our children. Yet we rarely think about their situations when they go home.

Many of these people are not being paid a living wage. Their families face impossible choices — buy food or heat the house, feed the children or pay the rent. The result can be spiraling debt, constant anxiety and long-term health problems. In many cases it means that the adults in the family are working long hours, often at two or three jobs, just to pay for basic necessities. They have little time to spend with their family, much less to help their children with school work or participate in community activities.

LOW WAGE POVERTY AT SFU

Our campaign has researched the working conditions of ‘low-wage workers’ at SFU. At a most basic level we tried to ascertain whether these workers are being paid enough to live on. We found that:

- The vast majority of workers surveyed (73%) earned less than a living wage
- 57% of workers reported having to work extra unpaid overtime hours, in some cases of up to 12 hours per week
- Only half of respondents reported getting any benefits as part of their employment.
- 39 % of respondents incurred out of pocket expenses as a result of their employment

The implications for this are highlighted in some of the responses we received:

‘I feel stressed all the time having to worry about rent and insurance payments, as well as my medical payments.’ (Research Assistant)

'I feel like I can’t provide for my family. I have to struggle to pay for food, housing, electricity and phone bills. Sometimes I have to go to the food bank for food…’ (Childcare Worker)

'On numerous occasions ………..my family was unable to pay the rent, buy groceries, pay our bills, student loans etc.’ (Research Assistant)

A living wage would obviously make a huge difference to these families:

‘It (being paid a living wage) would mean I could have more money for basics like food for my children.’ (Janitor)

‘Well, to begin with my wife would probably be able to finally get the surgery she needs.’ (Research Assistant)

‘It would mean I won’t have to owe money to people.’ (Food Service Worker)

What would it mean for SFU to become a Living Wage Employer?
It would mean that SFU would commit that everyone it employs and everyone who works on a contracted basis in SFU would be paid a living wage (when the hourly rate of their benefit package is taken into account.)

In Canada there is increasing support for a Living Wage as a way to address the issue of child and family poverty. In 2010 the City of New Westminster became the first municipality in Canada to pass a Living Wage Policy, with other municipalities across the country, considering following suit. School District 69 in Parksville / Qualicum recently became the first School Board in the country to pass a Living Wage Policy.

Moreover in Metro Vancouver, a growing number of leading corporate and non-profit employers have seen the benefits of paying living wages. Twenty-eight organizations in Metro Vancouver, employing over 5,000 workers and covering thousands more contracted service workers, have been certified as Living Wage Employers. These include SAP–Vancouver (the world’s largest inter-enterprise software company and the world’s fourth-largest independent soft¬ware supplier), Vancity (Canada’s largest credit union, with $14.5 billion in assets, more than 417,000 members and 59 branches), the Canadian Cancer Society–BC and Yukon Division, the United Way of the Lower Mainland and Small Business BC’s Best Employer in 2012, Eclipse Awards.

In the education sector 22 out of the top 25 universities in the United States (as ranked by U.S. News and World Report 2011) including all eight Ivy League schools, M.I.T., and University of California at Berkeley have passed a Living Wage Policy. While 13 higher education institutions in the UK by have some form of a Living Wage Policy in place. While the recent summer Olympics in London in 2012 were the first Living Wage Olympics, where all 135,000 workers working on the event were paid a living wage!

All these organizations have committed to paying all their direct staff and contracted service staff, including janitorial, security and cleaning staff, a living wage.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO SUPPORT THE CAMPAIGN:

- Sign the petition: http://livingwagesfu.wufoo.com/forms/z7x3p9/

- Let your friends know about it by sharing the facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/livingwagesfu?ref=ts&fref=ts

- Join our mailing list to keep in touch: http://eepurl.com/nzaTr