Poor Jimmy!

The latest downturn in the market must have caught the almost destitute Mr. Pattison deeply in his pocket book. How else to explain his attempt to retrieve his losses from the pockets of his most poorly paid employees? According to this story, he is requesting food store employees – Overwaitea, Save-On and Price Smart - to accept minimum 2 hour shifts in place of 4 hour; thus helping him in his desperate quest to lower expenses and improve his bottom line. One also has to remember it was his good pal Gordon Campbell – our beloved premier – who forced through the legislation lowering minimum shift hours which now allows Mr. Pattison to bring down the hammer. Assuming most employees require some form of transportation to get to work, we’ll compare the hourly wage to cost of transit fares. Okay 2 hours at $8.00 per hour yields the grand total of $16.00 less single zone fares of $2.50 each way leaving $11.00 to cover CPP, UIC, taxes and some to pay for the ‘benefits’ which are being offloaded from the company. For the unlucky workers who may need a 2 zone fare of $3.75 each way, they will have only $8.50 to cover expenses. There is little sense in discussing how anyone lives on the amount left as this item does not show up in the ‘human resources’ manuals – Jimmy’s people are merely interchangeable worker units.
Methinks Jimmy doth still don the food stained shirts and ties from the used car lot days!