It seems the widening gap between the haves and thehave-nots is not growing fast enough for some. Fortunately, the fine folks at Overwaitea are committed to speeding the process. The BC grocery chain wants its workers’ union to allow for two-hour shifts. TheB.C.Federation of Labour claims that this move would result in Overwaitea employees taking home as little as $17 a day… before taxes. According to the estimates provided by Raise the Rates, a resident of Vancouver requires $30 a day just to cover food and shelter. The news of Overwaitea’s decision falls all too poignantly on the heels of the Poverty Olympics, and the most recent report about the skyrocketing numbers of homeless in British Columbia.
If the above news isn’t enough to discourage Vancouverites from participating in strip mall-style shopping, perhaps the discovery of the Pacific plastic soup is. Said soup is reported to consist of 100 million tonnes ofplastic waste, amassing a “trash vortex” twice the size of the United States. This collection of discarded plastic can be found off the coast of California,and is suspended in place by water currents. Where did all this plastic come from? Scientists say some of it is from passing ships, but the vast majority of the 100 million tonnes (I just have to repeat that number) came from the land. Naturally, no one is saying what land, but I think we can all feel partially responsible for this new continent of floating debris.
So here we have two rather discouraging pieces of information to process. Both are equally difficult to comprehend- how one is expected to survive on $17 a day, how much garbage is required to create a soup twice the size of our Southern neighbour… it’s all terribly profound. But in the midst of this profundity, a simple solution is offered. If ever there was an argument to support local, sustainable vendors, I think this might be it. Fortunately, there are alternatives available in Vancouver. A great starting point is the Winter Farmers Market, which is being held this Saturday, from 10:00 am –2:00pm at the Wise Hall (1882 Adanac Street).
Additionally, I am interested in hearing your solutions. How do we avoid supporting unethical companies like Overwaitea, and prevent the expansion of the Pacific garbage soup? Have an idea? Know an organization working within Vancouver that challenges these problems? Drop me an email with some details. As always, community dialogue is a great tool for capacity building and problem solving. Until then, buy local. And for the love of all that is good in this world, recycle.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2008 at 9:50 am and is filed under Environment, Shopping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I’m not sure if what Overwaitea is doing is that legal — the employment standards codes stipulate you can’t have any shifts shorter than 3.75 hours before mandatory lunch breaks and, resulting in, a mandatory 4hr minumum shift.
Another thing that is upsetting is the travel time. Every time I go to work it takes at least half an hour to get ready and a little while to commute to work (whether you bike ride or drive), and this usually means that for every shift worked there is at least one concominant hour spent to get to/from work. This is unpaid “work” also in my opinion, and is something that is also never addressed.
Let’s avoid Overwaitea in general, and other “companies” like them — put your money where your mouth is. I would take to the media with your article, circulate this, publicize events like this everywhere you can, organize, meet up with the staff, find more who are up in arms. It only takes on to start a movement. I’ll come to a meeting if you start one.
This is absolutely preposterous. I totally agree with you Jark, when you factor in the time taken to prepare for work and commute, for a two hour shift, you’re commuting as long as you’re working. So if four hours of your day is spent on preparing for/commuting to work, you’re actually only making $4.25 an hour.
We’ll see what kind of attention we can generate.
The union talks are coming up in March…
There is interest that can almost definitely be generated at the farmers market this weekend…
I don’t know where else to go…
We should get people to turn in their Save-on cards…
Make something out of them…
…shite, if only the save-on cards weren’t made of plastic, I would be happy to just throw them out and never patronize an Overwaitea ever again. Only, you know, with corporate structures the way they are these days (and for so long now) I can’t really pretend to follow the money. Overwaitea owns too much these days, so much so it seems that banning their stores is an inadequate political stance. It’s just inadequate for our purposes. I will contemplate other strategies.
It’s disappointing that you even HAVE a save-on-card. Shop local and organic if possible. Choices is still locally owned and operated (as far as I know) unlike Wholefoods and Capers, which is one and the same and owned by a US company.
I don’t know about their employment practices but it’s much easier to affect change in a smaller company than a huge one.