Manitoba / Lower wage for disabled, a ‘Relic’ to be repealed

The Selinger government will repeal a law that allows an employer to pay disabled workers less than minimum wage.

Family Services and Labour Minister Jennifer Howard said the provision in the Employment Standards Code will be removed through legislation to be tabled Monday to mark the United Nations International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

“It’s an anachronism,” Howard said Friday. “It’s clearly a throwback to a time when there was a separate minimum wage for women.”

Howard said 16 people currently work under the soon-to-disappear provision. They and their employers will be grandfathered under the old law. Under that law, employers had to obtain a certificate from the province to pay a disabled person less than minimum wage, which is currently $10.25 per hour.

Howard said the province stopped issuing certificates in 2009, but the change will wipe the provision from the books for good.

“We’re going to take it out of the act to mostly make a statement that you can’t pay somebody less for no other reason than they have a disability,” Howard said. “We believe that’s a relic of the past.”

Choosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor from

via ‘Relic’ lower wage for disabled to be repealed – Winnipeg Free Press.