The City of Calgary has given the tentative go-ahead to a guaranteed "living wage" for its employees, but the moves appears to be largely symbolic since it won't be extended to on-call and casual workers — the only ones who would have benefited.

'The city is responsible for an environment where people who work hard and are fully employed have an opportunity to share in the dream of Calgary.' —Howard Voss-Altman

An aldermanic committee approved the policy only for regular full and part-time workers on Wednesday. The policy won't cost the city any money because those workers are already making more than the living wage in Calgary, defined in the policy as $13.25 an hour without benefits.

Alberta's current minimum wage is $8.40 and will increase to $8.80 an hour on April 1.

Debate over fairness

Equity rights and anti-poverty organizations pleaded with the committee during presentations on Wednesday to include about 800 on-call and casual workers. The move would have cost the city at least $1 million a year to raise the casual workers' salaries while maintaining the wage ladder for other workers.

Obliging city contractors to do the same would have added another $500,000 a year to their costs, which would have likely been passed on to city hall.

"The city is responsible for an environment where people who work hard and are fully employed have an opportunity to share in the dream of Calgary," said Rabbi Howard Voss-Altman, who argued in favour of paying everyone a living wage.

But Danielle Smith of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business said the committee made the right decision, especially in an economic downturn.

"The other options they've identified … would create an undue burden not only on municipal taxpayers but also on the private sector," she said.

The formal policy will come back to committee in December and then go to city council for approval in early 2010. City council looked at the issue last year and asked for more information on the costs to the city.