National Youth Rights Association

This is a speech that I wrote for my grade 10 english class in Ontario, Canada. We had to write speech to try and convince the audience of something. I ended up getting a 95% on this.

P.S. In Ontario one must complete 40 compulsory "volunteer" hours to graduate from high school.

All of us here are under the age of eighteen. For some reason, the government feels that it’s ok for them to discriminate against us. They discriminate against us by imposing a student wage. Student wage is essentially where the government allows an employer to pay someone under the age of eighteen less then they would to someone over eighteen for the same amount of work. This should not be allowed for many reasons including that it is unconstitutional, many other laws have been enacted to protect other visible minorities against such discriminations and that teenagers have been proven to do the same or more work in similar conditions.

Firstly, a separate wage for people under the age of eighteen should not be allowed because it is unconstitutional and a violation of basic human rights. Section 15.1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms clearly states that “Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.” Notice how it states age. This means that technically, the Government, be it federal, provincial or municipal, cannot make any laws that discriminate against age. However, this is not the case when it comes to student wage. Secondly, section 23.2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says, “Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.” This easily shows that by denying us that right, the Government of Ontario is denying us basic human rights, as put out by the United Nations. This means that the UN could justly apply sanctions or even military action against Canada to defend the fact that student wage should be equal to regular minimum wage. Finally, part 1, section 1 b of the Canadian Bill of Rights, a quasi-constitutional act passed by the Canadian Government on August 10th, 1960 guaranties “the right of the individual to equality before the law and the protection of the law”. This shows that Canada has had equality rights in its constitution for over 51 years. However, nothing has been done to equate student wage to regular minimum wage. These points prove that it is unconstitutional within Canada for there to be a disparity between student wage and regular minimum wage. In fact, it is in violation of international law and basic human rights by allowing a student wage that is lower then minimum wage.

Another reason that age discriminated wages should be removed, is because all other forms of wage discrimination have been removed within the minority population. Up until very recently, there was no law prohibiting an employer from paying a woman less money for the same amount of work as a man. Under this stance, two employees, one man and one woman, working the same job at the same time could make different wages. For example, a female teacher teaching grade 10 English would earn less than her male counterpart teaching the same class. This is obviously not right or fair and in 2000, the Employment Standards Act (or ESA) was passed. This act prevents an employer from paying a women less than a man for the same work conducted. The government removed discrimination between males and females so why not do the same for workers of different ages? Moreover, this same act also prevented Native Americans from having a different salary for the same amount of work. Once again, the government recognized that being a minority was not an excuse for discrimination. Finally, in 1993, the Employment Equity Act forced employers to make their working conditions wheelchair accessible. This allowed for physically disabled people to access their workplace without discrimination. The Ontario Government recognized that the disabled minority had to have equal access to any workplace.These different facts show that the elected government has made it easier for other visible minorities to get fair paying jobs while still making it harder for the teenage minority to get a fair paying job. 

My final point on why student wage should be eliminated is that teenagers have been proven to work just as hard, if not harder then adults. This is shown firstly when and how child labor laws have been enacted. Today, we are taught to believe that child labor laws are there to protect us from being exploited and working in sweatshops for next to nothing. However, we are also taught that it is ok and actually good for us when the Government forces us to do forty mandatory “volunteer hours”. Truth be told, child labor laws were originally created during the great depression to prevent children from working so that adults could get their jobs back. Employers wanted children because they were more energetic and willing to work. However, the large unions comprised of adults convinced the politicians (who were also voted in and comprised of adults) that children should not be allowed to work for their own safety. Since then, these laws have been relaxed slightly. However, it is still next to impossible to get a job under the age of fourteen and other jobs are not available until one is eighteen. Also, for all of these jobs one could be paid under the minimum wage. Next, in Michael Moore’s first documentary, “Roger and Me” he documents the closing of an auto-plant in his hometown, Flint, Michigan. He shows where the manager of a fast food joint decides to fire all of his underage employees and hire middle-aged workers who were laid off from the auto-plant. He did this because he thought that they would do a better job. However, by the time Michael Moore got his camera equipment to the restaurant, the manager had already fired those middle-aged employees and rehired the underage ones. The older ones simply could not keep up with what the younger ones used to be able to do. If there were no child labor laws which prevent children from working in factories or having full time jobs, then maybe children would have the fair paying jobs that they deserve and middle aged adults who work less hard would be in the under paid fast food joints. To conclude, I would like to talk about someone I know. He is a hardworking young man who I think deserves just as much respect and equality as any adult. He works at a local restaurant owned by a local businesswoman. Because of the current laws, he can only work eight hour shifts during the weekends, a time when most would like to be off work, and go to school for over six hours every week day. This is over 46 hours of work per normal week with no days off. In addition to this, he must complete homework and do forty hours of forced “volunteer work” to graduate high school. For most of this he is unpaid. For the 16 hours a week of paid work that he works during the weekend, the time when the restaurant is most busy and when the least amount of people want to work, he earns under minimum wage. This means that for his whole week that consists of 46 hours of guaranteed work plus any homework and forced “volunteer hours”, he only earns $153.60. If he were being paid minimum wage for all 46 hours, he would have made $471.50. On top of this, he is taxed by a government of which he cannot vote for and hence has no representation in. Whole nations have been formed on the idea of “taxation without representation”. This shows that teenagers work just as hard as adults and sometimes harder. Therefore, there is no logical explanation for why there should be a student wage.

Because student wage is unconstitutional, it is similar to other minority issues that have been abolished, and has no sensible basis to it, I think it should be abolished. I hope that today I have convinced you to support me on this stance.