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We should be making $53 per hour 
When I worked as a bartender in the mid-1950s the going rate was a dollar an hour, union or non-union. The cost of a glass of beer was ten cents, and a package of cigarettes was thirty-five cents. The cost of a glass of beer is now two dollars and a package of cigarettes is six dollars. 

The question I have is: All things being equal and proportional, are our bartenders making twenty dollars an hour? If not, who is getting all the money? 

When I started in the pulp mill in Crofton (on Vancouver Island) in the mid-1960s, the going rate for labourers was $2.18 per hour, union rate. I bought a three-bedroom bungalow for a little under $10,000 with a $2,000 down payment, and with the owner taking an agreement of sale for the remainder at an interest rate of six per cent. The total payment for the house was $90 a month. 

The question I have is: All things being equal and proportional, the labourers in our mills should be making $53 dollars an hour, since the same three-bedroom house is now worth $150,000. 

Courtesy:  Walt Hatcher – Pulp and Paper Workers of Canada