Fighting tip theft and protecting workers in Nova Scotia

To tip or not to tip? 

Tipping culture has become a large conversation in Canada over the past few years, as both customers and service workers across the country struggle to meet the demands of the cost-of-living crisis. Receiving tips to supplement a small paycheque becomes all the more necessary. Meanwhile, giving generous tips feels all the more harder. 

So how would you react to knowing that a portion of the tips you’re giving are not even being collected by the people who are serving you – but rather, upper management. 

This is called tip theft, and in one Atlantic province it’s perfectly legal. 

Nova Scotia is one of the only provinces in Canada without anti-tip theft legislation, and organizers at the Halifax Workers’ Action Centre are trying to change that. 

This week on the show, rabble labour reporter Gabriela Calugay-Casuga sits down with community organizer Syd Blum to talk about their work organizing workers in Nova Scotia and trying to bring the issue of anti-tip theft to the attention of the provincial government. 

About our guest

Syd Blum (she/they) is a community, political, and union organizer living in Mi’kma’ki / Nova Scotia. They are the organizer for the Halifax Workers’ Action Centre, a community legal worker at Dalhousie Legal Aid, and the vice-president of IASTE Local B-778. 

They were previously a head organizer with the ACORN Tenant Union, where they led successful campaigns for a rent cap and anti-eviction policies in Atlantic Canada, and a union-cooperative developer. They have a profound commitment to building a strong labour movement in Nova Scotia, fighting for a union at home, at work, and in our communities.

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