Canada’s public service – can’t be fired, can’t be satisfied
In the Canada where most of us live and work, it’s a time of economic uncertainty and feelings of powerlessness. Everyone — miners, farmers, factory workers, retail employees, forestry workers, journalists — is wondering what 2009 will bring, and when the roller-coaster will hit bottom.
But in the other Canada, the Canada of the public-sector worker, it’s a time of exhilarating struggle to consolidate the gains of the past. In Ottawa, for instance, the Amalgamated Transit Union’s local 279 is holding Christmas shoppers hostage and freezing retail traffic during a season that many vendors were counting on to propel them through the tough year ahead.
Ottawa residents, who have had their OC Transpo options taken away during a time of wretched weather and university exams, are especially furious about the fact that the union turned down a relatively generous offer after a short negotiating period. The city (whose mayor admittedly took an overly theatrical hard line in negotiations) was prepared to give ATU 279’s workers a 3% retroactive pay increase for most of 2008, 2% increases for 2009 and 2010, a $2,000 “productivity improvement” bonus, more sick days and enhanced rights to bank sick days. That’s pretty good, given the current economic climate. But the union is holding out for a total of 10.5% over three years instead of the proffered 7%.
Meanwhile, Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) administrative and customer-service workers at Canada Post are out on a highly confrontational strike. Although the mail has continued to go through, the union leaders have stubbornly rejected the monopoly carrier’s suggestion for a rational short-term disability program with a small waiting period; they hope to hang on to their existing system, which gives employees 20 days of paid sick and family leave per year and allows those days to accrue indefinitely.
From York University to the B.C. ports, public-sector workers are on strike or considering strikes over old-fashioned perks that are gradually disappearing in the world of private business — and that were never available to small-business owners, contract workers, entrepreneurs and the self-employed.
What one notices about these situations is that the public-sector bargaining process has a logic of its own: Hard times don’t really frighten unfireable lifers, so the weakness of the labour market doesn’t do anything to promote peace between governments and their comfortable unionized workforces. Indeed, our vulnerability to economic shocks gives them a stronger hand. At Christmastime, what incentives were there for the ATU to back off from a showdown with the City of Ottawa? What, aside from general public outrage, prevents them from demanding 20% or 30% over three years instead of 10.5%?
Last month, when Finance Minister Jim Flaherty released his controversial fiscal update, it included a proviso preventing federal public service unions from striking for higher compensation until fiscal 2010-11. To the political parties that depend heavily on the votes of those who enjoy tax-funded incomes, this was almost as provocative as the Conservatives’ more nakedly self-interested changes to party funding. What few mentioned is that Mr. Flaherty intended to lock in 1.5% annual budget increases for those workers between now and 2010-11; in exchange for the temporary loss of the right to picket, they were getting a guaranteed wage increase at a time of low inflation, to go along with their relatively lavish pensions and ironclad job security. We can think of a few auto assembly-line workers and lumberjacks (not to mention copy editors and columnists) who wouldn’t mind that kind of deal.
When the fiscal update came down, Canadian Labour Congress president Ken Georgetti had the nerve to put on a baffled expression and ask: “How does taking away public employees’ right to strike stimulate the economy?” The answer, which any poor bastard trying to get a lift to work in Ottawa could have given him, is that the private sector has to cover the salaries of the public sector by creating wealth in an environment of risks and changing price signals. But increasingly, tax-funded workers act as if they’re doing the general public a favour by allowing us to pay for their lifestyles.
Tags: atu, bc ports, canada post, CUPE, Jim Flaherty, oc transpo, Picket Line, PSAC, public service alliance of canada, Strike, York University
