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Canada's Unions Tell Ottawa To Reconsider Austerity

Unions

First Posted: 09/19/11 01:43 PM ET Updated: 10/21/11 02:07 PM ET

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With the threat of cuts to public services and jobs looming, Canada’s largest unions are imploring Ottawa to reconsider its austerity agenda.

At a summit in Moncton, New Brunswick, on Monday, the leaders of 18 Canadian unions announced plans to launch a country-wide petition calling on Treasury Board president Tony Clement to put the protection of public services ahead of deficit reduction.

“The government’s obsession with austerity in fragile economic times and its suspicion of the public sector will damage the health, safety and well-being of Canadians”, Gary Corbett, president and CEO of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, said in a press release.

In a bid to eliminate the federal budget deficit by 2015, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is looking to trim annual program spending by $4 billion -- about five per cent. Though he has characterized the scope of the impending cuts, which have yet to be outlined, as “not that significant,” some economists have expressed concerns about pursuing austerity in tough times.

In recent weeks, however, as the worsening debt crisis in Europe has deepened global economic uncertainty, there has been some indication that Ottawa is prepared to adjust its timeline for paying down the deficit if need be.

“In managing the economy, circumstances demand that we will listen carefully to Canadians and that we be flexible when necessary,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper told media earlier this month. “At the same time, as we have always done, we will work prudently and responsibly, acting on the clear and strong mandate we received from Canadians.”

Monday’s summit was billed as an opportunity for union leaders to “discuss ways in which they can defend public services on behalf of Canadians in fragile economic times.”

“We came together today to demonstrate that our members will stand together with Canadians across the country to work to strengthen the public services on which we all depend,” said John Gordon, national president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada. “Public services reflect the fundamental Canadian values of fairness and equality of opportunity, and must be protected.”

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With the threat of cuts to public services and jobs looming, Canada’s largest unions are imploring Ottawa to reconsider its austerity agenda. At a summit in Moncton, New Brunswick, on Monday, the...
With the threat of cuts to public services and jobs looming, Canada’s largest unions are imploring Ottawa to reconsider its austerity agenda. At a summit in Moncton, New Brunswick, on Monday, the...
 
 
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FBuchan
49 Fans
01:18 PM on 09/21/2011
Most public servants work hard. My direct experience was 90% or better of the people employed were working as hard, or harder, than their private counterparts. The problem is the visible 10%, I suppose. They were why I went private, because I couldn't stand the posturing nonsense or the union's indifference to productivity and quality.

But the real problem we face is sustainability, not austerity. Cost cutting in the mid-term is a shrug, as the economy is suppressed and money is cheap, but we have a long-term sustainability problem. And pensions are an issue if we have have/have-not gaps as large as they seem to be, because that gap worsens as inflationary imbalances occur. Tell a private worker that the price of all things will match to the technically smaller pension-privileged class over time, and they will baulk -- rightfully.

Public service cuts are therefore inevitable, either managed slowly and wisely over time, or dramatically affecting thousands when the sustainability failure hits us. I doubt the government has any wisdom on the matter, but at the end of the day we will get sustainable service levels no matter how hard some rebel against the idea.
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procrustes13
507 Fans
01:24 PM on 09/21/2011
So in other words, the public workers must sacrifice because the plutocrats are a class so privileged that they are beyond the reach of all despite the fact that they overwhelmingly are cornering the wealth and that's where the real wealth is and is being increasingly concentrated. Public workers are low-hanging fruit ready to be plucked and devoured.
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colin1000
14 Fans
12:46 PM on 09/20/2011
What should a family that has a new baby do when the arrival ruins the family budget, well according to Harpers conservatives,
cut baby food by half, forget diapers use plastic bags, wrap the kid in news paper and if it gets sick give it an aspirin.
Whatever you do don't cut the Friday night poker, refilling the liquor cabinet, Mums visits to the beauty parlour and the twice a week visits to that nice restaurant.
Just keep in mind what is really important.
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dclintn648
Conservatism is dread
2915 Fans
 
08:33 AM on 09/20/2011
One used to have to go to the Third World to find a government corrupt enough to sell out its citizens to corporations and influence peddlers. Thanks to conservatives... not anymore!
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dclintn648
Conservatism is dread
2915 Fans
 
08:31 AM on 09/20/2011
Even the IMF thinks government austerity programs have failed. The fact is, they are just another excuse for conservatives, the rich and corporations to steal more of the nation's wealth.
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Norma Ward
97 Fans
07:21 AM on 09/20/2011
As Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page has found, there is no real plan to reduce the deficit in a meaningful manner as shown here:

http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2011/02/harper-government-cost-control-fact-or.html

It is important to note that the insignificant size of overall cuts to the federal staffing levels is due in large part to the hiring of thousands of prison staff. Perhaps these union members should consider fully adopting the Harperites "tough on crime" agenda, he noted with sarcasm.
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pjlowry
135 Fans
 
11:13 PM on 09/19/2011
The unions are offering an olive branch, if the conservatives want to keep this majority for more than one term... they should listen rather than just move ahead with blinders on.
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Russg
99 Fans
10:06 PM on 09/19/2011
Don't worry, the cons won't cut. If they were going to cut such an "insignificant" (their word...well, actually I paraphrased) amount, they would have outlined it in the budget.

Expect $1-2 billion in cuts at the most.
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opprobrious
More speech. Less Flagging.
923 Fans
09:01 PM on 09/19/2011
Unions telling conservatives to reconsider austerity only makes conservatives double down. It's been a long time since they've had a majority and you can bet they see themselves as having a lot of catching up to do. The meaner the better.
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LetsKeepitSimple
79 Fans
07:56 PM on 09/19/2011
What ever happened to providing value for your salary??

I dont care if a company wants to pay all its employees a million a year, if I like their product and price I will buy it. I have to pay for the Govt no matter how poor quality and how much it costs. Should be some competition in Govt, and some link to performance.
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procrustes13
507 Fans
11:51 PM on 09/19/2011
That usually makes things worse. Performance targets usually mean lower quality as people find a way to hit the targets in a manner that does the least for the people.
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LetsKeepitSimple
79 Fans
12:23 AM on 09/21/2011
There is no other way, if performance is not measured or corrected you have very poor output.
BTW there is only one type of union that rewards performance and not the hired date.

Professional sports, try having no performance and using date hired for athletes?
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FBuchan
49 Fans
01:12 PM on 09/21/2011
While there is some truth to your statement, what it implies is that if this is true (it was before I left public service, fed up with the quality problems), then it is because the performance metrics were wrong. Far too often people try to impose measures that have no bearing on value, and in government that seems the norm. So, what we need is not to stop trying to measure, but revise how we measure and ask what value proposition exists for any given service.
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LetsKeepitSimple
79 Fans
07:54 PM on 09/19/2011
Raise taxes and pay us more so we can afford to pay them, we want more of everything except work. That about sums it up IMO.
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Add In Canadia
Egotism is a weakness
411 Fans
06:12 PM on 09/19/2011
Curious how there's pressure to put deficit reduction on the back burner when out of control deficits are threatening the economic and political stability of countries across the world (including our neighbors to the south) and there's all this clamor about preserving as many public jobs as possible.

Having a balanced budget *should* be a priority, and just because it's the "government" doesn't mean it should be exempt from common sense fiscal policies. We threw a lot of money at the economy to 'save' businesses, and that was okay for the short term panic of the moment (you know the unions that pressured the minority government into bailing them out) but that money had to come out of the pockets of Canadians. We didn't raise any taxes to pay for bailout, so it has to come out of public services. So either new taxes are raised to cover the costs, or let the jobs go.

Spending our way out of these economic times isn't working; again, look to the south to see how pumping money into the system has achieved: The system is still broken, and unemployment is still in the double digits (especially if you include the people who have simply given up looking for work)

A deficit needs to be resolved ASAP, because no one can live on a credit card forever. It saddles your future for decades to come, and there's a point in where you reach your withdraw limit.
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GreenCanadian
is mixing the new record
342 Fans
08:58 PM on 09/19/2011
The guy who has a Nobel Prize in economics would disagree with you.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/opinion/economic-bleeding-cure.html?_r=1&hp
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Russg
99 Fans
10:34 PM on 09/19/2011
Nobel Prize or not, he's advocated policies that directly led to Japan's lost decade.
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procrustes13
507 Fans
11:52 PM on 09/19/2011
The price of money is at its lowest. Only idiotic governments freak out over deficits under such conditions. Cutting deficits causes depression.
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glenn beaton
74 Fans
08:21 PM on 09/20/2011
Those "idiodic governments" would include Japan, Australia, China, all of Europe with the exception of strike-paralyzed Greece, and Canada. The "smart" governments would be Latin America ones in the 60-90s until they finally changed course and became prosperous.

You may be right (though I don't think so) but you are in lousy company.
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procrustes13
507 Fans
05:01 PM on 09/19/2011
The austerity of the mid to late 1990s was accompanied by an easing of the monetary chokehold that was suffocating the economy in the early 1990s which is why it simply kept the very high unemployment rate stable instead of causing a massive spike and recession. Right now there is no way to mitigate the destructive effects of austerity. In fact, they want to increase the monetary chokehold, not decrease it.
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brinkley4
26 Fans
04:38 PM on 09/19/2011
Governments to Unions. - Take a Hike ! The Public Service Unions are the torch bearers , in this parade, and as soon as their gold plated pension plans , perks available only to civil servants , and poor productivity is threatened , they are out there trying to bully governments.
There are many precedents for staffing cuts in government , and this time will be no different.
The Federal civil service is now as bloated as it was before the cuts in the nineteen nineties. It's time to take out the axe, once again. !!
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procrustes13
507 Fans
04:59 PM on 09/19/2011
Your envy is most unbecoming. Austerity is death and the unions are trying to protect us from the madness throughout the West, a madness that willfully disregards the lessons of the 1930s.
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brinkley4
26 Fans
06:26 PM on 09/19/2011
The lesson of the 30's was that FDR and his socialists vastly prolonged the great depression. Socialism died a natural death in Russia because, as a system it does not work.
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sdgreen
73 Fans
03:52 PM on 09/19/2011
Canada to Unions ... we can not afford your demands and largess, especially in the Public Sector!
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procrustes13
507 Fans
04:56 PM on 09/19/2011
You may want to drink the austerity Kool Aid but don't count me in on the death party.
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jimbo57
ni dieu ni maitre
264 Fans
06:17 PM on 09/19/2011
Following policies designed to CONTRACT the economy in the middle of a downturn is NOT particularly bright. The vaunted Galtian "job creators" increase production when they see increased DEMAND for their products. Employing fewer people and paying them less does not increase demand. Even Rick Perry could tell you that..had he stayed awake during Economics 101
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GreenCanadian
is mixing the new record
342 Fans
08:59 PM on 09/19/2011
Krugman would agree with you

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/opinion/economic-bleeding-cure.html?_r=1&hp
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