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Showing posts from September, 2012

Liberals conceal ugly concessions (as other wages rise)

The proposed public sector "compensation restraint"   legislation floated on Wednesday by the Liberals is neatly silent on whether the government will impose contract concessions on 500,000 working people. The government consistently talks of a "compensation freeze" or "compensation restraint".  Obligingly, the media has usually repeated that framing of the issue, as if it were the main bone of contention between the government and the unions. But actions speak louder than words and it it is quite clear from the terms the government is actually imposing on school board workers (through Bill 115) that contract concessions  rather than a contract freeze is what the government has in mind. While I will leave it to the lawyers to have the final word on the proposed legislation, the government's proposed Respecting Collective Bargaining Act 2012  artfully leaves the framework of the contracts to be imposed undefined.  The "mandates" that

Hudak keeps open option of alliance with Liberals

Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak has kept his powder dry and has reframed from personally criticizing the Liberals' proposed public sector labour legislation. Or even commenting on it.   Instead, he sent out Monte McNaughton , who faulted the proposed legislation with a variety of vague criticisms:   the legislation "is clearly lacking teeth" and exempts too many workers,  McGuinty "is taking a weak approach," and "doesn't have the courage to make tough decisions". But McNaughton did not say the PCs would actually vote against the bill.   Hudak's absence and McNaughton's refusal to say the PCs will oppose the legislation, make it look like the PCs are open to some sort of a deal with the Liberals. They had better watch out -- the Liberal labour strategy has led the Liberals to a sudden, sharp drop in the election polls. So it may not be a winning strategy for the PCs to twin up with the Liberals on it.  The Liberals wil

Are public sector cuts 'tame' compared to private sector?

Dwight Duncan claimed yesterday that compared to the belt-tightening endured by workers in the private sector, his legislation restricting collective bargaining in the public sector "is tame stuff". Sounds like a claim worth investigating. Wages are the most important single item bargained -- for both workers and employers. So it's a pretty good way to compare outcomes for different sorts of workers. According to Ontario Ministry of Labour own data, public sector and private sector workers have done about the same in collective bargaining. In 2010, private sector annual wage settlements averaged 2.0%, while the public sector averaged 1.9%. In 2011, the private sector averaged 1.9% versus the public's sector's 1.6%. So far this year (January through July) both public sector and private sector have averaged 1.7%. Compounded, the private sector is actually 0.4% ahead of the game. Duncan, perhaps might claim that if you went back more than the last

Corporate bosses excluded from cuts. But not their employees

No surprise here -- but the bosses of the for-profit corporations that provide long term care and home care services funded by the public sector are excluded from the Protecting Public Services  legislation proposed today by the Liberal government (as set out in schedule 1 of the Public Sector Compensation Restraint Act, 2012 ) . Also no surprise -- the unionized employees who work  for those bosses at for-profit long-term care and home care businesses don't get any such exclusion (as set out in schedule 1 of the  Respecting Collective Bargaining Act [Public Sector], 2012 ) . They, like other publicly funded workers, are free only to agree to terms and conditions pre-determined by government.

Is Shouldice Hospital sale actually a real estate deal?

The owners of the Shouldice Hosptial may sell the eight hectares of land that the hospital sits upon. Centric, the prospective buyers of Shouldice Hospital, say they will likely move to a new location after the four year lease is up.  "I think the vendors possibly have other ideas for the property," Centric's Peter Walkey told the Toronto Star . Eight hectares is a lot of land and in condo crazy Toronto it also means a lot of money. If this was a public hospital, that cash (or the land itself)  would stay with the public, for the public's use. But when funding starts flowing to for-profit providers, private interests may prevail. Deb Matthew, the health minister, has to make a decision on the sale.  She wrote to the Star ,  "Our government is committed to public health care. ... No new private hospitals have been, or will be, considered in the future." But she didn't say she would prevent the sale of the Shouldice Hospital to a for profit corpo

Health care cutbacks across Ontario

Sudbury hospital officials expect the shortage of hospital beds in the city will force 4 surgeries a day to be cancelled.  Thirty have been cancelled this month. Dr. David Boyle, the hospital's medical director of surgical services told the CBC he's frustrated because his department has toiled away at reducing surgical wait lists. “We've worked hard over the last two years to improve all of our wait lists. We still have quite a lot of stressors on our wait list compared to the other parts of the province."   Boyle said the problem lies in the absence of a home care strategy for seniors. Earlier this year, the hospital (Health Sciences North) was forced to cut 30 beds. The government is expected to require the hospital to cut another 30 beds next March.   Meanwhile, Betty Kutcha, CEO, of the Erie-St. Clair Community Care Access Centre told the Chatham Daily News , that personal support home care is becoming more limited as the agency is required to direct its

Ontario hospitals oppose wage cap

It's not often that Ontario hospitals express opposition to government policy publicly. But the government's new cap on public sector executive pay of $418,000 (annually) has caused them to come out and release a public statement expressing their "extreme disappointment." "This is another example of the Government of Ontario and legislators devaluing the work and skills of hospital leaders, and those who lead Ontario's vital BPS organizations," the OHA noted. The Ontario Hospital Association notes that 'only' 77 hospital executives are paid more than $418,000. But don't worry too much about them, the cap will only apply to new executives -- and even for these new hires, the government has indicated that special exceptions can be made.  Moreover, the bosses aren't getting concessions imposed on them like the school board workers. Nevertheless, the hospital bosses must be angry -- their rather spirited statement isn't goi

PC plan a threat to small town Ontario?

The Progressive Conservatives (PCs) plan to turn health care funding responsibilities over to 30 to 40 hospitals. These "hub" hospitals would be licensed to move money from one provider in the area to another. This will leave the other 120 or so hospitals beholden to the hub hospitals for funding.  With funding pressures to the fore, centralization of services is becoming a bigger trend, leaving hospitals in smaller communities especially vulnerable in this funding model. Douglas Memorial Hospital, Fort Erie In the last round of PC sponsored restructuring, hospitals in smaller towns and cities were closed and others were merged into multi-site hospital corporations (e.g. the hospitals in the Niagara region).  In the following years, the small hospitals that were merged often lost services to the bigger cities in their multi-site hospital, creating special outrage in Fort Erie, Port Colborne (both in Niagara) Shelburne, and Muskoka, as hospitals in those towns were clo

Liberals threaten to bring back interest arbitration legislation

A senior Liberal official has said the government will bring back the interest arbitration legislation that was defeated when the government brought in its Budget bill earlier this year.  theMatthewBlack “We’ll be taking action and reintroducing the sections of the budget bill that Hudak instructed his party’s members to vote against, even though it was in their   election platform."   McGuinty's comment of a year ago that it was unwise to ' finagle ' with interest arbitration was, I guess, just stuff you say. Toronto Star reporter Robert Benzie suggests the Liberals will first " expand... the wage-freeze push from   teachers   to other public servants in the weeks ahead, before tackling arbitration." The reports came as Tim Hudak and the PCs announced they would be introducing another bill on interest arbitration. The Ability to Pay Act   is basically designed to favour employers in cases of  interest arbitration. (Essential service wor

Private insurance: no solution for long-term care

As part of its turn from care in facilities, the Ontario government has let the wait lists for long-term care facilities explode.  This problem has been around for several years now, and there is little sign the government intends to remedy the problem.   Instead they simply talk about keeping people in their homes.  It sounds great -- until you need long-term care.   With a tsunami of aging coming, this problem is set to get worse.   Fitting nicely with this plan, the for-profit long-term care industry has commissioned a report that actually calls for less  publicly funded long-term care: instead, the publicly funded long-term care sector would expand into hospital services and provide short-term care.    As noted a few days ago , the private insurance corporations have seized on the government's turn away from publicly funded long-term care and called for an expansion of private insurance for long-term care needs  --  along with private delivery and no price caps to pr

Is the Ontario government's "compensation freeze" crisis phony?

The Ontario government claimed in July that the first year of its so-called "compensation freeze" would save $1.4 billion. It now claims  that last year's deficit was $3.3 billion less than budgeted. This, the government says, will result in absolutely no change in their collective bargaining policy (or the threat of legislation). Nevertheless, if the government's budget figures are to be taken seriously, it's apparent that there is no burning need to save $1.4 billion this year. They had saved that and more already. The goal is political, not, it seems, economic.   Moreover,  the government's fiscal reports seem more political than social scientific.  This is just the latest in the consistent revisions downwards of the deficit estimates by the Liberal government over the last several years. The government is still sticking to its claim that this year's deficit will be $14.8 billion.  That's a rather implausible $ 1.8 billion more than la

Liberal threat to broader public sector remains vague

Last week Dalton McGuinty hinted that he would bring in legislation affecting collective bargaining across the public sector and now the Globe and Mail reports the government "plans to introduce legislation that would freeze wages for all workers who bargain collectively in the public sector." The government has been reasonably clear that it will legislate if its goals are not met in a given round of collective bargaining, but now they are edging into the idea that the legislation will be across the broader public sector, not just legislation for specific bargaining groups.   “My sense is we’ll be talking about something that is more holistic in nature, more across the board,” McGuinty said.  Broader based legislation attacking collective bargaining has long been advocated by Tim Hudak and the PCs.  But up until now, the Liberals have shied away from this, possibly out of concern that such legislation will fall afoul of the constitution.  The advantage of br

Insurance giants look for long-term care business

Giant insurance corporations are pushing into long-term care. As part of its austerity song book, the Ontario government has pretended that there is no need to expand long-term care, complex continuing care, rehabilitative care, and other forms of care.  If any needs aren't met, it can all be solved , this fairy tale goes, by home care -- even while there isn't much of that going around.   In that, there is opportunity for corporations.  If government won't insure it, they will - and make a nifty profit doing it.  As noted in an earlier  post , demographic change will drive the growth of long term care for the next several decades.  A recent  insurance industry  report estimates that "the cost in current dollars, of providing long-term care over this timeframe (the aging of baby-boomers) is almost $1.2 trillion. Current levels of government program and funding support will cover about $595 billion of this total cost. As a result, Canadians currently ha

PCs swear they'll get restructuring right this time

The new Progressive Conservative policy paper,  Paths to Prosperity: Patient-Centred Healthcare , isn't just another far right rant like we've heard from Tim Hudak in recent weeks. It does make a few reasonable points: · The Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) lack expertise and provide little value · The health care ‘system’ isn’t so much a system as a loosely connected bunch of sectors. · We need better integration of health care services · More leadership expertise resides at the hospitals than the LHINs · LHIN leaders are beholden to the cabinet · The LHINs cover too big an area and there is little local control  But there are other, bigger problems with the PC paper. Health care restructuring is the central theme of the paper : As is often the case with prospective governments, they see the solution in extensive high level restructuring of health care. The paper proposes the elimination of LHINs and Community Care Access Centres (CCACs)

Corporate takeover of hospital comes our way

After the announcement by the Liberal govenrment that they would spin work off from hospitals to private clinics, Centric, a corporation with other private facilities in Canada, has now moved in with plans to buy the Shouldice Hospital in Toronto.  Shouldice is an 89 bed, five operating room hospital in Toronto with a staff of 160.  The sale price is $14,250,000. Shouldice Hospital The largest shareholder of Centric is Global Healthcare Investments & Solutions, Inc., based in the USA.   Global Healthcare's CEO formerly led one of the world's largest healthcare corporations outside the USA, Netcare. The Liberal government had said they would turn work over to not-for-profit clinics only. Centric however is a for-profit corporation listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.   The takeover is still subject to government approvals. Centric notes that if all closing conditions are satisfied, closing is expected on or before  O ctober 15, 2012. A Shouldice insider rep

Five Ontario hospitals abandon fight against superbug

VRE Some Ontario hospitals are giving up on trying to control the superbug VRE. No doubt the hospitals are responding to the government funding squeeze on hospitals. Below, i nfection control experts offer a tart warning of the consequences of this policy . We've been downs a similar road before: past cuts to hospital cleaning (and hospital beds) helped lead to the explosion in superbug infections in recent years. In the period ahead we will see more and more examples of how hospital cuts will affect patient care.  Local hospitals isolate, others relax about super bug  Hamilton Spectator  Fri Sep 7 2012  Page: A16  Section: Editorial  Byline: Allison McGeer, MD, Kevin Katz, MD, Mary Vearncombe, MD, Toronto  'Big and   dumb' VRE not the worry it was: Local hospitals isolate, others relax about   super   bug (Aug. 30) As directors of  infection prevention  programs at Toronto hospitals, we are always   happy   to see thoughtful discussion of the issu

Public sector employment increases 2.45%

Public sector employment made a significant comeback in August in Ontario, according to Statistics Canada. After significant declines since April 2011, public sector employment has now made up most of the losses. With a growth of  32,300 public sector jobs in August (2.45%), Ontario is now only about 10,000 jobs behind the April 2011 public sector high.  Public sector employment is also up 7,100 jobs over the last year. In contrast, total employment fell 24,900 jobs  in August in Ontario compared with July, as private sector employment and self employment fell (22,600 and 34,500 respectively).  Total employment is, however, up 24,300 over the last year (although most of this increase came from increases in self-employment). Class of worker 2011 2012 April January March May July August Total employed, all classes of workers 6,743.00 6,746.00 6,788.20 6,761.80 6,792.60 6,767.70 Employees 5,713.00 5,708.50 5,749.00 5,704.40 5,7