McGuinty neatly stokes interest arbitration campaign

Dalton McGuinty has craftily stoked his campaign to change the rules for interest arbitration -- the system imposed on essential service workers who are forbidden by law from striking to settle collective bargaining disputes.

The Liberals had tried to tilt the system in favour of the employers in their Budget Bill in early summer. But they failed miserably when the New Democrats and PCs opposed the changes (for opposite reasons). After that setback, McGuinty said he would bring back legislation in the fall, with some hope of working with the PCs to pass it.

On Wednesday McGuinty flagged some perks earned by police and firefighters and sternly called on municipalities to deal with them -- as he had with the teachers.

The (predictable) response from local officials was renewed calls for McGuinty to introduce legislation that would tilt interest arbitration towards employers.

Newspaper articles appeared and saps like the Windsor Star editorialists vigorously demanded that McGuinty "rewrite the arbitration rules" -- apparently oblivious to the fact that McGuinty was building his bluster to do just that. -- In fact, only a few months ago he plainly said he intends to legislate changes to interest arbitration.

Very neatly played by McGuinty.

Unfortunately hospital workers -- who also are also forced to settle contract disputes through interest arbitration -- may get caught up in the same scheme, even if they haven't seen the same financial benefits from interest arbitration as police or fire.

Comments

Too many public sector workers in Ontario?

Opponents of public services often try to portray the public sector as having grown disproportionately. In fact, since 1976, the number of public sector employees has not quite kept pace with the population. In 1976, the number of public sector employees in Ontario as reported by Statistics Canada averaged 830,800. By 2012, the number had increased to 1,330,700 -- a 60.2% increase. That sounds like significant growth -- true. But the population has increased from 8,413,779 in 1976 to 13,505,900 in 2012, a 60.5% increase. In other words, population growth has run slightly ahead of the growth in public sector employment. In 1976, close to 10% of the population worked in the public sector. It stayed pretty much this way until the Mike Harris government came to power when it dipped below 9%. It returned close to the historical range in the last six years or so, declining in 2012 to below the 1976 averag...

Ford government fails to respond to 72% increase in COVID inpatient days, deepening the capacity crisis

COVID infections continue to drive up hospital costs and inpatient hospitalizations in Ontario. For the most recent fiscal year (April 1, 2022- March 31, 2023) hospital stays related to COVID cost $1.221 billion, according to new CIHI data. This is about 4% of total hospital spending, creating a very significant new cost pressure beyond the usual pressures of population growth, aging, inflation, and rising utilization. Costs for COVID related hospitalizations increased 22.2% in Ontario in 2022/23 from the previous fiscal year, rising from $999 million to $1.221 billion. That rise is particularly notable as the OMICRON spike of late 2021 and early 2022 had passed by the the 2022/23 fiscal year. The $222 million increase in COVID hospitalization costs came in the same year as the Ford government cut special COVID funding and, in fact, cut total hospital funding by $156 million. In total, there were 60,653 COVID hospitalizations...

The hospital crisis: No capacity, no plan, no end

While Canada has achieved universal public healthcare coverage, that does not mean conservative forces have given up trying to erode that coverage and expand corporate care where it does not currently exist. The battle has become particularly intense in Ontario under the Ford Progressive Conservative government, which is implementing serious cuts to the level of care and moving to bring in for-profit mini-hospitals. Inadequate Staﬃng. Less and less of hospital spending is on staff. Employee compensation as a share of hospital expenditures has consistently shrunk in Ontario. This is not some immutable law of hospital development. It is in stark contrast with the rest of Canada, where compensation has become a larger share and now accounts for 67.1%. Hospitals in provinces other than Ontario now have 18 percent more staﬀ per capita than hospitals in Ontario. Overall, if Ontario had the same staﬃng capacity as the other provinces and territories, there would be another...

Defend Public Healthcare

Search This Blog