Drummond: Arbitration needs a-fixin'

Martin Cohn added some more today from his interview with Bay Street one-percenter Don Drummond who is developing recommendations for government on public sector reform.

And the news is not good. On interest arbitration (which hospital workers are forced by law to use to settle collective bargaining disputes) here is Cohn's report:

Drummond discounts public-sector pay freezes because unions inevitably earn catchup increases down the road. But he is mindful of criticism by Hudak’s Tories that a broken arbitration system needs reform: “Broken might be a bit strong, but I will definitely be making some recommendations for change.” Arbitrators should reflect private-sector wage trends. But they are wrong to think government can easily meet pay demands merely by raising taxes: with labour costs ranging from 50 to 80 per cent in some sectors, arbitrators must take account of deficit constraints and the lack of additional tax room.

Private sector union wage settlements have been higher than public sector settlements this year and last. And private sector bosses are doing much better, getting much bigger increases than private sector workers. (But, somehow, I do not think this is what Drummond has in mind when he suggests public sector settlements should reflect private sector wage trends.)

On the 'brutal' Mike Harris years, Drummond is dismissive, suggesting that Harris merely implemented across the board cuts. As discussed in the previous post, Harris's health care reforms were much more complicated -- and very similar to a lot of the ideas being kicked around today. But they were a failure -- and even the Harris government decided, eventually, to reverse many of them.

Comments

More spending on new hospitals and new beds? Nope

Hospital funding: There is something off about the provincial government's Budget claims on hospital capital funding (funding to build and renovate hospital beds and facilities). For what it is worth (which is not that much, given the long time frame the government cites), the province claims it will increase hospital capital spending over the next 10 years from $11 billion to $20 billion – or on average to about $2 billion per year. But, this is just a notional increase from the previous announcement of future hospital capital spending. Moreover, even if we did take this as a serious promise and not just a wisp of smoke, the government's own reports shows they have actually funded hospital infrastructure about $3 billion a year over the 2011/12-2015/16 period. So this “increase” is really a decrease from past actual spending. Even last year's (2016-17) hospital capital funding increase was reported in this Budget at $2.3 billion - i.e. about ...

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