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McGuinty: a second legislative attack on collective bargaining?

Dalton McGuinty has once again inserted himself into the collective bargaining process and given the union representing over 11,000 "professional" and "supervisory" civil servants until September 9th to settle their collective agreement.   

 Or else. 

 The government and the union, AMAPCEO, have been in bargaining since July 3.  Apparently, the government believes two months is enough bargaining to allow them to fend off any constitutional challenge to legislation overriding free collective bargaining rights. 

 The president of AMAPCEO has said that the union has offered a wage freeze, but that the government wants the equivalent of  2% to 3% in cuts of one sort or another. 

 As was his method with the teachers, McGuinty talks as if he was simply stopping wage increases, rather than imposing concessions and takeaways (a line often repeated by the media, in their innocence). “We don’t have any money for pay hikes...We may come to a point in time when we can’t resolve that through negotiation. I understand that,” McGuinty said: while on the campaign trail in Kitchener. 

 In another kick at this can, McGuinty raised health care contracts as well:  “We can negotiate how to get there, but the ‘there’ is not the subject of negotiation. The ‘there’ represents a freeze in public sector compensation in a way that does not compromise the quality of services we are delivering in our classrooms or in health care.” (As noted in past posts, the Liberals have adopted a very one-sided definition of a compensation freeze.)

 Talks with OPSEU, the union representing most provincial  civil servants, are reportedly planned for November (the OPSEU-OPS contract  expires December 31). 

 AMAPCEO held a large rally on the lawn of the legislature today (a picture is above), an unusual step for a union of supervisors and professionals.  The union said yesterday that they have "managed to push back most of the Employer’s most draconian demands, like their attacks on our job security provisions."  It had also indicated that it was still optimistic a deal could be reached.  

 If not, we may see the introduction of the second bill to override free collective bargaining in as many months.  With many other rounds of collective bargaining in the broader public sector ahead, more could be in store...
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  1. AnonymousSeptember 6, 2012 at 2:36 PM

    people just dont get it, Dolton doesnt "bargin" he strips away your voices and all rights.

    then we live like a third world country! oh wait he's doing it right now to all of rural ONT. guess your next!

    this lying,sell out of an A$$ has to go!!!

    ReplyDelete

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