Defend Public Healthcare

The new National Health Expenditure Trends reports that from 1988 to 2009, total health care expenditures per capita rose significantly in current dollars -- from about $2,100 per capita to a little over $5,100 per capita (see figure 3, page 4). Private health care insurance was a key factor in this increase. The report states, "private health insurance expenditure per capita increased from $139.4 in 1988 to $648.9 in 2009." While total per capita health expenditure increased 142%, per capita private health care insurance expenditure increased 365%. Private health care insurance went from about 6.6% of total expenditure per capita to 12.7%. The rapid increase in private health care insurance costs is a significant problem faced by unions, as employers try to offload increasing private health insurance costs. Privatization of health care services will compound this problem, creating even bigger incentives for employers to download those costs onto workers.  That will

Below is a report from the Ottawa Citizen on what Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak told them about "interest arbitration" -- the system used by public sector employers and unionized essential service workers (like hospital workers, firefighters, and police) to settle contract disputes.  Essential service workers are required to settle contract disputes through interest arbitration and are forbidden  from striking by law. At a meeting this week with the Ottawa Citizen's editorial board, Hudak called the province's arbitration system badly broken.  He said arbitrators do not respect the ability of taxpayers to afford the settlements they hand down, even though the law calls upon them to do just that. Hudak accused the premier of ducking the issue, a key factor driving municipal tax hikes. "Dalton McGuinty will look the other way: he doesn't have the courage to take it on. I do," Hudak told the Citizen . "I can and I will fix the brok

Here is a list of the main items regarding labour in the Progressive Conservatives policy manual ("Changebook") released on Sunday: Labour laws: "We will make Ontario’s labour laws fairer for union members and taxpayers. We will change Ontario’s labour laws to give union members more flexibility and a greater voice. We will give all individuals the right to a secret ballot in certification votes. We will introduce paycheque protection so union members are not forced to pay fees towards political causes they don’t support. Unions will be required to be transparent and open with their financial information, just as businesses and charities are." Goodness gracious, I hope they did not pay a lot of money to whoever wrote this. Except for the part about making it more difficult for construction workers (who have "card certification") to form a union, it's a model of vagueness.   Nevertheless, details be damned, it's clear enough that they in

The report  Ontario Collective Bargaining Agreement Expirations has just come out from the Ontario Ministry of Labour and it provides some interesting information on 2011 bargaining: There are 2,571 expiring collective agreements in 2011 covering 496,118 union members. This makes 2011 an average year (2004 saw 714,000 union members with expiring agreements, while2005 saw 328,000).   Expirations are concentrated in the months of January, March, June and December, with March and December especially big months. Broader Public Sector (BPS) agreements account for 48% of all agreements expiring in 2011 and cover approximately 68% of the total number of employees.  That's 278,296 BPS union members.  Major negotiations in the BPS for 2011 include hospitals (March, October), municipalities (March, December), nursing homes and homes for the aged (March, September), Toronto Transit Commission (March), GO Transit (June), universities (April, June), College Employer Council (support staf

The last ten years has seen a growth of 240,000 in unionized public sector workers in Ontario.  That's an increase of 35% (from 679,000 to 919,000) according to data in a new report from the Canadian Labour Congress. Most of this growth, however, is simply due to growth in the public sector labour force, rather than an increase in the percentage of   public sector workers who are organized (or "public sector union density").  The percentage of public sector workers who are unionized increased only modestly, from 68.6% to 70.7%.  That is still a lower public sector union density than exists across all of Canada, which now sits at 74.9% (a small increase from 73.9% a decade ago).   Despite the modest increase in public sector union density, the rate of unionization of all Ontario  workers actually fell slightly, from 28.3% to 27.9%. This is due to the rather sharp decline in the rate of private sector unionization: from 18.1% to 14.9%.   Not only did the rate of private

The Toronto Star reports : "Thousands of Ontario nurses who work at ...non-unionized hospitals complain they're getting the cold shoulder from Premier Dalton McGuinty's public sector pay freeze." While the non-union RNs are in the midst of a government imposed two year wage freeze, unionized RNs got pay increases April 1, as per their collective agreement.   “I don’t know why they’re doing this to us,” non-union RN Julia Fisher said. “The government has created a two-tier pay schedule. We’re being penalized.” Even bosses at non-union hospitals are not pleased with the situation. They fear it will be harder to recruit and retain no-union staff.  “We are concerned the government’s freeze is creating significant inequity between union and non-unionized staff doing the same work,” said Janet Davidson, president and chief executive of Trillium in Mississauga. Davidson's reference to "staff" is appropriate as a similar problem applies to non-unionized R