Defend Public Healthcare

It was less than a year ago that Dalton McGuinty asserted that it was unwise to finagle with the interest arbitration system. How things have changed. As noted in June , the government introduced legislation in the recent Budget Bill to make interest arbitration more employer-friendly.  That however failed miserably. But the Liberals are determined to dig in on this one.  They have promised to bring back new legislation in the fall. Despite McGuinty's earlier wisdom on this issue, they are indeed determined to finagle. Both the NDP and the Progressive Conservatives opposed the interest arbitration changes, the former because of the bias the legislation introduced, and the latter because the bias did not go far enough (although causing trouble for the Liberals was probably a factor as well). Now the Ontario Association of Police Services Boards says it has received assurances from the Ministry of Labour that it will be consulted as the new legislation concerning interest

The Ontario minister of finance, Dwight Duncan, has released a troubling statement concerning collective bargaining in the broader public sector, including hospitals.  The statement proposes a compensation freeze (including benefits) for new collective agreements.  Even progress through an established wage grid "must be fully offset from within the total compensation package."  If a collective agreement is for more than two years, the minister says the period beyond two years must also have a compensation freeze. While in the past, the government had proposed a two year freeze, there is now no official end to the compensation freeze. This is a much harsher line than the government has taken (and accepted in bargaining) up until now. If the minister doesn't get his way, legislation is threatened. Moreover, given the job they have done on the economy, it is an open question whether the Liberals will continue to make even more concession demands in the future.

Ontario unemployment increased last month from 7.4% to 7.8%.  While employment grew in Canada as a whole, it fell slightly in Ontario, decreasing from 6.788 million jobs to 6.781 million jobs. Across Canada, there was a sharp decline in the number of public sector workers, with a loss of 19,200 public sector jobs in one month. In Ontario, the declines were in both the public and private sectors, with 1,100 job losses in the public sector and 9,300 in the private sector (there were modest gains in 'self-employment' reducing the total loss).  Notably, however, while there has been growth in private sector jobs over the last year in Ontario, there  has seen a steep decline in the Ontario public sector, with 48,100 public sector job losses in one year. That means there has been a loss of 3.5% of all public sector jobs in Ontario in one year.  In fact April 2011 was the all-time high for public sector employment in Ontario.  Before that there were some increases in public sect

St. Joseph's Home Care in Hamilton (part of the same outfit that runs St Joseph's Hospital in Hamilton) is  imposing two tier wages on home care workers.   For new home care contracts, Personal Support Workers (PSWs) will earn about 15% less, the Hamilton Spectator reports.  The Spectator expects a new home care system to be introduced in the fall. St. Joseph's believes the new wages will "position" the organization for a wave of new home care contracts.   (The current system of compulsory contracting has been under suspension in Ontario for years  -- after multiple failures). St. Joseph's Home Care boss, Kim  Ciavarella  claims  “In the old contracts, we were bidding to be the lowest bidder. That's our decade past. I really see a fundamental shift coming.” In fact in the old  compulsory contracting system, the government also claimed that it wasn't about being the lowest bidder.  Despite abundant evidence to the contrary, 'quality,' the

Ontario union wage settlements averaged 1.6% in the first two months of 2012 in both the public and private sectors.  This is close to the average of 1.7% in 2011, and 2.0% in 2010, with public sector settlements trailing private sector settlements in both of those years. Inflation has been somewhat higher than the average annual wage settlements.  Inflation was  2.4% in 2010 in Ontario, 3.1% in 2011, and is running at 2.6% this year to date, according to the Ontario Ministry of Labour.   If this trend continues for the rest of the year, annual average settlements will be 2.93% less than inflation over the three years.    Regardless, the government is angling for a compensation freeze (and more).   Collective agreements covering 592,084 employees come open in 2012 – making this one of the bigger bargaining years.  Most of the employees affected are public sector (74%).   By far the largest share comes from the school board sector (255,400) in August.  In total, CUPE has 39

The Ontario Progressive Conservatives (PCs) tried to amend the provincial government's Throne Speech yesterday with a legislated wage freeze for public sector workers. The NDP joined the Liberals to vote down the amendment 69 to 37. PC Leader Tim Hudak said  "I mean, we're simply asking public servants not to get a wage increase next year because families in the private sector are cutting back." In fact private sector wage settlements have been significantly higher than public sector wage settlements this year and last.   Naturally, the salaried class (including many PC-supporting bosses) are doing better -- this confirmed by recent Conference Board  and   AON  reports.   The Conference Board reports private sector salaried staff are doing especially well.   With inflation running at 2.7% in Ontario, a wage freeze would mean a significant reduction in real wages.  Hudak is broadening his attack on public sector workers.  During the election Hudak's fo

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

A report from the Canadian government suggests  that union density (of non-agricultural, paid workers) went up over 30% again, hitting 30.8% in 2010, up from 29.9% in 2009.  As well, union membership hit a new high of 4.645 million, almost 600,000 more than in 2000.  That's the good news.   The bad news is that the increase in union density is a one year break in a long decline from 32.2% density in 2000.  Moreover, the increased density in 2010 mostly reflects a shrinking workforce, occasioned by the poor economy.  If the workforce had even stayed the same in 2010 as in 2009, the density would be only 30.2%.    Union Membership in Canada, 2000–2010 Year Union Membership (000s) Civilian Labour Force* (000s) Non-Agricultural Paid Workers* (000s) Union Membership as a Percentage of Civilian Labour Force % Union Membership as a Percentage of Non-Agricultural Paid Worker % * Statistics Canada, The Labour Force Survey, Labour Statistics Division 2000 4,058 15,