6 Ways Harper’s Budget Hurts Young Canadians

http://www.bcfederationist.com   April 3rd 2012

1. Good luck getting a job.

Its almost always difficult for young people to find job openings, with youth unemployment often hovering at twice the overall rate. Increasing the OAS and GIS age for to 67 leaves people in the workforce longer, taking away job openings.

2. Katimavik killed.

The Katimavik program has been an important skills building opportunity for young people since Trudeau was Prime Minister. With one stroke of the pen, Harper has stripped future generations of this important program.

3. Students stiffed.

Already crushed by high tuition fees and record student debt, Canada’s post-secondary students could be forgiven for expecting the budget might have something in the way of debt relief or new funds for skills and training. Not in Stephen Harper’s Canada.

4. Good luck getting a job, part 2.

What would a good Prime Minister do when youth unemployment under his government is at record levels? He’d probably increase funding for youth employment programs. Not Harper. He cut funding for youth employment centres.

5. Foundations fracked.

Lots of foundations are doing great work advancing the cause of the environment and sustainable development, and these places are where many young people first get active in political action. No wonder Harper’s cracking down on their charitable status. Will he do the same for the Fraser Institute and the Manning Centre?

6. Public service pummelled.

Unfortunately, when layoffs happen, young people are the first to go. The Harper budget eliminates nearly 20,000 civil service positions – costing people their livelihoods and closing the door to young people.

Northern Steelworkers set agenda for change

 

http://www.bcfederationist.com   April 3rd 2012

Delegates, representing sawmills and mines across the north gathered this weekend in Prince George at the annual meeting of the United Steelworkers Local 1-424 where they heard a strong message that change was needed in British Columbia.

USW president Frank Everitt told delegates that it was time for a change in British Columbia and that change meant electing a government that would represent working people and help build a vibrant forest industry again.

He also warned delegates that the Liberal government attack on the teachers was only the first round of many battles to come for workers in British Columbia.

“The fight is not only with teachers, they are only the first, the second will be healthcare workers and next will be the government workers and make no mistake about it, they are coming for you after that,” he said as he pointed to the crowd. “If the Liberals get another mandate then goodbye Charlie, so lets do it (defeat the Liberals).”

Sherry Ogasawara, Sarbjit (Bobby) Deepak, and Frank Everitt, President USW Local 1-424 and Prince George City Councilor

USW Wood Council President Bob Matters told the convention that the Liberal government had made terrible choices during the last decade, choices that put the interests of large corporations ahead of working people in every community.

He told delegates that mills are shutting down and losing work because of the lack of logs while the government continues to allow exports. Most recently the government’s own export review board recommended that logs be sold to a local sawmill in Vancouver but the government overruled them and sent the logs to China.

“The government had a choice of siding with workers and their communities or siding with large corporations and workers in China,” he said. “They continue to make the wrong choices.”

He said the government has no strategy for rebuilding the forestry stock in British Columbia and has allowed mill after mill to close without any review process. “There is no doubt about it, this government has only one policy and that is to kill jobs.”

In recent years the Chinese market has begun to buy finished lumber from British Columbia but Matters pointed out that every time they ship a load of logs to China, its in direct competition with saw mills in the interior of British Columbia.

B.C. Federation of  Labour President Jim Sinclair thanked the Local for the incredible job they have done supporting the workers and people of Burns Lake in the wake of the explosion that killed two workers, left dozens injured and destroyed the mill where more than 200 worked.

In particular he complimented courage of the workers on the night shift when the mill exploded. He said those workers were blown out of the mill by the explosion but went back inside to rescue their co-workers.

“These are the kind of heroes that makes us all proud,”  he said.

Sinclair also talked about Liberal economic policies. He said they have resulted in billions of dollars in tax cuts to corporations but did not result in the growth of jobs in the province. He said that, in fact, BC has seen a decline in jobs in major sectors like forestry. “There has been a decline of more than 25,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector.”

“The tax cut strategy has been a dismal failure,” Sinclair said. “We lost jobs, we cut healthcare and education, we failed to take care of seniors and the gap between the wealthy and the poor continues to grow and grow.”

Shown in the photo above are:
Sherry Ogasawara, BCGEU member seeking NDP nomination in Prince George Valemount.
Sarbjit (Bobby) Deepak – Labour lawyer seeking NDP nomination in Prince George-Mackenzie.
Frank Everitt – President USW Local 1-424 and Prince George City Councilor.

Inequality on the rise under BC Liberals

http://www.bcfederationist.com   April 3rd 2012

B.C. and Alberta have most unequal after-tax incomes in the country, says Canada West Foundation

British Columbia’s worsening record on income inequality – that is, the growing disparity between the income earned by our province’s wealthiest families, and the rest of us – was highlighted in a disturbing report released late last year by the Canada West Foundation.

Based in Calgary, the Canada West Foundation is hardly a left-wing or labour-friendly think-tank.

The chair is Jim Dinning, a former Alberta finance minister (under Tory premier Ralph Klein) who last year was chosen by the BC Liberals to head a so-called “Independent” commission to study – i.e., endorse and promote – the much-loathed Harmonized Sales Tax.

Dinning was named to the HST panel in January 2011, and weeks later, in April, he and Klein attended a special dinner so each could receive a ‘Tax Fighter Award” from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. B.C.’s news media chose to ignore the event.

At least four British Columbians with strong ties to the BC Liberal government sit on the foundation’s board.

They include Brenda Eaton, chair of the B.C. Housing Management Commission and a former deputy minister to ex-premier Gordon Campbell; Ida Goudreau, the one-time TimberWest executive appointed by the Campbell government as the first chief executive officer with the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority; and Jock Finlayson, executive vice-president of the B.C. Business Council.

Eaton and Goudreau previously sat together on the board of directors of private-sector company, Terasen Gas, and both today are on the board of Fortis BC, which in 2007 paid $3.7 billion to buy most of Terasen’s natural-gas distribution assets.

The fourth is none other than Geoff Plant, previously a BC Liberal MLA and Attorney General – and former Victoria room-mate of Gordon Campbell.

By no stretch of the imagination can the Canada West Foundation be seen as sympathetic to the political left, or to non-business interests. And that lends credence to the findings in the foundation’s report on inequality in Western Canada.

“In terms of the growth in income disparities in the West, all four provinces have higher levels of inequality today than they did 20 years ago,” observed the report, published on November 15.

“The income gap has widened the most in B.C., with the degree of increase shrinking as you move eastward.”

Ouch. Usually it’s great to see British Columbia leading the other western provinces (or even all of Canada) in economic performance, but such clearly is not the case with income inequality.

The Canada West Foundation found that the ‘bottom quintile’ of B.C. families – that is, the 20 per cent with the lowest annual incomes – earned just 3.9 per cent of total income across B.C. That was the lowest figure in any of the province in Western Canada.

The proportion of total income earned by B.C.’s second quintile of families was a mere 9.4 per cent; by the third, 15.2 per cent; and the fourth, 24.9 per cent.

In total, the income earned by all of those families not in the top quintile – that is, 80 per cent of all B.C. families – added up to just 52.5 per cent. In other words, the combined incomes of four of every five B.C. families equaled just half of all incomes in our province.

Which means that the top quintile – the 20 per cent of B.C. families enjoying the highest incomes – earned a whopping 47.5 per cent of all annual incomes.

Shockingly, that latter number was the highest among all of the western provinces.

And, almost unbelievably, the numbers were even worse when the Canada West Foundation examined incomes after taxes had been paid.

With those calculations made, the share of total income received by British Columbia’s top quintile of families – again, the 20 per cent with the highest incomes – soared to a stunning 63.5 per cent.

Under BC Liberal tax policies, then, just one-fifth of all B.C. families take home nearly two-thirds of all after-tax income in the province.

By comparison, the one-fifth of families in the bottom quintile earned a mere 0.7 per cent of all after-tax income.

Looked at another way, those in the top quintile received more than 90-times as much after-tax income as the bottom quintile.

“The redistributive effect of government transfers and progressive taxation in B.C. and Alberta is lower than it is elsewhere in the country,” said the Canada West Foundation report.

“As a result, B.C. and Alberta have the most unequal after-tax incomes in the country.”

Perhaps chastened by the Canada West Foundation’s analysis of B.C.’s glaring income inequality, Christy Clark and the BC Liberals leapt into action.

What did they do?

On December 30, mere weeks after release of the Canada West Foundation report, the Clark Liberals launched a media campaign against Adrian Dix – the leader of the New Democratic Party since April 2011 – for B.C.’s economic performance in the 1990s!

Instead of taking immediate action to correct the growing – and worrying – gap between rich and poor in British Columbia, Clark and the BC Liberals opted to look back more than a decade to attack Dix and the NDP, with a campaign filled with half-truths, untruths and outright lies.

Space does not permit a refutation of all of the errors and mis-statements in the BC Liberals’ attack on Dix, but consider the following assertion: “British Columbia became a HAVE-NOT province [in the 1990s], dependent on other provinces in Canada to pay our way in confederation. Under the BC Liberals this situation has been reversed.”

A have-not province is distinguished from the others by the receipt of equalization payments from Ottawa. Over the last three decades, British Columbia has obtained such transfers on nine separate occasions.

In the 1980s, B.C. – then under Social Credit governments led by Bill Bennett and Bill Vander Zalm – received three equalization payments from Ottawa. The first was for $139 million (in fiscal year 1983/84), the second, $35 million (1984/85), and the third, for $360,000 (1986/87).

In the 1990s, the NDP government led by Glen Clark received a single equalization payment of $125 million (in 1999/2000).

But over the last decade, our province got five equalization transfers.

The BC Liberal government first received $158 million (in 2001/02), followed by $543 million (2002/03); and then $979 million (2004/05); $590 million (2005/06); and $459 million in 2006/07.

The total of four equalization transfers made to B.C. in the 1980s and 1990s under Social Credit and the NDP: not quite $300 million.

The total of five payments in the 2000s when the BC Liberals were in government: an astounding $2.4 billion.

Yet the BC Liberals claim to have inherited a “have-not” province from the New Democrats – and then “reversed” the situation!

To be clear, the near-constant stream of falsehoods and deceit from Christy Clark and the BC Liberals is not the real tragedy in our province; it is the shocking and widening disparity between British Columbia’s richest and poorest families.

To that troubling problem the Clark Liberals have no answer, no solution; just rhetoric.

The Canada West Foundation’s report on B.C.’s income inequality provides yet another in a long list of reasons why a solid majority of British Columbians want a new government in Victoria.

NOTE: The Canada West Foundation’s analysis of worsening income inequality was confirmed in late January in a report released by BC Stats, the province’s chief numbers agency.

Jim Sinclair is President of the B.C. Federation of Labour
Published in the Columbia Journal

Have BC’s Governments and Ministers Mislead Us? You be the judge!

http://rosslandtelegraph.com on 02 Apr 2012

 

Dear editor,

In light of the recent resignation of 17 year veteran Liberal MLA John van Dongen from the Liberal caucus and party citing a lack of integrity in leadership in the Liberal government, many of us are wondering if BC’s governments and ministers have intentionally mislead us. You be the judge!

BC’s governments and ministers

1. “Gave” our Premier a 53% front-end-loaded (all in one year) salary increase in 2007.
2. Invoked “Net-Zero” (no net increases in contracts) and “Cooperative Gains” (you can gain if you give something up) mandates for everyone else right after that.
3. “Gave” our Premier and MLAs a Cost of Living Allowance in 2007. The COLA provision has been frozen but has not been repealed by legislation and can be reinstated with the stroke of a pen.
4. “Gave” Deputy Minister of Education, James Gorman, a 40% raise in salary between 2006 and 2011 ($164,085 to $228,942); and, Education Ministry Superintendent, Rick Davis, a $432,234 Expense Allowance (that’s a lot of lunches) between 2006-2011.
5. “Took” 275 million plus dollars a year from public education budgets for 10 years in a row. The BC Supreme Court uncovered a secret agenda named, “Run Silent, Run Deep” that the government intentionally set out to do just that and more.  Rick Davis’s name came up a few times in the documents the court considered in its decision.
6. “Found” over 600 million dollars for the BC Place stadium roof plus tens of millions of dollars to offset ongoing operational losses of the stadium and repairs of the newly installed “leaky” roof.
7. Profess to place “Families First” but can’t “find” any money for children in their budgets so BC continues to remain #1 in child poverty in Canada for the 8th year in a row.
8. Introduced “Back to Work” legislation for striking teachers because families and students were being “inconvenienced” but intentionally took weeks to pass it instead of the 3 days that it should have taken and blamed teachers and others who do not control the legislative process for the delay. The government could have invoked closure or limited debate.
9. Intentionally created “losing” school districts this year by changing education funding formulas and now have Boards of Education scrambling to deal with growing budget shortfalls which mean further cuts in educational programs and services.
10. Increased funding for private schools in BC by 2.6 times more than for public schools over a five year period (2005-06 to 2010-11). Public school funding increased by 13% while funding for private schools increased by 34%.  Take a guess which Premier’s kid attends private school? 
11. Reduced funding of public education by 42.56% over the last two decades as a percentage of total provincial budget expenditures. In 1991-92, K to 12 education funding made up 26.36% of the provincial budget compared to only 15.14% in 2011-12. If 2011-12 education funding were restored to even the 2001-02 percentage of the provincial budget, an additional $1.6 billion/year would be available for public education.
12. Proudly introduced the “harshest” budget in over 30 years even though BC’s economy is growing. Premier Clark introduced a conservative budget while stating our economy is projected to grow between 2.9% and 4% next year.
13. Publicly compared BC’s economy to Greece’s when BC has one of the lowest Debt to GDP ratios in the world and Greece has one of the highest.
14. Appear to be using “Shock Doctrine” (taking advantage of what is happening somewhere else and scaring us into believing that it is happening here) to make us believe BC is in grave economic difficulty but are projecting budget surpluses in two years.
15. Focus on retaining power by stopping “leakage” to the ultra-right wing BC Conservative Party by not providing adequate funding of Health, Education and Social Services budgets in the name of “ultra-fiscal restraint” but just announced $700,000,000 of new spending on infrastructure. 
16. Treat teachers poorly – freeze their wages, increase their workloads with higher class sizes, then claim that the services teachers provide are “essential” and won’t allow them the right to strike. (CCPA)
17. Continue to advance a pro-business and economic growth agenda but short-change the education budget and fail to see that investing in the education of our future business leaders, now, makes sound economic sense.
18. Appear to have no respect for contracts, teachers, public education, workers’ rights, and court findings, the “Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms” or “The Rule of Law”.
19. Profess to support business and economic growth but fail to comprehend that failure to respect Contract Law and “The Rule of Law” could cause economic chaos and is a hallmark of tyrannical and un-democratic societies.
20. Continue to advance a “Neo-liberal” agenda of contract-stripping and union-busting by passing Bill 22 despite having the Supreme Court of Canada characterize similar attempts in Bills 27 & 28 in 2002 as “draconian”. Now they want to fine teachers up to $20,000,000 per day for standing up against Bill 22.

Is it possible that we have been intentionally misled by BC’s governments and its ministers? You be the judge!

On behalf of our deeply concerned members and families,

Andrew M. Davidoff, President

Kootenay Columbia Teachers’ Union

Seeds of BC Liberal Rebellion

 

Why Premier Clark has her hands full keeping her own party in line.

By Rafe Mair, Yesterday, TheTyee.ca

Air’s fresh out here: South Abbotsford MLA John van Dongen, first to defect from BC Libs?

Premier Christy Clark is in a lot of trouble — especially if she loses the Chilliwack byelection to the Conservatives which, with John van Dongen crossing to the Conservatives, is almost a certainty.

That she’s in trouble anyway has been (finally) canvassed by the mainstream media. The HST has been a horrifying failure. There’s no way the average taxpayer can accept the proposition that it must stay in effect until a year this April.

The Liberals are in a trap of their own making. If, as they swear up and down, the HST wasn’t on the their "radar" in the 2009 election but came about like a flash of light a month or two later, then why cannot it be disbanded as quickly as it happened? If, as most people believe, including me, that it was in the works long before 2009, then Campbell and then-finance minister Colin Hansen had been preparing the HST months before the election, then the Liberals won an election by deception.

If they did indeed have a Damascus-like conversion, then why does it take two years to get out of it? The Liberals can’t have it both ways.

And now, as if to compound the sense of disarray and erosion, their Finance Minister Kevin Falcon is hemming and hawing about whether he’ll even run for office next election.

The poisoned chalice

The Clark government has been stumbling from the moment Premier Clark was sworn in. Not all of that was her doing, of course. She was handled a poisoned chalice by the disgraced Gordon Campbell. The fact remains, however, that Premier Photo-op has stumbled from one goof to another since the beginning and she will pay the price, perhaps sooner than we think. The reason has to do with our system of government.

Under first-past-the-post, the government must fall if it loses a money vote or one of confidence. This means that the backbench must support the government when it’s nut-cutting time.

So far as I can tell, only once in Canadian history has a prime minister/premier with a majority been turfed out because he couldn’t command a majority anymore, and that was Sir John A. Macdonald in the wake of the Pacific scandal in 1873 when party discipline wasn’t nearly as rigid as it is today.

This doesn’t mean that a first minister cannot be driven from office without losing a vote, as seen in recent years in B.C. with premiers Vander Zalm and Glen Clark.

For one to understand the reasons first ministers can thusly be turfed, one needs to understand the system.

In first-past-the-post, the backbenchers have no power to really affect policy. They can raise hell at caucus meetings, but rarely does that affect government policy. Moreover the backbencher has promotion on his mind and hesitates to upset the applecart otherwise known as the premier.

The methods of compulsion are varied and brutal. The recalcitrant backbencher thinks that he is better, indeed much better, qualified to be in cabinet than those already there. It’s as Napoleon said, "Every French soldier carriers a marshal’s baton in his knapsack."

One of the problems is that government backbenchers have little if anything to do. This calls for make work projects to keep "idle hands from doing the devil’s work." Some backbenchers, Ralph Sultan of West Vancouver comes to mind, really believe that these projects are important to the government, but most know that it’s all bullshit.

During relatively quiet times the backbencher, like the hopeful player as the captain creates the team, is pointing to himself as worthy of attention. There are goodies to be had which enhance the hopeful’s chances of making the team.

The best one, short of cabinet, is to be made a parliamentary secretary to a minister which pays more than the MLA’s stipend and gets the backbencher’s presence closer to the action. Then there is the whip and the deputy whip — two jobs where there isn’t anything to do except deposit a bigger paycheque. Even when Campbell had an over 70-seat majority, these "jobs" were filled. There is the deputy speaker and the chairman’s spots to hand out to boys and girls whom the premier wants to be ever so nice to him and cabinet.

In the "stick" department is the power the prime minister/premier has to kick naughty children out of caucus and refuse them the right to run under the party banner. That is a very big step implement of compulsion indeed!

Who would pick up a sword?

There is an additional problem facing Premier Clark and it is critical to her survival. Everyone in that caucus (except the hopeless Harry Bloy who was put in full cabinet, then demoted to a minister of state, then axed because he made a secret missive available to members of the public) supported someone else or sought her job themselves. In other words, from the start they’ve had a death wish for her. We needn’t look that far back to see a prime example of what that means.

Bill Vander Zalm took over the Socred leadership with everyone except Jack Davis in caucus and cabinet having done everything they could to defeat him and he was dead in the water. It showed almost from the start as he lost key ministers Grace McCarthy and Brian Smith from cabinet, both powerful ministers. Eventually several MLAs resigned from his caucus to sit as independents.

(Pay no attention to good sportsmanship expressed by political losers to the winner — unless the new leader has and demonstrates firm control, they are bread soon to be toast. The toaster is humming.)

I believe that there are two moments in time, shortly to come, when several more of Christy Clark’s backbenchers will move to independents.

he first move was signalled when my MLA, Joan McIntyre, walked out of the House when Premier Clark was speaking which, coupled with Van Dongen’s departure, indicates that the movement might be sooner than later.

MLAs, like any group, at the best of times like to bitch and that brings those of similar complaints together. Of course there’s been talk. And this is not the best of times.

The usual signs of rebellion are in place. They have nothing to do, they fear an election with the premier still leading them and, at least in theory, they want to save the party that they see as needing a new leader to survive. If the B.C. Tories win Chilliwack and the NDP Port Moody, those seat changes, added to the two independents, put Premier Clark in a position where just four more defections make her beatable in a confidence vote.

Mostly MLAs, they want to save their own skins. And seats.

Conservatives as game changers

If the Conservatives win in Chilliwack, there is a new very powerful influence in place. A party which many MLAs to the right of the Liberal Party will see as attractive if only because it makes them more secure in their own ridings. Moreover, how can crossing the floor be worse than staying where they are?

You can bet the ranch on this — many backbenchers have been wooed by the Conservative Party, although John Cummins has probably absented himself from direct involvement.

Would this enhance the chances of the Conservatives in the May 2013 election?

Yes and no and maybe.

Yes in the sense that they will be in the hunt for second place, just as the Gordon Wilson Liberals were in 1991.

But the Conservatives have an Achilles heel in their positions of support for the Enbridge pipeline and tanker traffic on our coast. Frankly, this Cummins’ position is puzzling. Here’s a man who has devoted all his political efforts to save our salmon and now he is bent on destroying them. If he reversed his position, he would lose none of his support in the Fraser Valley and would give himself and his party a fighting chance in many other ridings.

One thing is for sure. Premier Clark is on a roll over the waterfall and won’t have any of her parliamentary party with the slightest desire to toss her a lifeline.

In fact, the party would like to dump her but a messy leadership convention would put them even deeper in the hole.

Forgive the self-congratulation, but I said from the beginning that Christy Clark doesn’t have what it takes to be a leader.

Not Your Mom and Dad’s Labour Movement

 

Young workers prepare to re-shape unions for the 21st century.

By Tom Sandborn, Yesterday, TheTyee.ca

Early shift: From left to right: committee members George Christou and Bonnie Hammond, VDLC president Joey Hartman and committee member Brett Small. Photo by Tom Sandborn.

• Labour’s New Wave Reinvents the Film Fest

  Using every digital tool, CLiFF brings work-themed cinema to wherever audiences may be.

• Young Workers, Serious Risks

  As I waited for coffee, didn’t anyone see the impending accident that made me hold my breath?

• Let’s Get Young and Old to Solve Problems Together

  That’s the idea behind Re:Generation and Bring Your Boomers, experiments in sharing power and ideas across age lines.

 

They sign up new members, they organize picket lines and demonstrations, they conduct high school classes in labour rights and workplace safety, and they cook meals for fundraising events to send young workers on solidarity trips to Cuba, South Africa and Central America. One even came back from a vacation in Las Vegas with a tattoo declaring their commitment to the cause. (You’ll find out where in a minute.)

A new generation of Canadian union activists are cheerfully working overtime to educate others their age about workers’ rights and on the job safety issues, organize progressive political events and build up membership in their unions. In B.C., many of these keen new organizers are associated with the Young Workers’ Committees of the Vancouver and District Labour Council and the BC Federation of Labour.

Young workers are emerging as an important cohort of organizers, educators and activists within the labour movement. They will be the ones who contend with the multiple future challenges facing a movement that has lost some of its strength over the last decades as anti-union legislation has been actively promoted across North America and anti-union views have been regularly dispensed by a well-funded network of right-wing think tanks like the Fraser Institute and by mass media outlets far more sympathetic to management than to labour.

Meanwhile, union density (the share of the workforce represented by trade unions) in North America has diminished as big business has shifted production off shore to take advantage of cheaper non-union labour abroad. And a new generation of young workers is facing unemployment rates of over 20 per cent for those under 30 and an array of part-time, contingent jobs as baristas, burger flippers, rest home cleaners or Walmart shelf stockers. And the average age that a worker first joins a union, around 25 in the 1990s, has gone up to 35 now, according to one union source who spoke to the Tyee.

Listening to young Labour

On a rainy March afternoon recently, The Tyee sat down with a group of young workers involved with the Vancouver and District Labour Council’s Young Workers Committee (together with VDLC president Joey Hartman) to talk about their committee and their hopes for the future of a movement they have joined at a difficult juncture in its history. Little they had to say supports the often-expressed view, most recently promulgated in a Globe and Mail feature the weekend before that organized labour in North America is on its last legs, with no idea of how to reach out to young and unorganized workers.

Don’t try to persuade Bonnie Hammond that unions are on their way out. The sturdy, buoyant young woman, newly elected co-chair of the VDLC’s young worker committee, is wired for optimism and willing to put in alarming amounts of energetic work to see her hopes realized.

A member of Canadian Auto Workers local 114, Hammond, who will age out as a "young worker" when her next birthday takes her over the line to 30, shares the chair of the committee with George Christou, a tall, beefy 19 year-old with a Liverpool accent and a long family tradition of trade union activism. Christou, who like the other young workers at the table says he foresees he will stay involved in union activism for the rest of his life, reports like Hammond that his volunteer involvement in young worker activity includes attending meetings most nights and weekends of demonstrations, and teaching high school students their workplace rights.

Their colleague, Brett Small, who belongs to CUPE 116, says that his involvement in the young workers’ committee keeps him busy too. But none of the committee members around the table with The Tyee seemed to grudge their exhausting rounds of union work.

"It doesn’t feel like work at all," Hammond said, to enthusiastic nods from Christou and Small. "It feels like hanging out with your friends and making the world a better place."

"My experience in the union movement has been life altering," Small said. "I’ve always cared about social justice and fairness. Unions embody that."

"When I was a kid," George Christou remembered, "I was always the one who got in trouble for standing up in class and saying something wasn’t fair. In the union movement, I have allies to work with when that happens now."

Travel and other forms of education

Small said that his involvement last year in a CoDevelopment Canada trip to Honduras and El Salvador, also made possible by young worker committee fundraising, was a crucial part of his deepening commitment to union work. On the trip he met with local young workers, women’s rights organizers and progressive radio journalists, and came back re-energized for his work in Vancouver.

Membership in the young workers committee at the VDLC, open to both union members and non-members, has a similarly energizing impact on many of its participants. One committee member, for example, is currently leading a unionization drive at a local outlet of a national coffee shop chain. And former members of the VDLC committee are moving up into positions of movement leadership, most notably Aaron Ekman, who was recruited by the VDLC’s then-president Bill Saunders and served as chair of the young workers committee in the middle of the last decade. Ekman is now the president of the North Central Labour Council, representing the interests of over 10,000 union members across B.C.’s north.

"I came out of the Canadian Federation of Students before I joined the young workers committee," Ekman told The Tyee. "I believe we need to remember the role of unionism in changing society. If we drift into ‘business unionism’ we lose our identity. We need to work offensively as well as defensively, and reaching out to young workers is an important way to do that."

‘Taking it to the streets’

The VDLC committee coordinates work and shares a lot of membership with the BC Federation of Labour’s Young Worker Committee. Together, the two bodies work on BC Fed initiatives like the classes on labour rights they deliver in local high schools and the safety education "Alive After Five" program, which operates on a grant from WorkSafeBC. Small and Christou are currently training to act as facilitators in the classroom programs, and Hammond currently leads a dozen sessions a month in various schools.

Another favorite initiative the young workers who spoke with The Tyee mentioned is the Employee Action and Rights Network (EARN). Currently boasting a membership of over 1,500 young workers, EARN is planning a year of aggressive organizing and public education in 2012 among young workers who are currently outside formal union membership, in hopes they can learn more about the protections built into the Employment Standards Act and about the further benefits available to union members.

According to Stephen Von Sychowlski, formerly chair of the VDLC’s young worker committee and currently leading the BC Fed’s equivalent grouping, "This means taking it to the streets, to the workplaces, and into the realm of political action. We will be launching the Make Work Better campaign which will take aim at the unfair server wage, campaign for improvements to the Employment Standards Act, and fight to defend and restore Grant’s Law. The Make Work Better campaign will take on the issues at the root cause; bad bosses and the provincial government that represents their interests. We are welcoming all workers, union and non-union to join in those efforts."

Von Sychowski said plans are in place to train all 1,500 current members of EARN as worker educators and organizers. He wants the EARN membership list to be more than just a simple contact or mailing list, he said.

"We are building bridges between the labour movement and non-unionized workers. The Canadian Labour Congress has a young workers’ committee and so do many locals and labour councils across the country. We want to encourage a lot more of that, and persuade young Canadians that the labour movement is an important part of our fight for change. This offers young people an opportunity to do something meaningful fighting for the kind of world and labour movement they want."

‘A terrific group’

The CAW, Hammond said, has more than 100 young workers’ committees across the country, and many other unions and labour councils are also sponsoring young workers’ groups.

The VDLC’s Hartman, whose support and mentoring drew praise from every young worker interviewed for this story, knows from her own experience how important unions can be for young workers.

"I grew up in Kerrisdale and I didn’t know much about unions until I got a job as a child care worker at a union organized daycare at Raecam in 1981. Soon after I got the job, we went on strike, a fight that lasted for 14 weeks. It turned into a fight for pay equity for day care workers, and although we didn’t win full wage parity with city garbage workers, which had been our goal, we did come back to work with a significant pay increase. I discovered myself in the union movement."

If the young workers are fond and respectful of Hartman, she feels the same way about them.

"They bring out 15 to 25 members to every meeting, and they are a terrific group," Hartman said. "They are so supportive and nurturing of each other, and they work their asses off, all the time. There was a time I thought that the only thing young workers wanted was for us older ones to get out of the way, but these young people have a real desire for intergenerational partnership. They are not dogmatic, but they have a strong sense of social justice. It isn’t too much to say that the way they work is rooted in love. They are not apathetic at all."

Talking across age lines

Hartman made a point of crediting her predecessor as VDLC president, Bill Saunders, for the "instrumental role" he played in the creation of the labour council’s young worker initiatives. Saunders spoke with The Tyee by phone on March 21 and said that his role had been simply to "open the door and welcome them in." He described his role in supporting the creation of a young workers committee at the VDLC as one of the things in his long labour movement career he was most proud of.

"The young workers are way more radical than we are, but if you give them real, not token work to do and listen to them, they do great things. They have to be offered a meaningful role. Of course, sometimes they’ll make mistakes. I told them I was willing to take heat for them as long as they didn’t blindside me."

Committee co-chair Hammond also stresses the importance of intergenerational dialogue and partnership within the labour movement.

"I tell them that the decisions they make now will be affecting us for the next 30 years, long after they are retired. Sure, sometimes we run into a little condescension — guys calling us ‘kiddo’ and wanting to pat us on the head. But mainly, we get wonderful respect and mentoring. We get to learn from them and they listen to us."

Hammond emphasized that her committee was open to all workers under 30, whether or not they currently belong to a union. She said that anyone interested in joining the committee should call her at 604-715-9553 or the VDLC office at 604-254-0703.

It is Hammond, by the way who, in a variation on wearing your heart on your sleeve, came back from a Las Vegas vacation with a permanent emblem of her union enthusiasm. She now sports a large and ornate "Solidarity" tattoo on her foot. Apparently not everything that happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!

Open to new militancy

When asked about their long-term goals, the young committee members who met with The Tyee all cited organizing new union memberships among the currently unorganized, increased gender equity both at work and inside unions, and an end to discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Bonnie Hammond’s tattoo. Photo: Tom Sandborn.

They hope to help reverse negative stereotypes about unions and young people in the mass media, and help put an end to inter-union raiding, which Hammond characterized as "lazy and disrespectful of the union movement."

They hope to help restore and further extend legal protections for workers and build a much larger, stronger union movement.

Like their union elders, they see supporting the NDP as a part of their ongoing strategy, but they are also willing to consider more militant tactics such as alliances with the Occupy movement. They speak matter of factly about organizing a general strike across the economy, a move that current union movement leadership tends to view with skepticism.

"In a couple of years," Christou told The Tyee," I could see a nation-wide general strike being organized against Harper. We have to do something about how the right to collective bargaining is being attacked."

Small agreed that a general strike might be a good tactic, but emphasized that it would only make sense when a lot of people were ready for it.

Half of BC Liberals’ 2009 supporters have gone to Conservatives, NDP

http://thetyee.ca

By Andrew MacLeod April 2, 2012 01:11 pm 6

If a British Columbia election were held today, 43 percent would support the New Democratic Party, with the Liberals and Conservatives tied at 23 percent, according to an Angus Reid Public Opinion poll released today.

Conducted March 29 and 30, it surveyed 800 randomly selected B.C. adults online, the poll also found the Liberals are losing votes to both parties and more than half of respondents said their view of Premier Christy Clark had worsened in the previous three months. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percent.

"The NDP maintains an impressive retention rate, keeping almost nine-in-ten of its voters in 2009 (87 percent)," says a summary. "In stark contrast, the BC Liberals are holding on to just 51 percent of their supporters. One-in-three BC Liberal voters in 2009 (33 percent) are now saying they would vote for the BC Conservatives, and 14 percent are ready to back the NDP."

Respondents gave approval ratings of 45 percent to NDP Leader Adrian Dix, 32 percent to Liberal Leader Clark and 28 percent to Conservative Leader John Cummins.

Green Party Leader Jane Sterk had a 26 percent approval rating, while her party was the choice of eight percent of respondents.

Dix continued to lead as the choice for best premier, with 25 percent, ahead of Clark at 17 percent, Cummins at 12 percent and Sterk at three percent.

Perhaps most significant for Clark was a negative 49 momentum score, based on 53 percent of respondents saying their opinion of her had worsened over the past three months. The other three leaders each scored negative two on the same measure.

The poll is similar to a recent one from Forum Research that found the Liberals and Conservatives tied, and contradicts one Mustel released last week that had the Liberals at 34 percent and the Conservatives at 17.

The next election is scheduled for May 14, 2013.

Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee’s Legislative Bureau Chief in Victoria. Find him on Twitter or reach him here.

Progress slow, but talks continue at community health bargaining table

 http://www.hsabc.org

April 2, 2012

The Community Bargaining Association (CBA) met again last week in Vancouver and exchanged and discussed proposals for three days with the Health Employers Association of British Columbia (HEABC).

The CBA tabled proposals related to health and welfare benefits including a proposal for a Short Term Illness and Injury Plan. The CBA also tabled proposals on job postings while the employer tabled their own proposals on the vehicle allowance and job postings.

The proposals represent all the issues to be tabled by the unions, with the exception of monetary issues.

Talks in community health will break for two weeks and are scheduled to resume in Vancouver for three weeks starting on April 16, 2012.

The Community Bargaining Association represents over 14,000 members, the majority of whom are represented by the BCGEU.  Other Unions at the table are UFCW, HEU, CUPE, HSA, and USWA.

Air Canada unions challenge bill

 

Calgary Herald April 3, 2012

The union representing 8,600 Air Canada’s baggage handlers and mechanics launched a constitutional challenge Monday of a back-to-work bill that prevented its members from striking last month.

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers launched its challenge in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice Monday, alongside a separate challenge launched by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers.

The postal workers were also ordered back to work last June through similar legislation introduced by federal labour minister, Lisa Raitt.

Dave Ritchie, IAMAW vice-president, said he believed Bill C-33, which was passed by Parliament last month, removed the union’s right to collective bargaining.

"Removing free collective bargaining and the right to strike from workers in the federal sector will poison labour relations between our members and Air Canada for years to come," he said in a statement.

Last month, the Air Canada Pilots Association launched a similar charter challenge in the Ontario court.

Air Canada’s pilots were threatened by the airline with a lockout on March 12, the same day as IAMAW set its strike deadline.

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Canada+unions+challenge+bill/6401530/story.html#ixzz1r2HcbpIY

Abbotsford approves monument to farmworkers killed in van accident five years ago

http://bcfed.ca

April 3, 2012

Vancouver, BC – Abbotsford City Council voted unanimously last night to approve a proposal to construct a monument in honour of the three farmworkers killed five years ago in a tragic van accident that was overcrowded, uninspected and had no seatbelts for 17 farmworkers.

While the families of Amarijit Kaur Bal, Sarabjit Kaur Sidhu, Sukhvinder Kaur Punia, sat in the audience, B.C. Federation of Labour President Jim Sinclair and local artist Dean Lauze presented the proposal for the monument to the city councillors.

The proposed monument is a 20′ ft. tall tree which is made up of three women. The roots turn into the women at trunk level and the branches become their arms reaching for the sky. It will be located in Mill Lake Park in downtown Abbotsford.

"We are still fighting for the safety of farmworkers but this monument will celebrate the lives of these women and make sure we never forget what happened to them," said Sinclair. "It has taken several years to get to this point and we are committed to seeing the project through."

In speaking to the Council, Sinclair said Abbotsford is an agricultural community and this monument, the first in the province with respect to farmworkers, will be an important addition to the community.

While several councillors had questions about the project, all spoke in favour of it and voted for it. As part of the agreement, the city will provide the support for the monument and do the landscaping. The families and community will fundraise to pay for the construction of the monument.