Georgetti: The Tories Attack on the Middle Class Should Worry You

Ken Georgetti    President, Canadian Labour Congress

12/04/2013   http://www.huffingtonpost.ca

The Conservative government is engaged in a campaign to distract their supporters from a series of Senate scandals and cover ups. The Conservative fundraising machine believes that if it feeds its base a constant diet of someone to dislike, the donation cheques will keep rolling in. Workers and their unions are their current targets with a long list of legislation designed to keep their base happy.

The Conservative government’s recent volleys against workers and their unions will only serve to undercut the well-being and security of middle-class families in Canada if they succeed in pushing through their anti-union legislation. The Globe and Mail said as much in a recent series of articles on growing inequality in Canada — "declining unionization has contributed to wage inequality."

Canada’s labour movement is not just about decent jobs, it’s about a better life for everyone. Unions have worked to protect good jobs, make workplaces safer, fought for paid vacation time, public health insurance and the Canada Pension Plan. When union members stand up for fairness everyone benefits — whether you belong to a union or not.

Canadians will see through the government’s attempts to divide people against one another. At one end of the legislative spectrum, the government uses giant omnibus bills to throw everything but the kitchen sink into one piece of legislation. The current budget bill runs to 308 pages and in the fine print it makes sudden and dramatic changes to the Canada Labour Code. One of those changes would place workers’ lives at risk by eroding their right to refuse dangerous work.

Other amendments to federal labour laws would erode workers’ constitutional right to bargain collectively by letting the government unilaterally, without negotiation, change the rules for bargaining with their employees. To add insult to injury, witnesses to the parliamentary committee studying the bill who would speak out against the changes were deliberately scheduled to testify after the deadline for the committee to make amendments passed.

What is the government really trying to fix here? We know that well over 99 per cent of all collectively bargained contracts in Canada result in an agreement rather than a strike or lockout. There was no consultation with any of the parties affected by this proposed legislation, and changing the rules without consultation and negotiation is simply heavy-handed and unfair. Given the Supreme Court of Canada will soon rule on very similar legislation introduced by the Saskatchewan government, the ideological cousins of this government, it’s also premature.

At the other end of the legislative spectrum, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is offending parliamentary tradition by using its influence to introduce Private Member’s Bills and to force their passage. That is what happened with Bill C-377, an unconstitutional piece of legislation that will force labour organizations (but no one else) to undertake costly and time consuming reporting of even the most minute of financial transactions.

Bill C-377 was supposedly the initiative of backbench Conservative MP Russ Hiebert but we know that special interest groups met frequently with the PMO, including the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Nigel Wright, and the PMO exerted pressure in order for the bill to pass.

The senate found Bill C-377 to be so offensive that it was sent back to the House of Commons in June with numerous amendments. But then the Prime Minister shut down Parliament and Bill C-377 is now going to be sent to the senate all over again. Bill C-377 is ideologically-motivated and aimed at wasting union members’ money and it is not needed. Our members already have access to financial information about the unions to which they belong.

Bill C-525, another Private Member’s Bill put forward by a Conservative MP, would make it nearly impossible for workers in the federally-regulated sector to join a union. The bill would consider workers who don’t bother to vote in a certification vote as casting "no" ballots on having a union. That’s not democratic — giving those who don’t vote control over those who do. If those rules applied to electing MPs, Parliament would be empty. One set of rules for Conservatives and a different set for workers — that’s unfair.

Finally, the recent Conservative Party convention in Calgary passed a number of aggressively anti-worker resolutions. One of them would allow some workers to stop paying union dues but still receive all the benefits that the union negotiates – all at the expense of their coworkers who do pay their dues. Leave it to ethically-challenged Conservatives, counselling people that it’s okay to dine and dash at a restaurant while leaving others at your table to pay the bill. That’s unfair and it’s a recipe for conflict and disruption in the workplace.

This government puts its extreme ideology ahead of all other considerations, but Canadians see these bullying tactics for what they are. The CLC and its affiliates ran a television advertising campaign during October and November 2013. We talked directly to Canadians about the positive role that the labour movement plays in our society. The response to our campaign has been overwhelmingly positive from both union members and the public at large. That response and our polling shows that we are on the side of the vast majority of Canadians. They will support a labour movement that works in the interest of fairness for everyone.

Ken Georgetti is president of the 3.3 million member Canadian Labour Congress.

Opinion: The Greatest Challenge Facing The Labour Movement And What Skills Are Essential for Today’s Leaders

December 1, 2013    Andrew Chernoff

The greatest challenge facing the labour movement is re-establishing itself as a valid and vital movement in the lives of working people, politics and society in the 21rst century.

The fights and struggles that the labour movement had in the 20^th century, continue. The gains that the labour movement achieved, are being threatened, challenging unionism and the strength of the union movement

The labour movement needs to rediscover and identify with the roots of its movement—-what inspired the rise of unions in Canada; its impact on Canadian politics; and its influence on society over the last one hundred years.

For example, advocating for justice, health and safety for workers.

Being a voice for decent wages; the 8-hour work day/40 hour work week; decent working conditions.

Speaking up politically as stewards of Canada’s resources and the land,; promoting laws and regulations that not only advance, but protect, our standard of life for all Canadians, now and for the future.

Politically, the 20^th century saw the emergence of the federal New Democratic Party which the labour movement helped found.

The impact of the labour movement on Canadian society was no more apparent than the realization of Universal Health Care for all Canadians.

In short, the labour movement needs to embrace the ideals and passions, the inspiration, that got labour and Canadians in general, engaged in the late 19^th century and early 20^th century, in combating its greatest challenge in this century: its reestablishment as a valid and vital movement in the lives of Canadians, society and politics.

No more less important, and imperative for the labour movement, are our leaders; specifically, our leaders possessing and utilizing skills that are essential in taking on the great challenge facing the labour movement.

For example:

Being well versed in parliamentary procedure and a good public speaker are necessary skills when advancing the agenda of the labour movement whether it is in a union meeting, on the shop floor or at a community hall meeting on a local issue important to all. To articulate simply, clearly and effectively, in a way that instills faith, confidence and engages the listener, creates conversation and participation, and helps to maintain order.

Being a good listener. It is essential in determining what is working, what isn’t working; how it could be made better. If our leaders are too busy speaking, then they are not listening and endeavouring to find out what someone else has to say and contribute to the conversation.

Finally, engagement. The skill of being able to engage those in the union movement in a personal and real way that makes a difference for them; that makes them feel empowered and encouraged that they can make a difference, not just as part of the labour movement but as a citizen in their community, their province and in their country.

An 80th Anniversary Message from Campbell Newman – Welcome to Germany 1933

November 16, 2013     http://archiebutterfly.wordpress.com

NOTE: Campbell Kevin Thomas Newman is an Australian politician and the 38th and current Premier of Queensland since 26 March 2012. His government in Queensland’s parliament passed a contentious industrial relation law on November 27, 2913 “but Queensland Council of Unions (QCU) president John Battams says the government’s urgency and lack of consultation has been breathtaking” and “the legislation is designed to instil fear in public servants and strip them of their workplace rights.”, according to ninemsn.

"They will have no rights whatsoever, the government will have total control over them," he told AAP.

The following is a satirical comment on the passing of the contentious legislation, that the author believes bears a striking resemblance to Nazi Germany 1933.

With the Harper government and provincial governments in Canada declaring war on unions, the comment is thought provoking and sobering. Cheers.

When the great man Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933 one of the first things on his agenda was taking out the pinko commies and destroying the unions. He figured it would shut up any dissent and please his rich donors, and he was right. 80 years ago he gave the nod to the boys in black and brown and in shades of our boys in Mappoon they went in and smashed up all the trade union offices in the country, arrested all the union officials and made quite a few of them disappear if you know what I mean. And good riddance to them too. If only we had the same luxury we would fix this joint in a blink.

After they’d sorted the union bosses the Nazi state took over the role of looking after the interests of the working class, and a bloody good job they did too. They sorted out the gays and the gypsies and the Jehovah’s Witnesses (shut up JP) and the Jews and everyone else  they didn’t like or who didn’t vote for them. And it worked – the economy was booming, business was making money, confidence was high. And then those bloody lefties Churchill and Roosevelt got involved and stuffed the whole thing up. Idiots.

But don’t you worry about that because Hitler knew what the go was and so does Can Do Campbell Newman, and we’ve decided to mark the 80th anniversary of the attack on unions by launching our very own barrage on the unions here in Nazi Queensland. Yes my loyal subjects, we’ve just introduced a bill into State Parliament that crushes the unions with the stroke of a pen. We’ve seen off the bikies and now wer’re going to see of those Labor loving fat cat bastards (What’s that? I earn 5 times as much as a union boss? Manassa Mauler – grab that man, throw a leather jacket on him and send him to the star chamber).

Yes Queensland rejoice, because no budding Labor hack union official or fat cat boss will ever again set foot in your workplace to bother you with nonsense about fair wages and conditions, or collective agreements, or strike action ever again because just like Uncle Adolf we’ve taken over the role of looking after the working class, and have we got some good news for you.

First off, you don’t have to worry about whether you’re going to Straddy at Xmas this year or saving your holidays to visit mum in Thargomindah in July, because your employer’s going to decide for you when you take your leave. Yep, you just sit back and concentrate on the job at hand and your boss will give you a fortnight’s notice and off on holidays you’ll go. It’ll take all the worry out of your hands and I bet that’s a bloody relief. And if it’s not, well I am sure you all appreciate that the boss pays the wages so unless you want us to stamp a Mongol tattoo on your forehead I’m sure you’ll simply do as you are told.

We’ve cut the red-tape around redundancy payments and made them easier for you to understand by simply trimming away the fat. Now you’ll have less money to count when we ask you to pursue a different career path, and because you’re getting paid less you’ll pay less tax, and no-one likes to pay tax. And if anyone tries to tell you your redundancy pay is less than the Fair Work Act minimum standard, well you just tell them that we do things differently up here and ask them if they are bloody two-headed Tasmanian or something.

You see up  here we’re smarter than the average wombat, and Queenslanders know that if you’ve been bludging on the public purse for 9 years in the Department of Transport then you deserve to get 3 weeks less pay than you used to, and this productivity improvement will mean that instead of sitting around watching daytime TV for three months youll get off your ass and find another job. And that’s what public service redundancies are about – jobs, jobs, jobs.

And speaking of jobs, we hear that they’re looking for cleaners at the airport so take the tip and join the job queue outside Qantas at 4 o’clock tomorrow morning. They’re running 3 month unpaid job trials to assess your suitability so bring a mop and your own cleaning products.

And in the future don’t bother to go looking for help from those slugs who bludge off your union fees, because we’ve made it illegal for your boss to consult with Vicious Lawless Associations about workplace changes or involve them in any way in the decision-making process. Shoot, we’ve made it illegal for your boss to even tell the unionbastards that they are going to make any changes, and the whippersnapper will have your employer up against the wall if the jelly-legged cowards even try to slip the union any documents or information about the jobs they plan to cut.

Employment security’s also out the window. We can’t run this state properly if people aren’t running around in fear so it’s now illegal to mention job security in awards, contracts or agreements. It’s also illegal to talk about contracting out your jobs or services – that’s the bosses prerogative and they can do whatever the hell they like, and if your job is outsourced to Sri Lanka well you should be happy that you’re contributing to the war on terror and the evil axis, because we have to give the soldiers something to do when the’re not raping the wives or killing the kids of suspected terrorists don’t we?

We were working on a plan to send the union bosses over to Columbo just so the troops can keep their hand in, but we’ve hit a snag because they keep banging on about turning our boats back, but I’ll talk to Scotty and I’m sure he’ll work something out. We’ll let you know at the weekly briefing if we feel like it, otherwise we’ll just let you know that for reasons of national security we can’t let you know and I’m sure you won’t mind because you’re sick of hearing about brown bastards in boats anyway.

We’ve also taken the red tape off restrictions to when you can and can’t work and because we know you’re keen to put in 24/7 rostering will now be your bosses sole decision, just like it should be, and if you can’t work Tuesday nights because you’re a single mum and you can’t get a babysitter then maybe you should have a good hard look at yourself in the mirror at Centrelink in Tweed Heads because there’s no jobs here in Queensland for the likes of you.

And we know you don’t like the red-tape wrapped around the award, minimum conditions and all that crap, so we’re changing them too, and we’ve set it up so that the people who run this bloody state – that’s Jarrod and I – can tell those imbecile industrial commissioners exactly what they can and can’t put in the awards. In fact we’re probably going to write the bloody awards for them, because those buggers are just like the judges and if it’s not written down then they can’t be trusted to interpret the law the way we mean it to be. These bastards get up my nose they just sit their in their ivory towers and nitpick over whether arguing over the meaning of words and suffering up our laws. What a bloody waste of time. is, was, is going to be – they’re bloody bikies so just lock them up you twits.

While we’re on the subject, I’m thinking about cutting the red-tape big-time and getting rid of the law books altogether. We’ll just put our legislation up on Wikipedia, and if any half smart cocaine-snorting bleeding heart lefty lawyer finds a loophole Jarrod can just do an edit on his smartphone and Bob’s your uncle, problem fixed.  And if any of those whineing academic posers on the bench try to make you pay more tax by giving you a pay rise, and let me make it clear more pay for you bludgers is not part of our fiscal strategy, then we’ll edit that out too with one big DELETE because only we get more money, and I’m sure you agree we bloody deserve it for having to put up with you lot.

But I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that we’ve sorted out the problem with the teenage thugs who are on the path to becoming bikies by taking away all their employment rights. If they want to play the selfie-taking, we’re only young once card then these school-based apprentices and trainees, who couldn’t get their noses out of their iphones long enough to understand their rights anyway, can go and kiss my ass and if they’ve got a problem at work well that’s there problem and if they want to get smart about it we’ve got boot camps ready and waiting to sort their punk attitudes out.

And there’s no discrimination anymore in this State unless you’re young, disabled or an apprentice. We’re going to pay that lot less so if you think about it you’re actually getting a relative pay increase without it costing us a cent. How good’s that hey? We tried to cut the pay of these gay-marriage seeking homos too but the problem is that since we took the scalpel to their equal rights laws they’ve been difficult to spot because they’ve taken off their pink jackets and covered up their rainbow tattoos and the limp wristed Leo’s are hiding among normal Queenslanders like Jarrod and Tim and me.

We’ll find them though because I’ve called up the Doctor, the Rabbi and the Right to Life GP to form an advisory panel to the government to sort it out. While they’re up here I’m going to get them to do a review of our funding of Family Planning clinics too because the bloody things cost a fortune and these bloody women just need to keep their legs together and we wouldn’t have a problem would we?

But I digress. Now if like most slack-ass employees your collective agreement includes a whole lot of company policies then we’ve cut the red-tape and made things easier for you to understand by stripping them all out. So now you can forget all that rubbish about your boss feeling you up in lunchroom or making you work 27 shifts in a row being against policy, because Queensland only has one policy these days and that is to screw you down as tight as we can so that we can give more money to business. It’s a good policy and it’s the Reich policy and I’m sure you will agree.

So folks, thanks for coming to listen in your 10 minutes lunch break – yes we did think about cutting lunch out all together to give you the privilege of increasing productivity but then you’d be going to the toilet on the bosses time and we’re not having any of that – now shoot off and shackle yourselves to your desks again because Jarrod and I have got a bunch of badass Bandido’s to worry about and we need to take off to lunch at the Pier to discuss it over a few crabs and coldies.

But just before we go I’d like to take the pleasure of announcing that to mark today’s 80th anniversary law changes we have adopted a new motto for Queensland, and it’s a ripper.

Work Will Set You Free.

And ain’t that the truth. Adolf would be proud of you all.

Now piss off and get back to work!

And don’t fall over the boxes in the doorway on your way out because accident pay’s for bludgers and we’ve made that illegal too.

Should the public service have the right to strike? YES

By Jim Stanford, Ottawa Citizen November 26, 2013

Photograph by: Chris Mikula , The Ottawa Citizen

It might seem like ancient history, but it wasn’t long ago that Canadian governments knew how to balance their books — and then some. The collective operating surplus of Canadian governments in 2007 equalled almost $40 billion. Teachers, nurses, and other public servants did their jobs. Tax revenues were more than sufficient to pay for their valuable work (in fact, average tax rates were falling, not rising).

Then along came a global financial meltdown. (No one argues, by the way, that it was caused by teachers, nurses and civil servants.) Surpluses dissolved into deficits: not huge, by historic or international standards, but significant. And some political leaders made tackling the deficit their defining crusade. Showing they could manage their own finances helped them pretend they were in control of the worrisome events around them. In that effort, public sector workers and their unions presented a politically convenient target.

It’s not that public sector compensation costs caused the deficit (which didn’t exist, remember, until 2008). Nor would squeezing public employees be central to the deficit reduction exercise. At the federal level, direct compensation accounts for only 8.5 cents of each dollar in total government spending, and that ratio has been stable. Achieving, say, a wage freeze instead of paying a normal two-per-cent annual increase, on that small share of spending, could make no noticeable difference to the fiscal trajectory.

Nor was strike activity crippling the economy and service delivery. In fact, the incidence of work stoppage (measured by days lost per worker to strikes and lockouts) fell in 2012 to the lowest since statistics began in 1946: down over 95 per cent compared to the strike-happy 1970s. Public sector workers are less likely to go on strike, not more: they’ve accounted for one-third of all work stoppage days in the last decade, even though they now make up over half of all union members.

No, tilting at public sector unions is all about politics, not economics. Governments want to change the channel from persistent economic stagnation and embarrassing scandals. Workers in the private sector suffered during the recession, politicians argue (not that they act to support private sector workers, either). So it’s about time public sector workers suffer, too. The logic of this ideology of “shared misery” may be bizarre, but it’s politically potent.

Thus began the latest chapter in a long-standing Canadian tradition: when times are tough, blame the unions. And then take away their right to strike. It’s happened over 200 times in Canada in the last 30 years.

The latest example is Bill C-4. It would give the federal government unilateral power to define who can strike and who can’t (contrary to past practice and international convention). The government won’t detail how this will happen until after the law is passed. In a true Catch-22, the bill would also neuter the arbitration process for workers who can’t strike. And the whole process is buried within a 321-page omnibus bill, debate on which was curtailed two days after it was introduced. Bill C-4 is an affront to democracy — both in Parliament, and in the workplace.

The attack on public sector labour rights is usually justified by the claim that unions have soaked taxpayers through their irresistible demands. This claim is not supported. In practice, public sector bargaining tends to follow economy-wide trends, but with a lag. Public sector wages were much lower before public sector unionization took off in the 1970s. Wages caught up in the 1980s, then fell behind again during the austere 1990s. The public sector did better in the mid-2000s. But more recently, bargaining has clearly responded to tough times: for four years running, public sector settlements have lagged well behind private sector deals, and behind the general growth of earnings in the overall economy.

Average earnings in the public sector are five to 10 per cent higher than economy averages (depending on how they are measured) — but education and credentials are significantly higher, too. Comparing similar occupations and credentials, it’s largely a wash. Women make more in the public sector than in the private sector, but men make less. The whole wage scale is compressed (with a higher bottom and a lower top). But overall public sector compensation is not out of whack — and powerful economic and political pressures tend to keep it that way.

Governments are the only employer with the power to “solve” their labour relations problems by simply dictating a settlement. The potential for misuse of this confluence of fiscal interest and political power is enormous. Most private sector employers would love to outlaw strikes and dictate wage outcomes, but they can’t — and for good reason. Where public employees provide a genuinely essential service (like fire, police, and some health services), there’s no debate: in place of strikes or lockouts, a neutral arbitration system should replicate collective bargaining outcomes without work stoppage. But other public sector workers must have the same rights as anyone else in our society to organize themselves and promote their interests, up to and including withdrawing their labour if that’s necessary to get a deal.

Jim Stanford is an economist with the trade union Unifor. Tuesday night at the Canadian War Museum, in a debate hosted by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and moderated by former House speaker Peter Milliken, economist Jim Stanford and professor Tom Flanagan debated the resolution “The right to strike has no place in the public sector.”

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