Ontario unions reject wage-freeze plan
2010 2010-08Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 10 →
The words are the paper's own, from its digital file; the division into articles was made by machine, so a box or caption can end up inside the article next to it.
Scan page 10
Public sector unions in Canada’s most populous province reject Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan’s call for a two-year wage freeze. The question remains: what will workers and their unions do to stop Duncan and the Liberal government at Queen’s Park from imposing a freeze, along with cuts to public services?
Duncan insists that reducing the province’s $19.7 billion deficit is a priority. Since salaries account for 55 per cent of all government programme spending, for him the target seems obvious—the very same point he made in his March 25 budget. But the facts he ignored then, still remain. CUPE Ontario president Fred Hahn hit the mark when he asked how the government “can square the circle of giving a corporate tax cut that will equal $4.6 billion out of the economy” and then tell workers to accept less pay. And what about the bail-out money Ontario gave to manufacturers and resource firms since the 2008 crash, to say nothing about sky-high CEO salaries funded by the province, and the permanent tax holiday enjoyed by speculators and the rich?
OPSEU President Smokey Thomas set the right tone in a message to his 125,000 members on July 20 when he wrote, “Do not assume that you must accept zeros. Do not assume you can only bargain “non-monetary” items.
10 Socialist Action august 2010 ... We negotiate strong contracts when our members are ready to back their bargaining teams.”
Thomas went on to address the economic crisis: “OPSEU members did nothing to create the economic meltdown that caused the provincial deficit. It is absolutely unfair to single out people to pay for that deficit just because they happen to be public employees. It is even more unfair that rich individuals will not pay one penny extra towards the deficit ... profitable corporations are getting massive tax breaks. Based on their expected profits of $20 billion in 2010, Canada’s Big Six banks will see their Ontario corporate income taxes fall by at least $200 million this year alone. ... If you accept a wage cut, the money you give up won’t go to save public services. It will pay for tax cuts for the banks. ... We will not hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to get what is fair and to get what OPSEU members need.”
Ontario Federation of Labour President Sid Ryan called the proposed wage freeze “a horrible idea”, but the tone he set for fighting it was, at best, confused. “We’re not even close” to discussing any sort of general strike or other job action, he told the Toronto Star. It would have been better for Ryan to echo the pledge of Smokey Thomas, “to take whatever action is necessary”,