Budget targets federal workers

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speaks to an evening rally Feb. 6 in Toronto in front of the building housing the Russian Consulate, the day before the start of the Winter Olymics at Sochi. Called to protest Putin’s anti-gay law and increased oppression and violence Tkatchevskaia, and 18-year-old Justin Romanov. Justin was assaulted by Russian police and is applying for refugee status in Canada. Following the rally, a spirited march down Church St. ended at Ryerson University where New Democratic Party MP and Finance Critic Peggy Nash called the Feb. 11 Conservative federal budget a “do nothing budget.” We should be so lucky!

In reality, it is a broadside assault on workers. Federal public service retirees, including from the military and the RCMP, will be asked to pay 50 per cent of premiums for their health-care plan. The average annual retiree contribution will jump from $261 to $550, saving Otta­ wa $7.4 billion. This goes towards a whopping $12.3 bil­ lion in targetted cuts. The government will also require of its employees six years of service before qualifying for the health plan at retirement.

Combined with the Tory-backed Canada Post Corpora­ tion decision to end door-to-door mail delivery, which will eliminate about 8000 letter carrier jobs over the next four years, the Conservative financial statement deepens the one-sided class war known as “austerity.”

What about job creation? After all, officially there are 1.3 million unemployed—more if you count the hun­ dreds of thousands of “discouraged” workers. On that score Finance Minister Jim Flaherty claims that a centre piece of his budget is the $500 million a year earmarked for “skills training.” But training for what jobs? At the same time he scrapped a $200 million annual hiring credit for small business.

Compared to $279 billion in overall federal spending, the sums that are allocated to training and related ini­ tiatives, like the $12 million-a-year loan programme to Following the lead of the federal Conser­ vative regime, the Ontario Liberal govern­ ment announced that, starting in 2017, it will force its public service workers to pay more and work twice as long to qualify for retirement benefits such as life insurance and health coverage.

The measures, which require retirees to pay half their benefit premiums, now fully funded by Queen’s Park, and necessitate 20 years’ service instead of the present 10, are not subject to negotiation, which they will be at the federal level. Liberal Govern­ ment Services Minister John Milloy simply imposed the changes, aimed at saving $1.2 billion over five years. This will be directly at the expense of provincial workers, and indirectly harms all workers by the exam­ ple it sets.

Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union President Warren (Smokey) Thomas de­ nounced the “out of the blue” move. “We are looking at our options.”

According to President of the Ontario Federation of Labour, Sid Ryan, when On­ tario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath was asked by reporters about this, she said “No comment.” That was coupled with Hor­ wath’s avoidance of the minimum wage issue for months. Then she proposed a measly increase, over two years—just $1 more than the insulting Liberal increase of 75 cents to take effect this spring. While Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne sets the poverty wage at $11/hour, Horwath would make it $12/hour (in 2016). Labour and many anti-poverty groups demand a $14/ hour minimum now, indexed to the rate of inflation. Socialists, and some unions like CUPE-Ontario, call for $17/hour now, fully indexed. Apparently, that doesn’t fit with Horwath’s appeal to “middle-class” voters, and to “making life more affordable.”

Sid Ryan gave a scathing report to the On­ tario NDP provincial council on the morn­ ing of March 2. He said he was “perplexed” by the process and the weak position taken on the minimum wage. Ryan minced no words in stating how disturbed he was to hear that NDP MPPs voted in the Ontario 10 SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 2014 Legislature for a Conservative motion that opposes any increase in corporate taxation. He additionally denounced Horwath’s call for a reduction in taxes on small business, from the present 5% to 3.5%, to support a tiny increase in the minimum wage. “How will an NDP government pay for improve­ ments in transportation, health, education and other vital services if it doesn’t plan to tax those who can afford to pay more?” On the topic of pensions, Ryan bluntly warned that if Queen’s Park initiates an Ontario pension plan because Ottawa re­ fuses to increase the CPP, it had better be a universal plan, with no opt-out feature, or Labour will vigorously oppose it. He explained, in advance, his reasons for con­ cern. “There is no consultation with unions by the party leadership. Policy decisions are just announced. There may be a wise and grand strategy behind it all, but it’s certainly not evident to me,” Ryan com­ plained.

Finally, the OFL president insisted on the importance of the campaign to defend postal services, to reverse the Tory-backed Canada Post plan to eliminate door-to-door mail delivery. He pointed to this writer as the organizer of a mass picket, set for March 15 at the Toronto office of Conservative Cabinet Minister Joe Oliver, and urged everyone to par­ ticipate in the protest.

To those who claim that, no mat­ ter what the NDP does, labour has no where else to go, the OFL head warned: “Look at what happened in B.C. Workers were alienated by the NDP, and when the election came, many just stayed at home.”

Sid Ryan concluded by confiding to the council that the harsh things he’d said were necessary to say, all true, and told from the heart—and that being frank about these matters may be the only way to get a real dialog going. And he’s correct. But much more must be said, and done, to force the ONDP leadership off its present course, increasingly distant from the union movement, and increasingly cozy with the business class. n help apprentices pay for training, the $10 million a year to help boost new companies, and $500 million over two years in repayable loans for new vehicle technology, are truly miniscule.

The 419-page fiscal document offers nothing to im­ prove pension security, nothing to provide affordable medical drugs, or fund care givers to the growing senior segment of the population. Yet there’s plenty of money for prisons, spying and the armed forces. If Prime Minis­ ter Stephen Harper has his way, between 2010 and 2017, federal spending will have been slashed by $90 billion. The only visible spark in the financial parleys arose from the dispute among Tory politicians over “income splitting,” a measure designed to reduce the taxes of couples with children and a stay-at-home spouse. Fla­ herty sidelined this Tory promise of the 2011 election campaign because, according to him, it would mostly fa­ vour the rich. But Harper wants to keep it. The $5 billion it would cost, ironically, could fund a national childcare programme.

So, what is this exercise really about? “It’s all about next year’s budget,” said NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair. Actually, counting the government’s contingency fund, a slim surplus already exists, after a decade of deficit slay­ ing. In 2015 the surplus is expected to hit $6.4 Billion. That’s enough to generate more tax cuts for the affluent, and a few pre-election gimmicks aimed at winning an­ other Harper majority.

The budget, as political pundits are wont to say, is a political document. The next Omnibus bill is where the bitterly cold weather.

participants held an indoor meeting.

Toronto Labour activists Rally to Defend Postal Services About 60 union activists and supporters rallied to the call of Socialist Actio on Feb. 21 at U of Toronto, to Defend Postal Ser­ vices and to Defeat the Attack on the Public Sector.

The leaders who addressed the gathering included Marie Clarke Walker, vice presi­ dent of the Canadian Labour Congress; Denis Lemelin, national president, Cana­ dian Union of Postal Workers; Sid Ryan, president of Ontario Federation of Labour and past-President of CUPE-Ontario; Sha­ ron DeSousa, regional executive VP for Ontario for the Public Service Alliance of Canada; Julius Arscott, V.P. of OPSEU Local 532, speaking on behalf of Myles Magner, V.P. of the Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union (who was unable to at­ tend due to illness), Valerie Gaynor from leading organizer of the event, and two Russian LGBT activists, Nadine has been simply deferred, for the sake of appearances).

The NDP should demand an end to ‘socialism for the rich’, including the $1 Billion in subsidies to oil compa­ nies whose tar sands oil produces deadly spills and fuels climate disasters.

The Council of Canadians responded to the federal budget arguing that it is being used to distract public at­ tention from the government’s actions on trade, water, climate and energy, mining, health care, and democracy. The Harper government “remains on track to cut $90 billion in federal spending by 2017. This hurts our public health care system, it denies help for seniors and vet­ erans, it withholds needed funding for the Great Lakes, and it fails to invest in clean water for First Nations and a renewable energy future for all of us. This is not a ‘donothing budget’, it’s an intentional assault on the public interest”, said Brent Patterson, CoC Political Director. These are points the NDP should make, instead of focussing on high bank fees and repeating the mantra about “making life more affordable.”

Mulcair should follow the lead of the labour-backed Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in demanding national childcare and pharmacare, affordable housing, improved employment insurance, lower university tu­ ition, restoring 65 as the age of eligibility for Old Age Insurance, getting decent housing and water for First Na­ tions, and reinstatement of the funding for the Interim Federal Health Programme.

It’s clear that the fight for such measures, as part of a Workers’ Agenda that includes public ownership un­ der workers’ control of big industry, will have to be ad­ vanced outside of Parliament by working people, from the grass roots up. n Julius Arscott / Socialist Action (Above) Socialist Action member and photographer Malu Baumgarten against queer people in Russia, the event drew about 200 participants in Speakers included Richard Elliott of the HIV/AIDS Legal network, a UNITE HERE Local 75, currently a shop steward at U of T St. George campus, and John Clarke, provincial organizer for the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty.

People at the rally, voted unanimously to call for a mass picket at the office of Con­ servative Cabinet Minister Joe Oliver on March 15. Needed is a cross-country wave of protest against the postal cuts. EglintonLawrence MP Joe Oliver is Minister of Natural Resources in the Stephen Harper Cabinet. He voted in Parliament against the NDP motion to keep door to door mail delivery. Oliver’s constituency office is the most accessible Tory target for Toronto area supporters of the postal service.

Workers are asked to obtain the endorse­ ment of organizations for the March 15 picket, and to indicate what they are pre­ pared to do to make the next phase in this campaign a success. — B.W.

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OPS benefits cut: NDP’s Horwath is silent, OFL’s Ryan disturbed