New president emphasizes unity, reaching out to the public for support.
by Ish Theilheimer, with YouTube video by Samantha Bayard
Robyn Benson knows her work is cut out for her. She’s a grassroots public service union activist from Winnipeg who cut her teeth in a famous wildcat strike in 1980. Last May, Benson was elected national president of the 186,000-member Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), a union that finds itself in the crosshairs of political gunsights. On one hand, tens of thousands of her members are losing their jobs; on the other hand, the government is threatening action to end automatic union membership for federal employees.
Benson was a single mother os two small children, working for the Canada Revenue Agency, when what she called the "infamous C&R (Clerical and Regulatory) Strike" broke out in the federal public service in 1980, sparked by women fed up with pay inequality.
"I got a phone call and then I was on the picket line," she told Straight Goods News in an interview this week. From there, she became increasingly involved in union work, getting elected to her first local executive position in 1985. After 12 years as Prairies regional vice president of her PSAC component, she was the surprise choice of PSAC convention delegates, in the race to replace outgoing president John Gordon.
Robyn Benson speaks with Ish Theilheimer about her new role as National President of PSAC.
She says successive federal governments have "eroded" the public service — with the Jean Chrétien Liberals having cut 45,000 jobs in the 1990s — but, "We now have an even bigger fight in terms of this particular government. We've suffered at the hands of various governments. This particular government seems to be doing cuts with no rhyme or reason." She said Stephen Harper, "doesn't want to have government workers at all. If they could contract out all our work, that's what they would do."
Benson brings a practical Prairies approach to her new job. She wants to bring together all her union's directly chartered locals and 17 different components "to work collectively as one" on a political action plan aimed at the 2015 election. "We're not going to be fractured, we're going to look to having the same banner, the same communications."
Benson is keenly aware that, although the government has cut about 20,000 jobs this year, it aims to cut 90,200 jobs in all. "We are all affected by what this government is doing," Benson says. "And that's our signature campaign until 2015. We are all affected. Because each Canadian is affected — whether they have to wait two more years to get Old Age Secuity — and when they get it what the waiting time will be, because the service officers have been cut – or Employment Insurance has been delayed because we don't have enough service officers.
"There's search-and-rescue. Closing down bases such as Kitsilano. Food safety. We've just gone through a huge beef recall. We have the CFIA, our members who want to do their jobs, but when the government says that some of these companies should be self-regulated, we see what happens."
There are many areas where the federal government is cutting without enough thought, she says, and this explains the federal government’s attacks on unions in general, and hers in particular. "If you're looking at what [Nepean MP and Parliamentary Assistant Pierre] Poilievre is talking about with the Rand Formula… that's just smoke and mirrors," to divert attention from service cuts affecting all Canadians.
Pierre Poilievre’s threat to abolish the Rand formula is just smoke and mirrors to divert attention from service cuts affecting all Canadians.
Similarly, the private member's bill (C377) working its way through Parliament (that will force unions to take on a heavy new administrative burden) is also meant as a distraction. "If you have Mr. Clement talking to big business about trying to cut red tape, why are you then turning around with a private members bill, which is really disguised government legislation, and it's going to put even more red tape and paperwork?"
"It's so they can put public attention on the unions instead of on the cuts they're actually making."
Through its We Are All Affected campaign, the PSAC intends to keep the focus of their political work on service cuts, not job loss, she says. "It's not about the unions saying our jobs are being cut, it's about us working collectively with all Canadians to say these are the services that you'll be missing. Maybe not today or tomorrow, because they have a three-year plan, but they will be gone."
"We need to mobilize Canadians, every one of them."
About Ish Theilheimer and Samantha Bayard
Ish Theilheimer is founder and publisher of SG News and lives in Golden Lake, ON. Samantha Bayard is an Ottawa reporter and an editorial and administrative assistant at SGNews.
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