Canadian Union of Public Employees

With 618,000 members across Canada, CUPE represents workers in health care, education, municipalities, libraries, universities, social services, public utilities, transportation, emergency services and airlines.

Federal budget paves way for more P3s

Mar 282013
 
 Public Values
CUPE President Paul Moist.

Infrastructure hype masks a cut in spending.

from the Canadian Union of Public Employees

Despite the federal government's proclaimed investment in infrastructure, Budget 2013 actually represents a reduction in the amount of money available for infrastructure over the next two years, says CUPE.

The budget also furthers the federal government’s privatization agenda by requiring a P3 screen for all federally-funded projects over $100 million to determine eligibility for a public-private partnership.

"Budget 2013 has just repackaged existing funds and hoped we didn't notice, and have cut overall infrastructure spending for municipalities under the Building Canada Fund," said Paul Moist, CUPE national president. "This is not the kind of leadership that Canadian municipalities need."

"Moving forward on a P3 is a decision that should be made by local government," he added. "Municipalities deserve options for financing and access to funds without being forced to engage in public private partnerships and privatization of public services."

The federal budget also fails to address Canada's real economic and social problems of unemployment, poverty and slow economic and income growth, said Moist.

"What we need is a proactive and coordinated national approach to training with support for joint training programs and industry sector councils and without taking funding away from provincial training programs," he said. "There are more than five unemployed Canadians for every job vacancy. We need a federal government focused on growing the economy, raising wages and helping working families in difficult economic times."

Source

CUPE counters Nestle Waters Canada

Mar 252013
 
 Public Values
Person drinking bottled water.

Nestle targets campaigns to limit bottled water.

from the Canadian Union of Public Employees
 
CUPE's involvement in campaigns to limit the use of bottled water is based on nothing more sinister than concern about the toll the bottle water industry takes on municipal public water systems, says CUPE National President Paul Moist.
 
Moist was responding to a letter published in the Chatham Daily News recently by John B Challinor, Director of Corporate Affairs for Nestle Waters Canada, prompted by a request Chatham-Kent city council is considering to limit the sale of bottled water at civic events. A Chatham area teenager, Robyn Hamlyn, asked council to consider the motion as part of the Blue Communities campaign sponsored by CUPE and the Council of Canadians.
 

Challinor’s letter to the editor painted CUPE’s involvement as rendering the Blue Communities initiative as suspect.

Moist's March 15 letter in response states that while CUPE is proud to be a part of campaigns highlighting the value of publicly-operated water systems, the call to limit bottle water originates not from "big labour" but from "the grassroots advocacy of concerned citizens like Hamlyn".
 
"Nestle pays a mere $3.71 per million litres they extract, bottle, and sell to Ontarians. Pressuring the Chatham-Kent council to ignore the concerns of its citizens and the millions of Canadians recognizing the waste of bottled water is nothing more than a cynical attempt to protect these lucrative profits," Moist's letter states.
 
 
Reference

Protecting Regina’s water system

Mar 142013
 
 Public Values
CUPE President Paul Moist.

Townhall meeting attracts capacity crowd.

from the Canadian Union of Public Employees

A capacity crowd gathered in Regina March 6 at a town hall meeting organized by CUPE and the Council of Canadians to protest city council's recent decision to issue a request for proposals for a P3 waste water treatment plant.

“There is no such thing as a water system in this world that is expendable, and the only way to protect them is to keep them in the public trust,” said Maud Barlow, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians.

"As governments lose control to private corporations, more and more around the world decisions on water are not being made by governments."

Barlow highlighted some of the international experiences with privatized water systems, many resulting in high profits for shareholders, and skyrocketing rates for citizens.

"We want to say, and we will say no, because we value our water," she said. "The most important thing we can do now is to keep it in public hands, and say no to these private corporations."

Infrastructure challenges are being faced in communities across Canada, said Paul Moist, national president of CUPE.

"Regina is being forced into this P3 in order to access federal funding. Where I'm from, that is not acceptable," he said. "This is about an absence of public debate. That's not democracy."

Moist said publicly-controlled waste water treatment was a public health issue.

"There is a ton of money to be made in the public sector, and we're playing with some big players. And if this goes through, a huge chunk of the rates you pay are going to be leaving Regina," he said. "This debate isn't over."

New health accord must protect public health care — CUPE

Mar 112013
 
 Public Values
healthcare

Current federal funding a fraction of original 50 percent.

from the Canadian Union of Public Employees
 
The federal government must sit down with the provinces and territories and negotiate a new ten-year agreement with at least six percent annual increases to the Canada health transfer, says the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
 
The federal government covers only one-fifth of provincial health spending, where it used to cover half, says CUPE, and it plans to scale back further. While the 2004-2014 health accord brought the federal cash share of provincial health spending to 20 percent from a low of ten percent in 1998, the current federal government has announced its intention to reverse this direction.
 
Cuts of $36 billion in funding are in the works without consultation with the provinces, according to CUPE. The health transfer will be tied to economic growth, with a three percent floor.
 
The federal government is also changing how it divides the health transfer between provinces, leaving most of them worse off. Starting in 2014, the transfer will be cash only and based on population, instead of a mix of cash and tax points adjusted for the wealth of each province.
 
Backtracking on an earlier promise, says CUPE, the federal government will not fully protect provinces that lose funding.
 

Together, these changes mean $36 billion less in federal funding for health care over ten years, shrinking the federal government’s share of health care spending to a small fraction of its original 50 percent contribution, down to 18.6 percent by 2024.

CUPE said the funding cuts will mean the federal government will not be in a position to uphold the Canada Health Act and national standards. Provinces will cut services and privatize, as they did in the mid-1990s when federal health transfers shrank.
 
The federal government is in the process of meeting with provincial governments separately, instead of hosting a first ministers meeting on health.
 
The union urged the prime minister to sit down with premiers to work out a long-range vision for Medicare to apply the same terms and conditions across Canada in a new health accord providing an annual six percent increase and a leadership role on national standards.
 

“Battle of the wages” proves Fraser Institute wrong

Mar 042013
 
 Public Values
Fraser Institute logo.

CUPE study based on Stats Can data.

from the Canadian Union of Public Employees
 
The Fraser Institute's series of reports attacking public sector workers and wages ignores previous research countering their ideological bias, says CUPE.
 
CUPE economist Toby Sanger's report, Battle of the Wages utilizes date from Statistics Canada and analyzed similar jobs in the public and private sectors.

This report, based on Statistics Canada data, shows that the difference in wages for similar jobs in the public and private sectors is miniscule.

 
The Fraser Institute reports do not take occupation categories into account, comparing the pay of doctors with retail store clerks, says CUPE. The wages of police officer, firefighter, teacher or nurse is compared with the wages of security guards and restaurant servers with the same age, gender and other demographic characteristics.
 
Wage differences identified in CUPE's report can be explained by the pay gap between men and women, according to CUPE. In the public sector, women are paid more than women in the private sector. Average public sector pay for men in similar jobs is lower than the private sector.
 
 

EU trade demands should be “of grave concern” to Canadians

Jan 242013
 
 Public Values
Prescription pills.

Secrecy-shrouded deal should be openly debated.

from the Canadian Union of Public Employees

Last week the Ottawa Citizen reported that "the federal government appears only weeks away from completing negotiations on a Canada-European Union free-trade agreement that would be the country’s largest and most important international trade pact in a generation." Read this response piece by the Council of Canadian's Maude Barlow and me.

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