Public Values

Canadian union activists learn lessons from Wisconsin

Dec 112012
 
 Public Values

Wisconsin public sector "asleep at the wheel".

from the Canadian Union of  Public Employees
 
As labour law changes loom in Saskatchewan, CUPE members gathered in Regina last week to hear Wisconsin firefighter and union leader Mahlon Mitchell describe the attack on public sector collective bargaining rights.
 
Cuts to pension benefits, essential services legislation and public private partnerships had been taking place for years, Mitchell told delegates to CUPE's Solidarity conference. The labour movement failed to heed the early warning signs.
 
"Governor Walker didn't just dream this up overnight and say: "You know what? We are going to attack public sector employees," Mitchell told the crowd.
 
The Republican governor cut $1.6 billion from public education, slashed pension benefits and eliminated collective bargaining rights for public sector unions, he said.

“Like the frog in the pot of water, we didn’t notice the water was getting hotter, until it was too late,”

 
In fact, 40 percent of public sector workers voted for Governor Walker, which Mitchell said was like a chicken voting for Colonel Saunders.
 
"Union members always have to be ready to defend their rights — always," he said. The strength of the labour movement lies in its people."
 
He urged public sector workers to strengthen their ties in the communities and work in coalitions to defend collective bargaining rights and make life better for ordinary people.
 
 

Hudak’s Ontario liquor privatization plan threatens 10,000 jobs

Dec 112012
 
 Public Values
The Ontario government is considering repatriating privately owned and operated LCBO stores once their contracts expire.

Women would be hardest hit.

from the National Union of Public and General Employees
 
Across Ontario, up to 10,000 jobs could be at the risk with Tim Hudak's plan to privatize the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), says Warren (Smokey) Thomas, preident of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.
 
Women, a majority of the LCBO employees, could be hit hardest by the job losses, in dozens of communities across Ontario.
 
"How many times are we going to go down this same, old path of selling off the incredibly profitable LCBO?" asked Thomas.
 
The 7,000 regular jobs at the LCBO swell to 10,000 with seasonal hiring at Christmas and during the summer months.
 
"Mike Harris tried it and he backed off. Dalton McGuinty tried it and he backed off. Why did both of them back away from privatizing the LCBO? Because the people of Ontario have told the government over and over again they want the LCBO to stay in public hands." said Thomas.
 
In the last fiscal year, the LCBO had revenues of close to $5 billion and returned a dividend of more than $1.6 billion to the provincial treasury — more than $2 billion including taxes — to pay for health care, education and infrastructure.
 
Hudak ignored the LCBO's strict policy of enforcing rules prohibiting minors, those who are intoxicated and third-party purchasers from buying liquor, said Thomas. Last year, LCBO sales staff challenged more than a million customers under the LCBO's social responsibility polices.
 
"Tim Hudak is crossing his fingers, closing his eyes and hoping that private retailers will exercise the same degree of social responsibility as the LCBO does," said Thomas. "But the evidence from other jurisdictions, like Alberta, points in the opposite direction. When the profit motive is at stake, private retailers would prefer to make a sale than to protect the health and safety of their communities."
 
Thomas said the liquor board employees successfully fought back against Harris' plans to privatize the LCBO 15 years ago and would do so again if Hudak were to form a future government.
 
"We look forward to working with groups like MADD, police associations and health care workers in fighting against any plan to privatize the LCBO or put beer and wine in corner stores. We will put the full resources of our union behind this campaign."
 
 

Poverty and inequality on the rise in Europe

Dec 112012
 
 Public Values
Poverty and inequality are on the rise in most Western European countries.

Unemployment up to 10 percent in wake of austerity moves.

from l'Humanite

In France, a 0.5 percent fall in household purchasing power in 2012 is predicted in the latest bulletin on the economic situation published by the French statistical bureau Insee.

This prediction follows a series of damning results which all converge: French society is undergoing an unprecedented decline in the conditions of social existence. A rise in poverty had already been pointed out by studies that Insee published in 2010 and 2011. In one of them, it noted that in 2009, compared to 2008, “10.1 percent of the active population over 18 were poor, that is, a 0.6 percent increase.” In another, it signaled the growing inequality in property ownership: between 2004 and 2010, “the relationship between the average total property of the top 10 percent of households and that of the poorest 50 percent of households” “increased by nearly 10 percent.”

The same situation exists in Europe. Eurostat, the European statistical institute, notes that in practically every country in Western Europe there has been an increase in the percentage of the total population receiving less than 60 percent of the median national available income, after social transfers, a population that consequently runs the risk of poverty and marginalization.

The percentage rose from 18.9 percent to 19.3 percent in France between 2005 and 2011, and from 18.4 percent to 19.9 percent in Germany. In Spain and in Ireland, which are subject to draconian austerity programs, it jumped respectively by 3.6 percent, from 23.4 percent to 27 percent, and by 5 percent, from 30 percent to 35 percent of the total population. The Scandinavian countries have not been spared. In Denmark, the rate increased from 17.2 percent to 18.9 percent; and in Sweden from 14.4 percent to 16.1 percent.

The same trend holds for inequality in the distribution of income. In the France of Nicolas Sarkozy, the relationship between the share of total income enjoyed by the top 20 percent of the population and that received by the bottom 20 percent of the population rose from 3.9 in 2007 to 4.6 in 2011. In Ireland it went from 4.8 to 5.3, and in Spain it went from 5.3 to 6.8.

For over two decades the countries of Western Europe stood out thanks to a rather continual increase in their standard of living and a certain decrease in inequality. The seizure of power by finance capitalism has put an end to that trend, essentially because it has led to a massive increase in joblessness. As Insee has noted, in a deceptively pedestrian style, in one of the afore-mentioned studies:

“The increase in the number of poor people can be compared with the increase in unemployment caused by the economic crisis.”

In the euro zone, the unemployment rate has gone up from 7.6 percent to 10.1 percent: poverty can be reduced only by fighting joblessness.

Source

 

Privatizing social services creates a profit-seeking middleman

Dec 072012
 
 Public services
Diane Finley has announced the federal government is investigating social impa bonds.

Philanthropy will disappear with Finley's floated social impact bonds.

by David Macdonald, from behindthenumbers.ca

Interest in Canadian “Social impact Bonds” has spiked following HRSDC Minster Finley's announcement that the federal government is investigating them for use in Canada. I’ve already commented on the story in The Toronto Star and on The Current (min 16) but I wanted to write my thoughts up in a fuller blog post for readers.

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British Columbians are willing to pay more taxes

Dec 052012
 
 Public Values
68 percent of British Columbians say they'd pay more taxes to protect the province's forests and wildlife

 But they want the money for new public services.

from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

A recent study commissioned by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives shows that the majority of British Columbians would agree to tax increases to support public programs that better the quality of life.
 
A hefty majority of respondents to the Environics Research poll (78 percent) said people in the top 20 percent of incomes pay less tax that they should, and 63 percent say much less than they should.
 
Major corporations are asked to pay less tax than they should, according to 67 percent of respondents.

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Video: P3 or traditional?

Dec 052012
 
 Health
Quebec's Hotel Dieu hospital.

Keeping Hôtel-Dieu a public hospital.

from Canadian Union of Public Employees

The attempted public-private partnership to expand and renovate North America's oldest hospital Quebec City's Hôtel-Dieu stands as a perfect example of the problems and pitfalls of turning to a P3 model — and what CUPE members can do to stop these risky schemes.

This documentary highlights the work of CUPE local 1108 and allies to keep the Centre hospitalier universitaire de Québec (CHUQ)'s Hôtel-Dieu a public hospital.

The pitfalls of the P3 model

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Feds abdicating health care leadership — coalition

Dec 052012
 
 Public Values

Without public opposition, Harper will give control to provinces, opening gates to health care priviatization.

by Ish Theilheimer and Samantha Bayard

OTTAWA, December 4, 2012 (SGNews) — It may be National Medicare Week and the 50th anniversary of the introduction of medicare in Canada, but advocates say the Harper government will proceed with a radical privatization plan in the 2014 health care accord unless there is a public outcry. Dozens of activists are on Parliament Hill this week lobbying government and opposition Mps to make this point.

In the House, NDP health critic Libby Davies said "Since coming to power the Conservatives have done nothing to strengthen the health accords. We have witnessed growing privatization, no national drug plan, no help for home care and longer wait times."

Health care advocates were backed in their advocacy by the results of a Nanos Research survey conducted on behalf of the Canadian Health Coalition showing that an overwhelming majority of Canadians think that the federal government should be taking a leadership role in securing our health care system and ensuring all Canadians have access to it.

Instead, the Coalition's coordinator Michael McBane says Canadians are seeing "Total abdication of leadership. They are dropping the ball in terms of their responsibilities, they have Federal legislation to uphold and they are pretending everything is provincial."

McBane says the government is paving the way for health care privatization. "For one thing they are not enforcing the Canada Health Act, in terms of extra billing, cue jumping, that's an example of letting privatization emerge. It creates barriers to access."

Michael McBane says the government is paving the way for health care privatization in this interview on YouTube.

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McBane see Stephen Harper's centralized control as behind the drive. "When you meet Conservatives individually, when you get down to the practicalities: do you think seniors should be cared for when they get older, yes; do you think we should have drug insurance, yes. So on the day-to-day practicalities, they are not far apart but there is this central control in this government where the Prime Minister writes everybody's lines and they claim it's provincial.

"So what we really need is for the public to pushback really strongly – they respond to public pressure."

Linda Silas, President of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions was on the Hill lobbying too. "We need federal leadership on health care," she told SGNews. "The Accord expires in 2014 and we need the federal government to join with the provinces and territories to work out how and by when Canadians will see substantive and meaningful improvements in quality and access to health care. Without the federal government working with provinces and territories to improve quality of care and access across the continuum, we will see gaps continue to grow in access to primary health care, pharmacare, long-term care, home care, and in quality and access to acute care.

Silas said that lobbying individual MPs "Allows us to better refine and target research, education, outreach and alliance-building to protect, strengthen and expand medicare."
 

Violence against women on the rise in Europe

Dec 032012
 
 Public Values
BatteredWoman

High unemployment and program cuts blamed.

from Revolting Europe

The economic crisis and policies of spending cuts and reductions in social services are undermining efforts to tackle gender violence in Europe and may be contributing to it.

In Spain, 43 women have died at the hands of their partners or former partners so far in 2012, and 600 since official figures have been collected almost 10 years ago.

Despite this, the government has cut the budget for policies promoting equality by 24 percent and has increased the price of court fees, creating barriers facing victims of domestic violence seeking help and justice.

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