The Ontario government claimed in July that the first year of its so-called “compensation freeze” would save $1.4 billion. It now claims that the province’s results for the 2011-12 fiscal year were $3.3 billion ahead of the plan projected in the 2011 Budget. This, the government says, will result in
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Defending Public Healthcare: Liberal threat to broader public sector remains vague
Last week Dalton McGuinty hinted that he would bring in legislation affecting collective bargaining across the public sector and now the Globe and Mail reports the government “plans to introduce legislation that would freeze wages for all workers who bargain collectively in the public sector.” The government has been reasonably
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: McGuinty: more legislation targeting public sector coming
The Liberal plan to obtain a majority by targeting public sector workers went askew last night, with the Liberals falling to a distant third place in the Kitchener-Waterloo by-election. But they are not deterred in their chosen path. After the defeat, Dalton McGuinty promised to continue pushing his current bill
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: McGuinty: a second legislative attack on collective bargaining?
Dalton McGuinty has once again inserted himself into the collective bargaining process and given the union representing over 11,000 “professional” and “supervisory” civil servants until September 9th to settle their collective agreement. Or else. The government and the union, AMAPCEO, have been in bargaining since July 3. Apparently, the government believes
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: McGuinty neatly stokes interest arbitration campaign
Dalton McGuinty has craftily stoked his campaign to change the rules for interest arbitration — the system imposed on essential service workers who are forbidden by law from striking to settle collective bargaining disputes. The Liberals had tried to tilt the system in favour of the employers in their Budget
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Another McGuinty fib? Restraint "just for a couple of years"
This morning while touring a french catholic school, Dalton McGunity said that restraint was “just for a couple of years”. That is not the official Liberal plan. The Liberal finance’s minister’s July statement proposes a compensation freeze (including benefits) for new collective agreements. Even progress through an established wage grid
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: When a wage freeze is not a wage freeze
In its dispute with teachers, the Ontario Liberal government sometimes tries to claim that one union’s offer of a wage freeze is not in fact a wage freeze. The rationale here is that even though no teacher would get a general wage increase for two years, some junior teachers would
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Liberal attack on free collective bargaining unprecedented
In the past, government might legislate workers back to work after a lengthy strike or lock-out. Usually, the parties were directed to settle their dispute through an independent arbitrator. Such intrusions by government into free collective bargaining however have gotten rapidly worse in the last year or so. Just over a year
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: 2.7% average Ontario wage increase forecast
The Hay Group, a global management consulting firm operating in 48 countries, has forecast a 2.7% average wage increase in Ontario for 2013, the same as for 2012. The forecast is based on a survey of public and private sector employers. Notwithstanding this, the Ontario Liberal government is proposing a
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Liberal rush to outlaw free collective bargaining doesn’t add up
The Ontario Liberal government has largely justified its rush to outlaw free collective bargaining in the education sector by claiming that without such legislation junior teachers will be up for their normal increment steps on the wage grid as they accrue more experience as teachers. To wit, they argue: “Current teacher and support
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Betwixt amusement and outrage: boss & worker wages
It is, perhaps, amusing to see the various top public sector bosses and mucky-mucks caught with their hands in the cookie jar: the $81,250 bonus for the e-Health boss approved by the eHealth board (and then turned down when the public looked like it might be ready for a lynching),
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