Only the little people have to endure austerity’s pain

I’ve been bouncing around a few book ideas lately. Work Sucks and Other Profound Pensees from the Age of Austerity is one working title.

Another contender: Brother, Can You Spare A Pension? After all, the workplace pension plan is in serious danger of becoming an anthropological curiosity. And I would only write the book in the hope that a defined benefits bonanza would result from getting published. Gold watch optional.

Like many members of my generation in this age of paycheque-to-paycheque budgeting, next to no savings and spiralling living costs, I’ve formerly worked a string of freelance gigs — generally under contracts with no benefits, no termination notice and no rewards for performance. When I once asked an employer about better job security, he thought I was referring to personal safety.

I’ve often thought I should have become a teacher or joined CSIS or something. It’s getting to be like Greece, where the only half stable jobs are union related or in government. I know, I know: Greece didn’t turn out too well. Still, it offers some interesting points of comparison with other countries.

I recently heard some commentators bemoaning how lazy Greek youth are: “They won’t work in restaurants! They refuse to make hotel beds!”

It’s a similar mantra over here: “There are no bad jobs” (Finance Minister Jim Flaherty). “Victims (who apparently include seniors, students and veterans) … believe they’re entitled to health care, food and housing” (Mitt Romney).

Which is where the cynicism creeps in. After all, who feels like making beds when the powers that be have been feathering their own beds for decades? The EU, for one, is an undemocratic, elites-driven boondoggle. The financial waste that Eurocrats have perpetrated in two capitals (or is it three?), pushing through everything from a standard-issue condom size to a one-size-fits-all constitution, is astronomical, if not criminal.

And Europeans are starting to realize it. In Italy, for example, bad-boy blogger Beppe Grillo has launched an anti-euro, “anti-politics” party that has turned into the second-largest political movement in the country. “We want people to represent themselves,” Grillo says.

Of course, Canada is in far better shape than Greece or Italy. But Flaherty’s “there are no bad jobs” comment is a convenient half-truth. Youth unemployment here is stuck at 13 per cent. More and more young people — and young families — are moving back in with their parents. And people working even two or three jobs often can’t afford to buy a home or save for retirement.

Speaking of retirement, the Harper Conservatives cut Old Age Security — not for the baby boomers who might actually mobilize and fight back, but for the Generation Xers and Yers, who the Tories know are too tuned out to notice, even though their employment security is far more precarious.

How can Canadians plan for the future when, according to a recent Ipsos Reid poll, 41 per cent say the timing of their retirement wasn’t their decision?

All the tough-times-call-for-tough-solutions stuff we’re always hearing about has to cut both ways. Air Canada executives should have to water down their hefty bonuses if their pilots have to water down their pensions. The Target chain should be able to open in Canada only if it creates more full-time jobs than part-time jobs.

As for public bodies, why should students pay everhigher tuition when university administrators continue to embrace the corporate lifestyle? Why should citizens pay ever-higher municipal taxes if — as was recently the case in Saskatoon — city hall spends $200,000 on a consultant to name a new recycling service?

As one placard during the Quebec protests declared: “The System Works for You.” For a few, austerity is a convenient cover. The rest are told there’s no free lunch. Little wonder we’re seeing such high polarization during this U.S. election season. This as the old leftright, default cliches (the one per cent versus the 47 per cent, social victims versus corporate saviours) just don’t cut it anymore.

No, it doesn’t make sense that millions of Americans are on benefits while California peach trees remain unpicked. But neither does it make sense to shame poor seniors when a pan-American sales tax is the obvious economic answer.

But enough of that, I have a book to write.

Heard of any good government grants? Just kidding.