Spring of discontent for public sector workers?
Teachers’ strike could be a sign of things to come as Ottawa prepares to cut costs
Job action by B. C. teachers may be a harbinger of more generalized public sector discontent as governments across Canada move to introduce deficit- busting budgets.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada, representing more than 172,000 unionized federal employees, organized a National Day of Action last week to jog public concern about anticipated cuts in Ottawa’s March 29 budget.
The union is also sponsoring a social media campaign that rejects a choice between reducing the deficit and services like search and rescue or food inspections.
The star of the video campaign is a human- sized grey squirrel who PSAC describes as ” like Stephen Harper ... just a rat with good PR.”
In one clip, the furry creature loiters by a river, kicking the bucket of a fisheries inspector. In another, the pest disrupts a meat inspector, planting non-inspected meat in a shopper’s grocery cart.
Awhile back, in response to a spending freeze first announced by Conservatives in their 2010 budget, PSAC called for “powerful and effective opposition on the ground.”
Since then, Flaherty and Treasury Board President Tony Clement have confirmed plans to go further and cut spending between $ 4 billion and $ 8 billion to help eliminate a deficit of between $ 25 and $ 31 billion.
Recalling an earlier period of austerity in the mid-’ 90s under the Chretien Liberals, public servants fear another round of job cuts, pay freezes and pension benefit revisions.
Concern is mirrored at the provincial level as Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia struggle to address their own deficits.
And, of course, in B. C., the teachers have highlighted the issue as Victoria, too, cuts.
Federally, the Conservatives have lately presided over a big expansion in the public service, with most growth coming in the departments of Defence, Corrections and the Canada Border Services Agency.
By the year 2000, the core public service — excluding the military and RCMP — had slimmed down to 204,000 employees, mostly because of the Chretien- era trimming that saw Ottawa balance its books.
But in the decade after 2000, the core public service grew by 34 per cent to more than 280,000 workers.
The broader public service, including the military and RCMP, grew by 25 per cent, boosting Ottawa’s wage bill from $ 23 billion to $ 40 billion.
The left- leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives predicts some 25,000 jobs could be cut by the Conservatives. That’s fewer than the 45,000 job cuts ordered by the Liberals in the ’ 90s.
Conservatives haven’t outlined the job cuts or specified how they’d go about reducing the staff roster. Nor have they said whether the public sector’s generous, indexed pensions would be affected.
A 2010 government study on lessons learned from the Chretien retrenchment found incentives offered to encourage retirements and departures was so effective that few involuntary layoffs were needed.
Nonetheless, says the study, the retrenchment was damaging, resulting in a demoralized, often- overworked public service that was top- heavy with workers aged 40 to 60.
Whatever the downsides, it appears certain the Harper Conservatives will take action later this month to trim the public service, comforted in the knowledge that economically spooked Canadians are likely to back the austerity.
A Feb. 28 Nanos Research random online sample of 1,001 respondents showed 59 per cent agreed, or somewhat agreed, with the notion of government cuts.
Whether federal public servants will hit the streets like the disgruntled B. C. teachers remains to be seen.
• A Parliamentary Budget Office forecast I recently cited about prison costs increasing from $ 4.4 billion to $ 9.5 billion by 2015- 16 relates to the Truth in Sentencing Act, not the Omnibus Crime Bill.