Neoliberal rampage in Canada 3

..see what i mean fidel? you just keep moving forward like i don't exist. it's the bad old feds you declare. this was pointed out to you in rampage 2 yet you are not willing to respond to it.

Alternative Budget Moves Nova Scotia Forward, Not Back

HALIFAX – The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives – Nova Scotia released its 2012 alternative provincial budget today. In contrast to the Nova Scotia government’s 'back-to-balance' plan of across-the-board cuts, the Nova Scotia Alternative Budget 2012: Forward to Fairness makes strategic investments; and finds creative ways to save money and increase revenue.

“Our alternative budget puts the people of Nova Scotia at the centre,” says Christine Saulnier, CCPA-NS Director. “Budgets, like all public policies, are about choices, and we’ve chosen a path towards a more fair and equitable province where people have better access to education, jobs, and are able to share the province's collective resources.” A minimum “tax cut” to a few individuals does not have the same “bang for the buck” as the provision of public services to all of the residents of Nova Scotia.

The Nova Scotia Alternative Budget’s plan to move Nova Scotia “Forward to Fairness” include:

• Strengthening primary healthcare by investing in ten 10 community health centres, 10 new nurse practitioners, and 12 more midwives;
• Investing $45 million to begin to phase-in an Early Learning and Child Care System that is affordable and accessible;
• Investing $14.5 million in special needs education and $6 million for African Nova Scotian and Aboriginal students;
• Increasing the personal allowance for income assistance, creating new affordable housing stock, and supporting additional housing supports;
• Reducing tuition fees for the Nova Scotia Community College by 50 percent;
• Investing $30 million in water and wastewater infrastructure to ensure access to clean drinking water;
• $20 million in start up funds to create a provincial transit system for rural Nova Scotia.

The provincial NDP government has taken an austerity approach to balance the budget in 2013-14 by cutting $772 million in public spending (over four years). Government spending impacts GDP growth and employment. The estimated impact of the government’s $772 million in cuts is the loss of well over 10,000 jobs. These job cuts will be compounded by federal public service cuts, estimated to result in 5,400 jobs cut in Atlantic Canada.

The alternative budget suggests the elimination of the annual deficit in 2015-2016, instead of 2013-14. It does not try to balance the budget to fit the timing of the electoral cycle. According to NSAB contributor and Economist, James Sawler, "This budget reflects the actual fiscal situation in Nova Scotia. Over the past 10 years, the province’s debt-to-GDP ratio and debt charges as a percentage of total government expenditures have decreased substantially."

“Austerity does not come for free,” continued Saulnier. “The alternative budget’s approach of investing in the people of our province is a balanced approach suited for long-term forward progress, instead of a short-sighted obsession with balancing the budget.”

http://www.policyalternatives.ca/newsroom/news-releases/alternative-budg...

The Electro-Motive Lockout and Non-Occupation:
What did we lose? What can we learn?

Along with everything else, the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath created new openings and potentials for working people in the struggle against neoliberalism. A number of struggles initially opened up, including factory occupations, efforts to defend pensions and the rights of younger workers. There were important political struggles, as well, as in Wisconsin, along with newer projects to link labour and communities, in the Occupy movement.

But this has to be placed in the context of the dramatic and ongoing pressure of restructuring, concessions bargaining and slack job markets in the private sector. While this has been an ongoing characteristic of the neoliberal period, the state-guided restructuring in auto, steel and other sectors have deepened a process which is still working itself through. Austerity budgets at all levels of government and political attacks have targeted public sector works, as well. The current moment is a rather bleak one for unionized workers in Canada.

This is the political setting that has driven a number of recent conflicts in Canada, most notably the Caterpillar (CAT) owned Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD) lockout and closure. This experience is particular to the changes in the larger transportation sector in North America. But it is also characteristic of the pressures facing the manufacturing industries, and therefore its unions and workers....

http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/615.php#continue

..your to shifty for me fidel. i recommend #10 it's not bad. just finishing it up.

Health Canada to cut 840 jobs, DND to cut 1,119 jobs, as public servants brace for more cuts

Uncertainty was rife in the federal public service last week, as thousands of workers were told they might lose their jobs in the coming months and tens of thousands more awaited news of their fate in two more rounds of announcements expected in April.

Last week, employees at Health Canada were told that the organization would be cutting 840 jobs. Those losses don’t include contract workers, term employees or positions that are already vacant and will be eliminated, according to a source within the department.

Health Canada’s DM Glenda Yeates held a department-wide videoconference on April 4 to discuss the coming cuts. Following that call, meetings will be held this week with branch management teams in Health Canada and letters will be sent out on April 11 notifying  “impacted” employees. Health Canada will cut $309.9-million by 2014-215 from departmental spending.....

http://www.hilltimes.com/civil-circles/2012/04/09/health-canada-to-cut-8...

CUPE, poverty activists take aim at Ontario budget

"Cutting services doesn't help anyone. Working people, poor people all access services under our budget," said CUPE member and health-care worker Patti Jo Encinas. "We're suggesting that freezing the rates, poor people will become sicker."

The government wants to freeze social assistance and delay planned increases in child benefits. The decisions are expected to save the province $90 million.

The maximum someone on social assistance can earn in Ontario is $599.

John Clarke, of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, said the $599 per month hasn't changed much since 1995. If it had been adjusted for inflation people would could receive a max of $938 each month, he said.

"A freeze has a terrible impact on people's health, people's ability to feed themselves and to stay housed," Clarke said.

The government had intended to increase the child benefits by $200 a month. Instead, it will phase in that raise at $100 each month in each of the next two years....

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/story/2012/04/11/wdr-cupe-poverty-...

Buyer to union: Take deal or leave it

PORT HAWKESBURY — In a marathon meeting Thursday night, hundreds of unionized workers of the idled NewPage pulp and paper plant pored over a contract ultimatum from potential buyer Pacific West Commercial Corp.

During breaks from the meeting at the Port Hawkesbury firehall, workers stepped outside to turn their backs to a cold April wind and discuss what they’d heard about the offer that would slash more than half the workforce.

"It’s like they’ve got a gun to our head and it’s just a matter of them choosing what kind of ammunition they want to put in it," one longtime mill employee said.

"By the looks of things, it’s a shotgun."

The final offer comes after more than two weeks of negotiations, with the help of a provincial conciliator.

Pacific West, of Vancouver, wants a 10-year deal under which it would rehire 229 of the 550 laid-off workers and operate just the supercalendered paper machine and not the newsprint one.

Archie MacLachlan, vice-president of Local 972 of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union, said the employees would be divided into six groups, from clerical to operations to maintenance workers.

MacLachlan said 80 per cent of the hiring in each group would be based on seniority and the remaining 20 per cent would be at the owner’s discretion.

The company’s pension plan would be discontinued and replaced with a new defined-contribution plan, with matching contributions of five per cent.

The offer says the company would set aside $12 million over 10 years for severance payments and retiree and long-term disability benefits for former employees.

But outside the meeting, some workers were worried that Pacific West isn’t willing to take over responsibility for the existing pension liability, estimated to be over $100 million.

"You work for 30 years with the pension hung in front of you like a carrot, and then when you get there, it’s half-eaten," one man said.

"The premier has said our pension liability isn’t the province’s responsibility, but when he bailed out the (public service) pension plan, he did it with our tax dollars."...

http://thechronicleherald.ca/business/83957-buyer-to-union-take-deal-or-...

Underfunded NewPage pensions plans to be abandoned

The British Columbia firm looking to restart the NewPage Port Hawkesbury mill is walking away from the mill's underfunded pension plan, signalling bad news for hundreds of retirees.

Pacific West Commercial Corp.'s offer to take over the mill in Point Tupper does not include inheriting the mill's four pensions plans, which are underfunded by approximately $130 million.

"It's quite a shock," said Roddie MacDonald, a NewPage retiree.

"You never anticipate that when you've worked for 30 to 40 years and paid into your pension plan, you never think this is going to happen."

The lapse in funds will affect MacDonald and about 1,000 active and former employees, according to the provincial Department of Labour and Advanced Education.

"They would be looking at a 30 per cent reduction," said Nancy MacNeil-Smith, Nova Scotia's superintendent of pensions....

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/story/2012/04/13/ns-newpage-pe...

Mill workers weigh challenge

PORT HAWKESBURY — The future of one of Nova Scotia’s largest economic engines will be at stake Saturday.

Hundreds of laid-off workers from the Point Tupper pulp and paper plant will pack into the Port Hawkesbury firehall at 2 p.m. to direct their union’s response to the contract ultimatum that potential buyer Pacific West Commercial Corp. delivered Thursday.

“Our job is to inform and their job is to decide,” said Archie MacLachlan, vice-president of Local 972 of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union.

“We’re laying all the cards on the table.”

The union executive is not making a recommendation on whether the workers should vote for or against Pacific West’s contract proposal. The floor will be open to any motions from union members. If the membership decides to vote on the contract offer, a separate meeting will be held in the near future.

Pacific West spokesman Marc Dube said the Vancouver company wants an answer by next Thursday.

The workers’ initial reaction after learning details of the offer was not good.

“It’s been a long, hard winter on the families who rely on this mill, and nobody expected this to be easy,” one mill employee, who didn’t want to reveal his name, said Friday.

“But we were hoping for something better than this.” 

eta:

According to the contract, Pacific West would only operate the newer and more efficient Paper Machine 2, which produces high-gloss paper products. Employment at the mill would be reduced by more than half to 229. Wages would stay nearly the same but there would be no increases over the 10-year life of the agreement.

The deal would also give the company the right to contract out some services that unionized mill employees once performed....

http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/85319-mill-workers-weigh-challenge

Unions protest at Rio Tinto AGM against its lockout of workers in Canada

17 April 2012

Unions are protesting at the Rio Tinto shareholders’ AGM in London on Thursday 19 April against the four month-long lockout of 780 union members of the United Steelworkers (USW) in Alma, Quebec, Canada.

WHAT: Protest at Rio Tinto AGM
TIME: 10 am
DATE: Thursday 19 April
PLACE: The Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, Broad Sanctuary, Westminster, SW1P 3EE

The protestors will bring to shareholders’ attention Rio Tinto’s unethical and illegal actions in Canada and the damage this is doing to the company’s reputation and its sponsorship of the London Olympics.

Rio Tinto, one of the sponsors of the 2012 London Olympics, is providing 99 per cent of the metal for minting the London Olympic medals, tarnishing them with the company’s reprehensible labour practices.

The locked-out members of USW are supported in this action by the UK union Unite, the London Mining Network and three global union federations: International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF) and International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF).

This action is part of a sustained global campaign of ICEM and IMF against Rio Tinto demanding the company clean up its act towards workers. On the same day, miners’ unions from around the world attending an ICEM mining conference will be making the same demands at a protest at the Australian Securities Exchange in Sydney at 13:00 (EST) on Thursday 19 April (vision available on request).

http://www.itfglobal.org/press-area/index.cfm/pressdetail/7289

73% of teachers vote to adopt resistance strategy on Bill 22

A decisive 73% of teachers have voted in favour of a resistance strategy to oppose Bill 22, the controversial Education Improvement Act.  In a province-wide vote conducted April 17–19, 2012, a total of 21,625 teachers voted yes and 7,846 voted no.

BCTF President Susan Lambert characterized the result as a strong vote of confidence in the action plan crafted by delegates to the BCTF’s Annual General Meeting in March.

“This vote sends a powerful message to government that they must rethink Bill 22, listen to the concerns of teachers, respect our rights, and invest in services to students,” Lambert said. “Teachers are united in opposition to this terrible piece of legislation, the twentieth bill passed by the BC Liberals since 2001 targeting teachers’ professional and labour rights. We simply have to take a strong stand.”

Lambert noted that Bill 22 virtually wipes out class-size and composition limits. Coming into a school year when public education will face a $100 million funding short fall, learning conditions will undoubtedly suffer. “How can anyone teach to individual student needs under such conditions?” she asked.  

Lambert acknowledged that the vote was emotional for teachers because the decision to withdraw from extra-curricular activities is so wrenching. “Teachers struggle with this because these activities bring so much joy to our engagement with students. We know this will mean the loss of some highly-valued activities, and we sincerely regret that. But we have to look at the bigger picture and the longer term,” she said.

The plan also calls for other actions including: mounting a public awareness campaign to educate British Columbians about the impact of Bill 22 and to mobilize opposition to it; the possibility of another future vote on a full withdrawal of services; and working in advance of the May 2013 election to bring in a new government that will repeal Bill 22.

Lambert said that one of the most corrosive elements of Bill 22 for teachers is its mock mediation process. “It adds insult to injury by requiring teachers to be complicit in the stripping of basic rights and protections in our collective agreement,” Lambert said.

The BCTF has made application to the Labour Relations Board to quash the appointment of Dr. Charles Jago as mediator due to clear apprehension of bias. The teachers are awaiting a ruling on a government challenge of the LRB’s jurisdiction before a decision can be made on the substance of the complaint....

http://www.bctf.ca/NewsReleases.aspx?id=26736