FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Feb. 15, 2002
Government offer “stuck in the past;” union urges rejection
TORONTO - Bargaining teams for the Ontario Public Service Employees Union are calling on 45,000 unionized workers to reject a Feb. 14 contract offer from the Harris government.
“This is an offer from a government that is stuck in the past,” said OPSEU president Leah Casselman. “Looking at their offer, it’s as if the Tories don’t know that the Walkerton tragedy ever happened. It’s as if the Andersen Consulting fiasco never happened. It’s as if they didn’t hear when the provincial auditor sounded the alarm
over our food safety and our road safety.
“Ontarians everywhere are saying that it’s time to rebuild our public service and restore its ability to protect public safety and the public interest,” said Casselman. “This offer is meant to allow the Tories to carry on their program of destruction.”
Casselman pointed to two areas of special concern in the offer: contracting out and wages.
“Whether we look at the provincial auditor’s reports or the Walkerton Inquiry, it’s clear that this government doesn’t have a clue what it’s doing with privatization,” she said. “They’re paying consultants two, three, and more times what it would cost to have accountable public employees doing the same work. In some cases they’re
putting people’s lives at risk. Yet they’ve completely ignored our call for a moratorium on contracting out.
“On wages, they don’t seem to care that skilled, experienced people are bailing out of the public service as fast as they can,” Casselman said. “How can we attract technologists to work in public health labs, for example, when community hospitals are paying 20 per cent more? We can’t.”
Inflation has cut the wages of OPS employees by 12 per cent in the last eight years, Casselman noted. “OPSEU members are used to sacrifice, but this offer is pretty hard to swallow when MPPs are getting a 36.6 per cent pay raise.”
Casselman also condemned the government for a “vicious attack” on the OPSEU pension plan.
“Preventing people from retiring is not an ethical way to deal with the fact that you can’t recruit new people to work in the public service,” she said.
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For more information: OPSEU head office:
Katie FitzRandolph (416) 448-7440; (416) 788-9057
Paul Bilodeau (416) 443-8888 ext. 780; (416) 432-5021
Local contacts, by community:
Brockville: Dave Lundy 1-800-267-8154
Cobourg: Tony Cunningham, Peter Harding 1-800-667-7860
Dryden: Robert Dakin1-800-465-7209
Guelph: Doug Peebles, Bob Houston: 1-800-265-2660
Hamilton: Lorraine Skitch, Gerry Foreman, Jim Richard: 1-800-263-8827
Kingston: Pam Smith 1-800-267-0226
London: Sidonia Woolley, Heather McMichael, Waltraud Knott, Jayne McKenzie
1-800-265-1595
North Bay: Eric Morin, Sue Brown 1-800-663-4206
Orillia: Vivian Elfrieda, Mickey King, Patricia Haynes 1-800-461-0254
Oshawa: Kathleen Demareski 1-800-263-3928
Steve Spence 1-800-667-7860
Ottawa: Brian Lowry, Robert Curran 1-800-267-9776
Peterborough: Roxanne Barnes 705-238-6904 (cell)
Glenna Caldwell, Steve Clancy 1-800-667-7860
Sarnia: Bev Quackenbush 1-800-265-1595
Sault Ste. Marie: Steve Hurdle, Beth Anich 705-949-5706
Sudbury: Marnee Campbell, Lynda Ferguson 1-866-554-0005
Thunder Bay: Clayton McKibbon 807-345-6382
Timmins: Cindy McQuarrie 1-800-461-9868
Toronto: Terri Aversa 647-222-0973 (cell)
Claire Rowett 416-705-1009 (cell)
Peggy Maybury 647-222-0974 (cell)
Peter Stasiw 416-593-0959
Windsor: Dominic Bragaglia, Gino Franche 1-800-265-5205
