Media Release February
22, 2006
Union coalition calls on province to stop
OMERS Bill 206
TORONTO
— The Ontario government should stop Bill 206 and set up a
process whereby employees and employers can negotiate a
workable model for governing the OMERS pension plan, says the
Coalition for OMERS Pension Fairness.
Background on OMERS dispute resolution process
[CUPE Ontario]
The governance model contained
in Bill 206 is discriminatory and unfair, said the coalition,
whose members include the Ontario Public Service Employees
Union (OPSEU), Service Employees International Union (SEIU),
Canadian Auto Workers Union (CAW), Canadian Union of Public
Employees (CUPE) Ontario, and the Municipal Retirees
Organization of Ontario (MROO). All four unions and the
retiree organization, which have been working for many years
to win joint control of OMERS, agree that the following issues
have to be corrected in the Bill:
The Sponsors Corporation
will be controlled by a 2/3 voting requirement for benefits
and contribution rate changes. This was not the case in the
version of Bill 206 that the government introduced in June
and it is plainly an anti-democratic voting requirement that
rigs the governance process in favour of a minority and
against the majority. This is unprecedented in major public
sector pension plans across Canada and it will lead to
failed decision-making and stalemate.
Compounding the 2/3 voting
requirement is another late amendment to Bill 206, which
will deny access to mediation and arbitration in the event
of a deadlock. In the original Bill, mediation and
arbitration was loosely based on the Ontario teachers’ plan
model, which is what was promised by Dalton McGuinty to the
chair of the OMERS Board in October 2002. Because of an
amendment at second reading, a majority vote is now required
to access this process, which defeats the whole purpose of
resolving deadlock.
Coalition members are adding
their voices to the chorus of others, including the
Association of Municipalities of Ontario, who have called on
the provincial government to create a negotiation table with a
defined timeline for employer, employee and retiree
organizations to decide a fair model for a self-governed
pension plan.
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For more information, contact:
Shirley McVittie, OPSEU (416)
448-7446
Jacob Leibovitch, SEIU (416)
447-2311
Cara MacDonald, CAW
(416) 497-4110
Pat
Daley, CUPE Communications (416) 299-9739
Ext. 264
Don MacLeod, MROO (905)
570-2584
