(TORONTO – July 20, 2010)
-- Ontario Finance Minister
Dwight Duncan’s plan to cut the province’s
budget deficit fails three key tests, the
president of the Ontario Public Service
Employees Union says.
“The members of our union
will support a deficit-reduction strategy
that is fair to people, protects the public
services Ontarians need, and strengthens our
economy,” OPSEU President Warren (Smokey)
Thomas said. “The government’s plan fails
all three of these tests.”
Thomas and other labour
leaders met with Duncan today in Toronto to
discuss deficit reduction plans, but the
Minister announced nothing that was not
already contained in the March 25 Ontario
Budget. He hinted at further meetings with
unions later this summer.
The government’s austerity
plan, which is intended to cut public sector
salaries by the rate of inflation, is not
fair to public employees who did nothing to
create the economic crisis that caused the
deficit, Thomas said.
“Under Dwight Duncan’s
proposal, a part-time worker making $20,000
a year in a group home will sacrifice an
extra $400 a year to reduce the deficit,
while an RBC investment banker making $12
million a year won’t pay a penny. This is
clearly unfair and the Minister needs to
address it.”
The Minister has no plan to
protect public services from
deficit-cutting, Thomas added, noting that
hundreds of layoffs are planned in the
Ontario Public Service alone and hundreds
more are happening in hospitals. Vital
social services have been in crisis for more
than a decade, he added.
“In this province we have
children’s aid societies facing bankruptcy
and children with mental health issues who
grow up before they can get help,” Thomas
said. “As a society we are failing our
citizens and our children. We have to stop
punishing innocent victims, deficit or no
deficit.”
Cutting public sector wages
will harm the economic recovery at a
critical time, Thomas said.
“While a recovery is under
way, and will ultimately go a long way
towards paying down the deficit
automatically, Ontario is not out of the
woods yet,” he said. “Many hard-hit
households and communities depend on public
sector wages to survive. Cutting back on
those wages can only slow down the recovery
and extend the time it takes to pay down the
deficit.”
OPSEU is in favour of
dialogue with the government, Thomas said,
but any dialogue must respect the rules of
free collective bargaining.
“As far as we’re concerned,
the only place for this dialogue is at the
bargaining table or, where that fails, at
arbitration,” he said. “That’s where we’ll
be focusing our energies.”
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