In meetings (not negotiations) held Feb. 25, 28, and 29, the government offered OPSEU representatives a few sweeteners designed to help the medicine of privatization go down easier.

The gist of what the employer tabled is this: if you work at one of the five facilities linked to the new superjail at Penetanguishene – and if the employer picks you – you can keep your enhanced severance package and get a job at the new private jail. This is a change from the language in the collective agreement, which requires you to pick one or the other.

OPSEU members who work at Barrie Jail, Burtch Correctional Centre, Guelph Correctional Centre, Owen Sound Jail, or Parry Sound Jail might see this as a glimmer of hope. But here’s the price: you lose everything. After uprooting your family, you end up working for a private company that has no obligation to keep you on more than a day. Your salary at the new job does not need to be more than 85 per cent of your current salary. You have no guarantees of benefit levels, a pension plan, health and safety protections, or anything else in our OPS collective agreement.

"Basically, they’re trying to buy our silence," said Barry Scanlon, OPSEU chair of the Corrections Ministry Employee Relations Committee. "This is the spoonful of sugar we’d get in exchange for shutting up about privatization.

"When we agreed to meet with the government, we were under the impression that everything was on the table," he said. "Instead, they told us that the privatization of the Penetanguishene superjail, all community escorts (including the work of bailiffs), Trilcor Industries, and the cook/chill operation at Maplehurst were Cabinet decisions that were etched in stone."

The Maplehurst facility is being set up to provide heat-and-eat food for Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre, the Lindsay superjail, Maplehurst, the Penetanguishene superjail, and Toronto East and Toronto West Detention Centres.

While the government team did include senior corrections officials, it was Malcolm Smeaton who did all the talking. Smeaton, parachuted in from Management Board, knows little of corrections work or corrections workers. He prides himself on being the man who made downloading and privatization happen in the rest of the OPS.

Smeaton said the only way Penetanguishene might not go private was if the lowest bid was "enormously high," in which case "the government would have to look at it."

Members of the union team asked Smeaton if a deal from the union would mean the end of privatization. Smeaton said he had no control over that, stating that Premier Mike Harris could wake up two weeks from now and decide to privatize even more correctional services.

Full details of the employer’s (brief) position are available on the OPSEU web site, linked to this Lock Talk.

The government’s arrogance is a signal to OPSEU members to crank the heat in the already boiling-hot campaign against privatization.

"The only reason they talked to us at all is because they’re feeling the pressure from our campaign," said Barry Scanlon. "We can’t accept privatization, and we can’t turn our backs on the public we’re protecting.

"From the point of view of jobs and the quality and safety of jobs, the best protection we’ve got is our collective agreement. If we lose that through privatization, we lose everything."

Last week’s tour by British privatization expert Stephen Nathan helped take media coverage of jail privatization to a new level, with province-wide and even national television coverage of the issue. Meanwhile, the inside campaign by OPSEU members – stepping down from acting positions, withdrawing voluntary overtime, etc. – has corrections managers screaming to their bosses for help to get people to go back to their acting positions. The union solution? Fill the vacancies!

"Over the next month, everything has to go to the next level," said Scanlon. "Municipal lobbying, inside action, media work, everything. Stay tuned for the next stage."

OPSEU’s grievance on the Ministry of Corrections’ new "scheduling principles" went to Stage Two Feb. 29. We are now waiting to hear back from the employer on their plans – if any – to fix the scheduling principles so that they no longer violate our OPS collective agreement.

If they don’t fix them, the grievance will head to arbitration as quickly as possible.

"There are obvious violations of the collective agreement set out in the scheduling principles," said OPSEU Grievance Officer Jim Paul. "To impose this without consulting the union centrally is just an attempt to divide and conquer."

If OPSEU locals negotiate local schedules according to the employer’s new plan, about 150 to 200 Correctional Officer positions will be wiped out, Corrections MERC Chair Barry Scanlon estimated. Fewer staff and 12-hour lockdowns mean more tension and more danger for officers at work, he added.

Union members and locals must not negotiate under the new principles, Paul said.

"We just came out of a round of bargaining," he said. "If this employer had wanted these changes, they had the opportunity to negotiate them then. If members and locals start negotiating meal breaks, rest periods, vacation scheduling, and changes to the Compressed Work Week that violate the collective agreement, we’re giving the employer the green light to open up our contract any time they want."

The employer keeps threatening to revert to eight-hour shifts if the union refuses to cave in and negotiate under the new principles.

"Our members’ lifestyles, childcare arrangements, and dependent care arrangements are built around the Compressed Work Week," said Paul. "All the same, we can’t cave in to this provocation.

"There is no way these scheduling principles can survive arbitration. Hang tight."

Lindsay Town Council voted unanimously Feb. 28 to oppose a private jail in their community. The motion, moved by Mayor Art Truax, passed without debate after a brief statement by the mayor.

“That’s the mood in the community,” said Dana Burrage, a steward with Local 309 at Lindsay Jail.

Two members of council abstained from voting after declaring conflicts of interest.

The motion may be a wake-up call for local MPP Chris Hodgson, who keeps saying “It’s not who runs it, it’s how it’s run” when asked about the Lindsay superjail.

Thunder Bay and Timmins city councils both passed resolutions opposing private jails the same night as Lindsay. The number of municipal councils opposing privatization is now over 20 and rising fast.

Staff at five Young Offenders facilities in the Ministry of Community and Social Services will get a second chance to decide their future, thanks to a grievance settlement reached Monday night, Feb. 28.

Last month, classified employees had to decide whether to accept an enhanced severance package or take a job with a private employer if and when their work leaves the Ontario Public Service. Now, they’ll get to choose again after the union grieved that the employer had done the process improperly.

There will be two-hour information sessions – on the employer’s time – on Friday, March 3 in each facility, as follows:

Syl Apps Youth Centre: 9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
York Detention Centre: 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Genest Detention Centre: 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon
Project DARE: 9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Sault Ste. Marie O & DH: 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Prospective private operators visited the five sites Feb. 24. Members will now be able to make their choice with a better idea of who their potential employer could be.

Members who change their minds from their original decision have until 9:00 p.m. on Monday, March 6 to decide. Members who don’t change their minds do not have to re-confirm their first decision.

For campaign information, contact Don Ford (ext. 716) or Carol Whitehead at 1-800-268-7376 ext. 356 or (416) 443-8888.  e-mail: dford@opseu.org or cwhitehead@opseu.org