Retirement security is for everyone
February 22, 2010
Dear sisters and brothers:
Some phone calls you just don’t want to take.
Recently, Stockwell Day called up unions representing
workers in the federal public service. He said he wanted to meet.
Recently named as President of the Treasury Board, Mr. Day
is basically the new Minister of Cutbacks for the federal government.
He called the unions to talk about their pensions.
Like their Queen’s Park cousins, the federal Tories led by
Stephen Harper have never liked the public sector. To them, the federal
deficit is a perfect excuse to slash jobs, wages, and pensions. So while
this year’s budget, due March 4, will continue stimulus spending, next
year’s will be all about deficit-cutting. Which means we are at the start of
a 12-month right-wing campaign against public sector pensions and salaries.
The attacks won’t be confined to the federal level. On Feb.
6, I was on Global-TV’s Focus Ontario to talk about the upcoming provincial
budget. Also on the program was Catherine Swift, head of the Canadian
Federation of Independent Business.
Swift was rude, obnoxious, and vicious. (Click
here to watch.) And she clearly has it in for public employees. She
notes, correctly, that public sector pensions are higher on average than
they are in the private sector. Her conclusion is that, to be fair to the
private sector, our pensions should be cut.
I have a few things to say about this.
First, public employees worked hard for decades to build the
strong pension plans we have today. They aren’t “subsidized,” as Swift says.
They are built with our wages – wages we opted to set aside for the future
instead of spending today. And because unions have a say in the way the big
plans are managed, they are very well run, unlike many company plans. (We
still have more to do for our members who don’t have a pension. That’s why
we’ve created
The OPSEU Pension Plan System.)
Second, Catherine Swift and her ilk don’t speak for private
sector workers. Private sector unions across Canada are saying, with one
voice, that they oppose knocking down the pension incomes of public
employees. Instead, they want their members’ retirement income brought up.
Unions from both sides, public and private, are supporting the
Canadian Labour Congress’s plan to make sure all Canadians can look
forward to a retirement without poverty.
Over the next year you will see a lot of pension stories in
the media. Catherine Swift and her cronies will attack your right to retire.
Your friends and neighbours will read these stories. Maybe your relatives
will repeat the right-wingers’ arguments at the dinner table.
You will be tempted to say, “Hands off our pensions.” I
understand that, but at a time when so many retired workers live in poverty,
it’s not enough. Our pension goal is bigger than us. It’s very simple, and
so is our message: Retirement security is for everyone.
Tell everybody you know.
In solidarity,
Warren (Smokey) Thomas, President
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