Unions united are getting results
February 5, 2010
Dear sisters and brothers:
A few days ago, Premier Dalton
McGuinty told a group of Ontario road builders that now is not the time to
be cutting back on public spending.
“If banks are reluctant to lend
and the private sector is not doing that much spending and consumer
confidence isn’t where it should be,” said McGuinty, “we’ve got to be very
careful about moving too quickly in government to remove public dollars from
the economy.”
This is a change in tone for the
Premier. A few months ago, his big theme was how big the deficit was. All he
talked about was the need for cuts.
Now he’s talking as if he’s
realized something important: The public sector is part of the economy.
This is what we’ve been telling
his government for a while now. Back in January, union leaders met with
Dwight Duncan, the Finance Minister. We told him that when he’s spending
$32.5 billion over two years on infrastructure – specifically to create jobs
now – it hardly makes sense to be cutting billions from public services.
Cuts don’t provide economic stimulus, they remove it.
The Minister agreed.
To drive home our message, the
unions in the Ontario Federation of Labour decided to sponsor radio ads on
stations across the province. We set up an interactive website at
www.communitiesthatwork.ca. And many of us made a presentation to the
Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs.
Our message has not changed:
Saving and creating jobs – good jobs – must be the government’s top priority
in the next budget. Cutting the deficit won’t create good jobs (it will
eliminate them), but creating good jobs will boost tax revenues and thereby
bring down the deficit.
If you go to the Ontario
Legislature web site and read my
Feb. 1 presentation to the budget committee, and then read the
presentation from the
United Steelworkers, the
Canadian Union of Public Employees, and the
Ontario Federation of Labour, you’ll notice one thing right away: We are
all singing from the same songbook.
We want good jobs. We want
public services. Those are our top priorities.
There will be things in the next
budget that we won’t like. There always are. But the labour movement is
getting its act together at a critical time. And together we represent over
one million Ontario workers.
Maybe that’s why it’s starting
to sound like the Premier just might be listening.
In solidarity,
Warren (Smokey) Thomas, President
|
