More quality Public Service Jobs
Notes for remarks by Warren (Smokey) Thomas
President, Ontario Public Service Employees Union to the Legislative
Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs
Jan. 28, 2008
Good morning, and thank you for inviting us to speak with
your committee today.
Here with me is our Legislative Liaison, Tim Little.
OPSEU represents more than 125,000 Ontario workers and their
families, most of whom work in the public sector, including direct
government, hospitals, colleges and social service agencies, and the LCBO.
We work from Kenora to Cornwall, Windsor to Moosonee.
We believe our members are well-placed to assess the pulse
of the public sector and the health of the economy across Ontario. We also
believe in the importance of the public sector in ensuring a more equitable
quality of life for all our citizens.
We hope that you share our view that the public sector has a
valuable role to play as a partner in the economy of the province. History
shows that nations that have invested heavily in public services are the
ones that perform the best economically over the long term.
Some of the previous governments have not shared that view
so we were heartened when the Premier communicated to us recently that his
government is committed to public services. We aim to hold him to that
promise.
The quality of our Medicare system, our high level of
education, and the social safety net Ontario provides for all citizens act
as a bolster to the economy.
They are attractive competitive advantages to the private
sector corporations operating here and those considering whether or not to
locate here.
We believe it’s time for a new deal in Ontario – a winning
combination of environmental progress, and investment in infrastructure,
training and technology.
What Ontario needs are more quality public services, not
less. This is proven by the effects of the public service cuts that are
still being felt today:
• Today, one in six Ontario children remain in poverty.
• Homelessness is now seen as normal on the streets of
larger cities.
• Food banks have become staples for the working poor.
Under the policies of the previous government, the public
sector fell a full 25 per cent in its share of the provincial economy. Our
public sector used to supply one-fifth of the jobs and the services in
Ontario. That fell to less than 15 per cent from 1995 to 2003, and that had
a drastic effect on a number of our communities that have been built around
delivering and receiving public services.
The public sector has only slightly recovered since 2003 –
to about a 16 per cent share of the economy – since the new government took
office on the promise to rebuild public services.
So the thrust of our argument today is that there remains
much work to be done in restoring public services in this province. And we
certainly agree with the government’s stated aim that the priority must be
the eradication of poverty.
There are some specific measures that should be taken.
We commend the government for extending disability benefits
to hundreds of thousands of disabled people who were cut off by the previous
regime. They are among our poorest citizens and they deserve at least a
subsistence income.
However, the result is that the Ontario Disability Support
Program in the Ministry of Community and Social Services has become woefully
understaffed. Our members are struggling with a ratio of 700 clients to one
staff -- the highest such caseload in Canada. An immediate budget infusion
of $60 million is now necessary to hire more staff to serve more than
325,000 clients.
We also hear daily of how our well-paid manufacturing jobs
are being replaced by part-time, low-paying service jobs in our so-called
“new economy.” The working poor are the fastest growing segment of our
society.
We submit that if we are to eradicate poverty in Ontario, a
good place to start is to take measures to create full-time jobs with good
salaries and benefits.
It doesn’t matter whether these jobs are in the public or
private sectors -- jobs are jobs and they bring prosperity to the community
We urge the government to join us in this crusade.
That’s why we suggested to the Finance Minister last week
that he convene an economic summit, bringing together business, labour and
politicians at all levels to discuss the way forward and fill the void left
by the current federal government.
We will bring forward the plight of part-time and contingent
workers who continue to be exploited in Ontario. Those are not good jobs,
they are tenuous and in the main, low-paid. Sad to say, the public sector is
not immune from this spreading infection of contingent work.
Consider:
• 25 per cent of direct government employees in
the Ontario Public Service are casual unclassified workers with no
permanent employment status;
• At the LCBO, which generates over $1.2 billion in
profits for Ontario taxpayers, 60 per cent of staff are part-time or
casual.
• In public hospitals and community colleges,
non-unionized part-timers now outnumber full-time workers.
• In developmental services agencies, where some of our
lowest-paid members work, two-thirds are part-time.
The place to start to reverse this trend is in the
government’s own backyard.
The events of last summer in developmental services showed
that the government is willing to listen -- especially when the workers take
to the picket lines. Unions do what we have to do.
However, we hope that we will not be forced into such
drastic action in the upcoming rounds of collective bargaining, as most of
our major contracts, covering upwards of 80,000 members expire over the next
18 months. This represents the perfect opportunity for government to do the
right thing by its workforce.
We also acknowledge the government’s stated willingness to
change the unjust – and unconstitutional -- law that prevents thousands of
part-time college workers from organizing a union.
OPSEU has launched one of the largest organizing drives in
Canadian history. And we anticipate that when they are finally allowed to
bargain, the inequities of 30 years as second-class workers will begin to be
addressed.
We also commend the government for reversing the erosion of
funding for mental health care by investing in community health services.
Now what is needed is investment in more forensic beds to keep psychiatric
patients out of jails.
There are some other ways your government can give immediate
help to these problems and help the economy along the way. I’ll list just a
few:
• Ontario community colleges rank ninth among Canadian
provinces in per-student funding. We need to bring our college system up
to standard to continue to train the skilled workers Ontario’s economy
needs to prosper.
• Correct the underfunding of key ministries. What’s
happened to the Ministry of Natural Resources is a travesty – funding
has fallen 18 per cent in real terms over the last 15 years.
Conservation officers have been forced to hold bake sales to buy
gasoline for their trucks so they can enforce protection for Ontario’s
resources.
• Despite the increased public awareness of
environmental concerns for air and water quality, funding for the
Ontario Ministry of the Environment has fallen 35 per cent.
• As the provincial auditor pointed out, the
understaffed Ministry of Revenue can’t keep up with the sales taxes.
Outstanding sales taxes were almost $1-billion last year – enough to pay
for three new public hospitals.
• You could adopt the “Centres of Excellence” proposal
for the three remaining Regional Centres for the developmentally
disabled, as part of a strategy to better serve the disabled community.
The three centres were major employers in Orillia, Smiths Falls and the
Blenheim area, and these communities are struggling to cope with the
loss of jobs.
• And you could undo the wanton off-loading of services
and costs to the municipalities and its effect on public service
delivery. We recommend a wholesale reassessment of “downloading” and its
effects, to determine the level of government best positioned to deliver
services, and to make sure that those services are equitable across the
province.
These are only a few of the pressing issues open to
correction in the upcoming budget.
In closing, we must acknowledge that tax cuts have done
nothing to rebuild the public services that we all need; in fact, the
resultant starving of the public sector threatens to undermine the
competitive advantage and quality of life that Ontario offers.
The government must resist the temptation to continue this
regressive trend that only serves the wealthy.
Increasing the tax rates for those earning more than
$100,000 would add a significant amount to the revenue, with a minimal
effect on consumer spending.
We at OPSEU urge you maintain and enhance our progressive
regime of healthy public services in Ontario.
Thank you for listening.
