Last week, the Conservative government introduced an Economic and Fiscal Update that attacks democracy and fails to provide economic relief for Canadians or any measures to protect people’s savings, homes and jobs.

Instead of dealing with the economic crisis, the Harper government pledged to remove federal workers’ right to strike and women’s right to equal pay for work of equal value. He also pledged to roll back wage increases in signed collective agreements.

Opposition parties are rightly outraged that the Harper government has chosen to attack workers and democracy, rather than stimulating the economy and addressing the financial crisis.

As a result, they are expected to reject the Harper government’s wholly inadequate response to the economic crisis and to move quickly to form a coalition government.

The opposition parties are acting in a responsible manner. They are not going to force another costly and time-consuming election. Instead, the Liberals and the NDP are planning to form a coalition government, with the support of the Bloc Québécois in the House of Commons, to get this Parliament to address the economic crisis in a way that benefits workers and their families.

This is the democratic and responsible thing to do.

While Stephen Harper has labeled the opposition parties’ move to create a coalition as being undemocratic, just about every Parliamentary and constitutional expect agrees that the Governor General should give a coalition government a chance to form a new government.

Take action today to make Parliament work. Phone, fax or email your MP and tell them you support a coalition government.

Recent news reports indicate the opposition got part of the message: read more for the text of Emergency Resolution #8.

BECAUSE the Harper government today announced its intention to respond to the economic crisis on the backs of working people by cutting public services by $2 billion at a time when Canadians need these programs the most; and

BECAUSE the Harper government will auction off $2.3 billion worth of public assets at fire sale prices; and

BECAUSE the Harper government has in the same economic statement announced its intention to rollback legally negotiated wage increases and arbitral awards of its own employees, arbitrarily limit future increases to 1.5 percent and extend collective agreements until 2011; and

BECAUSE the Harper government has stripped workers of the Constitutional right to free collective bargaining and the right to strike, contrary to the Supreme Court of Canada; now

THE FEDERATION WILL call on the three opposition parties to defeat Harper’s
anti-worker, undemocratic legislation, bring down the government and form a coalition government to pursue economic policies that support workers facing difficult economic times.

Submitted by Executive Officers

It’s about safety according to Rob Hellenius President of Local 20501 Mainland Commissionaires. “We have been forced to perform unsafe work, escorting dangerous detainees around the country without proper safety equipment or training and the Corps of Commissionaires refuse to acknowledge their responsibility for ensuring our safety on the job. This is one of the key reasons we joined the PSAC.”

After a frustrating year of bargaining in an attempt to win a first collective agreement the members were left no other option, but to serve strike notice effective Dec 1, 2008 at one minute past midnight. Hellenius points out “We haven’t had meaningful talks with the Corps since they walked out of the Conciliation process back on Sept 19, 2008.”

The PSAC has filed a bargaining in bad faith complaint with the Canada Industrial Relations Board as well as other Unfair labour Practice complaints.” The union has also asked Worksafe BC to investigate. That investigation is underway.

“The Harper government doesn’t want to modernize pay equity, it just wants to eliminate its responsibility for providing a workplace free of discrimination, including wage discrimination,” according to PSAC national president John Gordon.

Turning over pay equity to the bargaining table and making both the employer and the union accountable may seem like a reasonable thing to do until you consider the discrepancy between the two parties.

At the same time the government announced its so-called reform, the economic statement also outlined the government’s intention to legislate wage increases, including roll-backs of contracts already negotiated, as well as eliminating the right to strike over wages for the next three years. And, this isn’t the first time federal governments have passed laws to curtail or eliminate wage increases and to suspend collective bargaining.

“It is completely unreasonable to expect federal public sector unions to be held accountable when the government has complete control,” says Gordon.

The Conservatives are using the PSAC’s successful pay equity complaint against the federal government in the 1990s as an excuse to penalize women workers in the federal public sector. Yet, the basis for the complaint was a joint union management study that clearly showed wage discrimination based on gender. The settlement was as large as it was because the Mulroney government rejected the results and the case dragged on for over a decade.

“If the government wants to modernize anything, it should be their 1960s-era classification standards that produced the discriminatory wage rates in the first place,” says Gordon. “After literally years and years of trying to get the federal government to agree to negotiate classification, our latest agreement finally provides for a start on classification reform.”

PSAC has supported a move away from the complaints-based process to deal with pay equity because it’s a long, expensive process, marred by employers, including the federal government and Canada Post to name only two, who use their resources to litigate at every step.

Five years ago, a federal Pay Equity Task Force, after extensive consultations with government, business and labour, produced a substantial report with recommendations for a proactive federal pay equity law that would cover all federal public and private sector employers. “If the government wants to modernize the system, it has a blueprint for action in the Task Force Report, ” says Gordon. If the Conservatives actually respect the principle of pay equity, this is the way to show it.”

In Vancouver, members also switched tactics, picketing as usual in the morning, then moving to outlying areas in the afternoon. The theme of the week was “Union Solidarity” - UPCE members were joined on the line by Jim Sinclair, President of the BC Fed, members of the Telecommunications Workers Union (Telus) and other unions, and as always, members of CUPW. They also received a letter of support from the Teaching Support Staff Union (SFU) and members of the federal NDP caucus.

On Thursday, delegates to the BC Federation of Labour Convention, which is taking place in Vancouver, unanimously passed a resolution calling upon Canada Post to negotiate a fair and just collective agreement and calling on the federal government to keep our postal service universal and public. Several UPCE members were in the media section while the resolution was debated (it did not require much debate) and received a standing ovation from the delegates.

Convention delegates then marched to Library Square where they joined the striking workers, PSAC members from surrounding workplaces, and other supporters in Solidarity. Approximately 350 people listened to speeches and messages of support from UPCE Local President Sharon Tieman, CUPW member Ken Mooney, REVP BC Kay Sinclair, Bill Saunders, President of the Vancouver & District Labour Council, and Jim Sinclair, President of the BC Fed. There were several local media outlets covering the event.

Read on for some photos from Vancouver and a video from Victoria …

In Victoria …

PSAC national president John Gordon reacted with anger today to Flaherty’s announcement that negotiated collective agreements and arbitral awards in the broader public sector will be rolled back and the right to strike on wages will be suspended through 2010-11.

“Negotiating with the government and agreeing to accept and recommend a wage increase as the PSAC has done over the past week is one thing, legislatively rolling back negotiated, ratified and signed collective agreements and taking away the right to strike is entirely another,” says Gordon.

“It’s wrong, pure and simple,” says Betty Bannon, president of the Union of Taxation Employees (a PSAC component), the largest group of PSAC members directly affected by the legislation. “The union negotiated in good faith, the Canada Revenue Agency negotiated in good faith, and now, a year later, the government steps in and cuts our members’ pay,” says Bannon.

Legislation to restrain wages has been adopted by Canadian federal governments in the past, but this law is being introduced in spite of the landmark Supreme Court decision in 2007 that struck down sections of the British Columbia government’s Bill 29, the Health and Social Services Delivery Improvement Act, which legislated restrictions on future collective bargaining and rolled back negotiated contract provisions. (Health Services and Support – Facilities Subsector Bargaining Assn. v. British Columbia, [2007] 2 S.C.R. 391, 2007 SCC 27)

“In essence, the Supreme Court said that workers have the right to bargain collectively as part of their freedom to associate, and that the right to free collective bargaining is protected by freedom of association provisions in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” says Gordon. “This decision is now the law of the land.”

“The Harper government appears to be more interested in trying to rewrite the past while leaving Canadians to wait for comprehensive solutions to today’s economic problems. Tinkering with wage rollbacks and trashing workers’ rights are not the way out of the current economic crisis.”

They sometimes escort suspected killers, drug dealers and terrorists from jail to hearings and even out of the country, but they have no weapons or bulletproof vests.

Concern over their safety is a big reason commissionaires contracted to the Canada Border Service Agency planned to serve strike notice today, union official Dave Thompson said.

The 40 or so guards who work at CBSA jails at the airport and Vancouver’s Library Square could be off the job by Sunday, said Thompson, of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

The security specialists, who look after those detained for being in Canada illegally, technically work for the Corps of Commissionaires, a non-profit company formed to employ former servicemen after the Second World War.

But they are looking after the same inmates who are arrested by CBSA enforcement officers or police officers who are fully armed and wear body armour, Thompson said.

An example of the danger they face is a hostage taking about two months ago at the Immigration and Refugee Board in Vancouver’s Library Square. A detainee took his own three-year-old son hostage and the situation was resolved only after the Vancouver Police Emergency Response Team and a hostage negotiator arrived, Thompson said.

“The police showed up all armed and the CBSA people were armed and this commissionaire was in the middle of this whole issue trying to contain this person who ran amok,” Thompson said. “It can be really, really tense.”

He said his members are also called on to escort people deemed inadmissible - some of whom are criminals from other countries - across the border and turn them over to “heavily armed American sheriffs.”

More and more gangsters from Central America and elsewhere have shown up here and ended up being guarded by the commissionaires, Thompson said.

“The public is at risk if these guys break loose and take off,” he said. “Our members are driving all over B.C. They will drive up to Prince George and pick up one of these detainees and drive him down to Vancouver. You pick up the wrong person who has a bunch of friends and they decide to ambush you in Quesnel, what are you supposed to do?”

Doug Stuckel, senior Corps vice-president, said he understands the safety concerns of commissionaires, but added that the company would never knowingly put its employees at risk.

“What we do is we work with CBSA, who is our client, and … they conduct risk assessments on all of their detainees as a standard practice, and we have provided our services there for many years and we haven’t had very many issues related to the safety of our commissionaires,” he said.

He confirmed the recent hostage-taking could have ended badly.

“There is always potential in any of these circumstances for violence,” he said.

If there is trouble, armed CBSA officers are usually on hand, Stuckel said.

“The CBSA agents, they carry the firearms, they wear the ballistic vests and they provide that level of security when it is required,” he said. “We are relying on CBSA and their risk assessments.”

Stuckel said bargaining has reached an impasse with PSAC, but more because of money demands than the security of workers.

“I think safety is certainly a concern but their wage demands have been fairly high too,” he said.

Because there is no union agreement and the CBSA contract with the commissionaires is up next March, the Corps has decided not to bid on the job, meaning all the commissionaires working for CBSA would be terminated, Stuckel said.

“We can’t bid on something if we don’t know what our costs are,” he said.

Approximately 125 PSAC members in Vancouver began strike action on November 17th to protest against Canada Post’s attempts to take away sick leave and family-related leave from this predominantly female group.

“Canada Post has proposed a regressive new Short-Term Disability system that would dramatically reduce our members’ current protections, hand over control and policing of their health to a private insurance company, and off-load financial obligations to Canada’s Employment Insurance plan.” says PSAC Regional Vice-President, Kay Sinclair. “We feel this is bad for our members and bad for the general public.”

PSAC members will be joined by delegates to the BC Federation of Labour Convention, which takes place in Vancouver this week, as well as by members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) and other supportive groups. Jim Sinclair, President of the Federation, will address the rally. Representatives from PSAC and CUPW are also scheduled to speak.

There are approximately 2200 PSAC members on strike at Canada Post across the country and this is having a significant impact on the delivery of the mail.

For information: Garry Fraser, PSAC Regional Representative (604) 317-4979
Luc Guevremont, PSAC Regional Coordinator (604) 340-9880