Workers looking out for public good - CUPE head

BY WENDY ELLIOTT

Kings County Register

Paul Moist, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), queried the P3 construction model when he spoke to delegates at the Nova Scotia division convention recently in Greenwich.

Moist acknowledged the important collaboration between the national union and the Nova Scotia division in "challenging privatization in all its forms, including P3s and corporate or legislative attempts to destroy public services; as well as in joining forces with community members everywhere who want to stop the growth in private sector takeovers of public services."

Moist said later he was surprised the P3 model had returned after former Premier John Hamm rejected it.

“Perhaps Rodney MacDonald is feeling a bit of desperation. There seems to be quite a bit of money being thrown around.”

He pointed to Ontario’s Brampton Civic Hospital, a P3 hospital 180 per cent overbudget. The planned 284-bed Royal Ottawa Hospital was budgeted at $95 million, but the city got a 188-bed P3 facility for $146 million. Moist added Quebec Premier Jean Charest is making noises about P3 hospitals, but well-known architects like Moshe Safdie have said they want nothing to do with such projects.

Nova Scotia announced in March a $200,000 memorandum of understanding with Partnerships B.C., a government procurement agency in British Columbia, and is expecting the first appraisals of potential projects by late June. Ten projects are under review, including a hospital replacement or upgrade in Halifax and work to the Trans-Canada Highway.

Eight years ago, the Conservatives scrapped the P3 school construction program due to massive cost overruns and conflicts between public goals and the private sector’s requirement to make a profit. The program, started in the 1990s by a Liberal government, planned to build 55 schools. The Tories cut that to 33 during the Hamm regime, and eventually ditched the program after cost overruns hit $32 million.

Workers, employers need to plan for future jobs together

How do major unions like CUPE plan for the future when it appears there won't be enough workers? Then, the next day, everybody is told to anticipate nothing better than a McJob?

As CUPE president Paul Moist says, his union currently faces those “issues as an employer itself. We run 64 offices and have just under 800 employees. More to point, in our members’ workplaces, many employers are struggling with this.”

In Saskatchewan, he says, workplace partnership agreements aimed at increasing equity hiring have been signed.

“We are very involved in terms of preparing the existing workforce, and working with the employer to advertise the merits of a public service career.”

At the bargaining table, he said, CUPE has embarked on a series of workplace initiatives.

“Many of our folks had only Grade 12 and had been out of school for a long time. We have many examples of workplace literacy, GED and skills development programs - all aimed at preparing the existing workforce for promotions and to gain certification.”

More enlightened employers have moved to mentoring programs, filling vacancies prior to retirement and tapping into existing staff’s “institutional knowledge.”

“Young workers today will have increasing options - especially those with post secondary education or with various certifications. A career in public service can have great promise, with demographics allowing quick and steady promotions, but the public needs to re-establish faith in the public sector.”

Employer investment in training is a final priority in Moist’s view. So are decent wages.