Provincial politics

The sticking issue is over the paramedics sick leave plan. Employer/management wants workers to make concessions. The paramedics are labelled essential service, so workers in their union from other sectors are withdrawing services.

In this instance, the union is not demanding more, they are fighting for no cutbacks to their sick leave plan.
 
inreb said:
Ok, obviously this is hitting close to home so I guess I'll give you a pass on compassionate grounds. Very material btw.
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I disagree as it occurred as part of his backtracking, not the original plan. Changing paths was a mistake, so any fallout from that is part & parcel of the same screw up.

*EDIT* And it doesn't 'hit close to home', as it predates me by several years.
 
Not at home, close to home.
 
Rob MacLennan said:
Please reread. I said that business was booming AFTER the recession was over, but that the freezes remained in the public sector. In fact they continued for several years well into the recovery.
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Rob, I understood what you said. I just don’t agree with it. When did the recession end? In my world it didn’t. Every time we thought recovery was on the horizon KABOOM! A scud missile would wipe it out of sight. The company I’ve dedicated over 30 years to was set up to support the electronics industry, specifically Northern Telecom. Well you know what happened there. We’ve managed to stay open because we make internal components for the petrochemical industry. However, that business is up and down like a toilet seat. So excuse me if I don’t cry a river over some public sector union types who had to dial their lifestyles back a tad for a couple of years.

ZX600 said:
WTF are you talking about, ask any teacher if they will be getting a raise in the next 2 years?

And you must be smoking some crack if you think no one gets a raise on the private sector when there is a wage freeze.

So you want someone that gets the qualifications and is promoted to not get a raise? would you like to be promoted in your job and not get a raise? (using your GO-4 example)
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What I’m talking about is the two two teachers, a husband and wife, I had the displeasure to meet while taking classes at Loyalist collage. We were taking this series to earn a certificate in computers. They explained to a whole class one night that it was the only way they could get a raise during the “wage freeze” that was in place at the time here in the Quinte area.

I do not smoke anything! Please, explain to me how a floor worker or a cashier or any private sector worker gets a raise when the boss says he’s freezing wages. I would really like to know so I can squeeze my boss into bringing me up to what a person in a similar job in the public sector earns. There are many articles and studies that show that there is a growing gap between what the public sector earn and the benefits they receive compared to what we in the private sector earn.

And to your last point, not only have I taken on greater responsibilities without a corresponding pay increase but actually had to take a pay cut just to stay employed!
 
Stephen W. said:
I do not smoke anything! Please, explain to me how a floor worker or a cashier or any private sector worker gets a raise when the boss says he’s freezing wages. I would really like to know so I can squeeze my boss into bringing me up to what a person in a similar job in the public sector earns. There are many articles and studies that show that there is a growing gap between what the public sector earn and the benefits they receive compared to what we in the private sector earn.

!
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A) Chris Jones, the failed NDP candidate for my riding speaking at a candidates meeting said we should be thankful for the admittedly overpaid civil service we have looking out for us. He is a civil servant at the Toronto Region Conservation Authority. Google their real estate adventures and weep.

B) My lawyer lost his assistant of many years to the city. NO increase in pay but a book an inch thick outlining benefits.

No wonder the system attracts deadbeats.

Kennedy said "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country." and they shot him.

What is this sick day S***. If you're sick you get the day off. Does the union make you sicker every year so you get more sick days?
 
Stephen W. said:
Rob, I understood what you said. I just don’t agree with it. When did the recession end? In my world it didn’t. Every time we thought recovery was on the horizon KABOOM! A scud missile would wipe it out of sight. The company I’ve dedicated over 30 years to was set up to support the electronics industry, specifically Northern Telecom. Well you know what happened there. We’ve managed to stay open because we make internal components for the petrochemical industry. However, that business is up and down like a toilet seat. So excuse me if I don’t cry a river over some public sector union types who had to dial their lifestyles back a tad for a couple of years.
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Being tied to Nortel creates a special situation as the upper management of that company was falsifying profit reports, to make the company look even stronger than it was. As a result they could profit personally. This had nothing to do with the recession, but instead caused issues for the company due to personal greed. Imagine if a company like Magna only had major contracts with GM right now. How do you think they would see their future?
 
nobbie48 said:
....What is this sick day S***. If you're sick you get the day off. Does the union make you sicker every year so you get more sick days?
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Sick days for many of the union people in civil service are really just banked early retirement days
 
suzuki2000 said:
Sick days for many of the union people in civil service are really just banked early retirement days
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For some. In a many cases even the banking of vacation has been curtailed to a maximum number of days. The outliers make for great talking points though and yes, those should have been contracted away long ago.
 
ZX600 said:
WTF are you talking about, ask any teacher if they will be getting a raise in the next 2 years?

And you must be smoking some crack if you think no one gets a raise on the private sector when there is a wage freeze.

So you want someone that gets the qualifications and is promoted to not get a raise? would you like to be promoted in your job and not get a raise? (using your GO-4 example)
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Teacher's pay scale is frozen. In fact, they actually took ~2% pay cut with the forced days off (just like the Rae Days of past). The pay scales have ten steps, they are continuing to move up the steps and if they get the required AQs they can still move up to the next scale.

So it is only truly a pay freeze (~2% cut to be entirely fair) for teachers that are at the top of their scale (step 10) and do not (or cannot) move up to another scale with additional AQs. Everyone else gets increases but the range of the scale does not move.

This is one of the points people are making here, a freeze means NO increases no matter what, not just a pay grade range freeze.
 
Schneller said:
Yes, but not quite the blood bath Hudak would have wrought.

BK, are you now going to criticize Wynne for being tough on unions?
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McGuinty did it. Why would anyone expect Wynne to be any different?

If Hudak had been allowed to act on his stated views, then workers' rights would have been rolled back 50 years in this Province.
 
No. She has just verified what everyone was saying about her and the Liberals.
There is only one outcome for Ontario "Spend Ontario into third world status."

oh it will be a bloodbath. Hudak would have made a blood bath for the public sector which is much needed. Wynne will make it a blood bath for both public and private sector.

Schneller said:
Yes, but not quite the blood bath Hudak would have wrought.

BK, are you now going to criticize Wynne for being tough on unions?
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Rob MacLennan said:
Being tied to Nortel creates a special situation as the upper management of that company was falsifying profit reports, to make the company look even stronger than it was. As a result they could profit personally. This had nothing to do with the recession, but instead caused issues for the company due to personal greed. Imagine if a company like Magna only had major contracts with GM right now. How do you think they would see their future?
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It was never the company's intention to be linked solely to Northern. Other electronic firms we did business for downsized or closed up as well. Also, the recession actually did play a part in Northern's downfall. When things first started going south the top management didn't want to cut back on their life styles so that's when they hatched their plan. They believed they could get away with it because when things turned around they'd make up the short fall with the even higher profits they'd projected. Profits that as we all know never materialized.
As for your analogy, Magna tied to GM, well in todays terms of course not. However, that worked out quite well for two company's, Delco and Remy didn't it. From the late teens until the nineties GM's Delco-Remy division was a major profit center for the once giant car manufacturer. Now under private ownership Remy is holding it's own.
 
Stephen W. said:
It was never the company's intention to be linked solely to Northern. Other electronic firms we did business for downsized or closed up as well. Also, the recession actually did play a part in Northern's downfall. When things first started going south the top management didn't want to cut back on their life styles so that's when they hatched their plan. They believed they could get away with it because when things turned around they'd make up the short fall with the even higher profits they'd projected. Profits that as we all know never materialized.
As for your analogy, Magna tied to GM, well in todays terms of course not. However, that worked out quite well for two company's, Delco and Remy didn't it. From the late teens until the nineties GM's Delco-Remy division was a major profit center for the once giant car manufacturer. Now under private ownership Remy is holding it's own.
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Fail to diversify almost always has a cost, whether to a person's finances or those of a business. It's usually just a matter of time.

What you're describing is malfeasance and misfeasance, not the result of the economic downturn. Greed, pure and simple. Many other businesses adjusted their model and thrived, whereas Nortel's upper echelons stuck to their guns, for purely selfish reasons, and pulled the company down. Having been a stone's trow from the Nortel (previously Northern Telecom) main offices for 40+ years I've been quite aware of their boom/bust cycle as I frequently couldn't park in my own parking space, due to it being occupied by Nortel strikers.
 
backmarkerducati said:
Teacher's pay scale is frozen. In fact, they actually took ~2% pay cut with the forced days off (just like the Rae Days of past). The pay scales have ten steps, they are continuing to move up the steps and if they get the required AQs they can still move up to the next scale.

So it is only truly a pay freeze (~2% cut to be entirely fair) for teachers that are at the top of their scale (step 10) and do not (or cannot) move up to another scale with additional AQs. Everyone else gets increases but the range of the scale does not move.

This is one of the points people are making here, a freeze means NO increases no matter what, not just a pay grade range freeze.
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THIS /\ is exactly my point. And oh, boohoo, they had to take a few days off without pay. Every hourly rated person gets paid for the hours they work, NOT for those they DON'T! (the only exception being stat holidays.) Lets not forget that class room size has been coming down, teachers contracted "out of the class room" prep time has been going up and they have something that my generation, (or my kids for that matter) never did, Teacher's Assistants.
Everyone I work with lost four hours of pay per week when the company went from a 44 hour work week to a 40 hour week. Multiple 4 hours per week by 50 weeks and that's 200 hours of lost income. Is anyone crying for me or the people I work with?
But, that's the type of sacrifice people in the private sector have had to make. Civil Servants do not seem to understand this concept.
 
Look at the losses for the US government because GM. This cannot go on much longer.
The losses for Ontario make the losses from GM look like a walk in the park.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-...on-on-gm-bailout-latest-tarp-report-says.html

Stephen W. said:
It was never the company's intention to be linked solely to Northern. Other electronic firms we did business for downsized or closed up as well. Also, the recession actually did play a part in Northern's downfall. When things first started going south the top management didn't want to cut back on their life styles so that's when they hatched their plan. They believed they could get away with it because when things turned around they'd make up the short fall with the even higher profits they'd projected. Profits that as we all know never materialized.
As for your analogy, Magna tied to GM, well in todays terms of course not. However, that worked out quite well for two company's, Delco and Remy didn't it. From the late teens until the nineties GM's Delco-Remy division was a major profit center for the once giant car manufacturer. Now under private ownership Remy is holding it's own.
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BLUE_KAWI said:
Look at the losses for the US government because GM. This cannot go on much longer.
The losses for Ontario make the losses from GM look like a walk in the park.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-...on-on-gm-bailout-latest-tarp-report-says.html
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The auto sector is a prime example of artificially inflated profits. Government allows them to under fund their pension plans in a way that no one else can. They get massive tax breaks and actually receive government grants and loans (that are occasionally not repaid). And when everything falls apart it's up to goverment, that means us, to save their employees. Gotta love a Ponzi Scheme.
 
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