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News Shorts

On the Environmental Front.

By the age of 6 months the average Canadian born baby will have consumed as much of the Earths resources as his or her average Third World counterpart does in their lifetime.

On NAFTA s Free Trade Disaster

NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) was supposed to give us privileged access to the US market, but our share of US imports has not increased. In many sectors it has fallen. Other countries without the NAFTA advantage have actually been more successful in penetrating the US market than Canada.
We were promised that all would share the benefits from NAFTA. However personal income growth over the last 15 years has been at its lowest rate of any 15 year period in the last 60 years. Average wages, OPSEU wages have stagnated, while profit income (corporate profit, investment income) has increased as a percentage of GDP. As a result of the precipitous loss of manufacturing jobs and their replacement with part-time jobs in retail Big Box stores.
Contrary to government promises there has been a deliberate shrinking of Canadian social programs a planned convergence to the US social model.

On Stephen Harper.

Why does President Bush hope Christmas comes a little late this year? Because on January 23rd Canada may elect the most pro-American leader in the Western World, Free market economist Stephen Harper, leader of the opposition Conservative Party is pro-free trade, pro-Iraq war, anti Kyoto and socially conservative. From the Washington Times option piece by Patrick Basham.
It was the National Citizens Coalition (NCC) of which Stephen Harper was President that took OPSEU all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada in an attempt to destroy all trade Unions by repealing the Rand Formula. (Automatic dues check off) OPSEU won that case, working families across Canada won that case! The NCC under Stephens' leadership as its' prime lobbyist was a rabid supporter of the destruction of public Medicare and the institution of private for profit corporate health care. Like the Bush regime he favours massive tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations but is silent on what services he will cut that you and your family rely on.

On Fighting the Privatization of Health Care.

On November 21st 2005, a community wide vote on plans to introduce a privatized P3 hospital in North Bay was held. In an overwhelming demonstration of the publics contempt for P3 Hospitals 97% of the 8,824 people who voted, voted against the P3 model. Only 249 voted in favour of the increased costs and decreased service of privatization. To put the vote in context it only takes 5,000 to 8,000 votes to elect a city councilor in North Bay. The provincial Liberals despite running on a platform against P3 hospitals now have announced plans for 21 P3 Hospitals, the largest privatization of public Health Care in Provincial history!

Despite claims that private clinics will deliver faster care at a better price, peer-reviewed literature demonstrates that for-profit care tends to cost more, while if anything, providing inferior quality services. Increased reliance of for profit service merely diverts public dollars to shareholders and insurance companies. It has been proven that the American private system is 3 or more times more expensive (depending on the procedure) than the Canadian public system.

More about the Corporate Environment.

"It mimics natures way of getting rid of trees."
From "Decision Earth" a Proctor and Gamble "educational" handout for school children, explaining why clear-cutting is good for the Environment.

Companies ranging from Wal Mart to Tyson Foods (meat packers) refuse to pay a living wage, provide decent benefits or offer safe working conditions to employees. This refusal undermines our culture, our democracy - our very civilization.
"The I Hate Corporate America Reader."
Think before you shop. In our capitalist system your shopping dollar is your vote. By shopping at Wal Mart or buying Tyson foods you are voting to support their treatment of your working neighbours.

On Your Wages.

Why is it when the economy gets rolling, and unemployment begins to approach 6% or less the federal government (correction the Bank of Canada) has to raise interest rates to cool growth rates? What they are really saying is that too many Canadians now have jobs and if we don't maintain a large pool of unemployed those working Canadians might start to demand better wages, maybe even living wages! So they raise the interest rates to raise the unemployment rate and keep a lid on "dangerously inflationary wage" increases. Why then is CEO greed not inflationary?

Ratio of income of the average CEO to that of the Average worker in 1980, 1990 and 2000 respectively: 42:1, 85:1, 531:1. For Wal Mart 897:1 in 2000. (U.S. figures similar greed is on display here in Canada by our CEOs)

Labour and the NDP

Marlene Rivier
President OPSEU Local 479
Federal NDP candidate
in Ottawa West-Nepean

The formal link between labour and the NDP began with its founding by the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) in 1961. The participation of labour defines the NDP as a social democratic party. Affiliation with unions, farm groups, co-ops, women's organizations, etc., is provided for in the constitution of the party. The NDP constitution also provides for an Associate President who represents the labour movement, two labour spots on the executive and a number of labour spots on the Federal Council elected by the Labour Caucus. A labour representative attends parliamentary NDP caucus meetings contributing to the daily decision making process of our NDP MPs. This formal participation by labour is unique to the NDP!

The unofficial participation of labour is even greater through the participation of trade unionists as individual party members at the riding level. Together these two avenues provide labour with a strong voice in setting policy and electing party leaders within the New Democratic Party!

Despite the fact that no other party gives a formal voice to labour through its constitution a majority of trade unionists continue to vote for the Conservative and Liberal parties essentially defeating the objectives of labour to improve the lives of working families. Most recently the Federal Liberals and Conservatives defeated an NDP and Bloc Bill, which would have outlawed the use of 'scabs'. We came within 6 votes!

By affiliating with the NDP we will not own the New Democratic Party and we may not always be happy with policy decisions but we will have a stronger voice in setting those policies. Remember that there are other affiliates besides labour and many individual members who together set the policy of the party.

The NDP will never form a government without the support of labour and the NDP needs the voice of labour to keep it fully grounded in the reality of the daily lives of working families.

It has also been demonstrated that more members of affiliated unions vote NDP! We need to move OPSEU in the

direction of greater influence in the NDP through affiliation in order to realize our labour objectives! I for one will trust and respect the wisdom of convention to weigh this question as it does all others!

More on NDP Affiliation.

Sister Doris Middleton Executive Board Member Region 3 and chair of OPSEU's Political Action Committee (PAC) will be traveling here to Region Four (and across the province) to address that committee's goal of OPSEU's formal affiliation with the NDP party at Area Council Meetings this January in Ottawa and Kingston. Check with brothers Brendon Kilcline in Kingston and Brian Lowery in Ottawa for times and dates.

OPSEU's current annual cost of affiliation to various houses of Labour including NUPGE, CLC and OFL stands at $2.698 million.

Our Issues must become Public Issues.

Dave Lundy

The single most pressing issue facing the labour movement today is having our issues heard and addressed in the public forum. Wither that issue is the LHINs, OPS bargaining, P3s, organizing College Part-timers, or winning the battle to stop the closure of the Regional Centres we must be heard. We spend millions every year on short-term media campaigns to be heard!

A truly functional democracy requires the involvement and engagement of all its citizens. For that to happen the people need to feel that their issues and their priorities matter. The public discourse should be open to all. Open to everyone regardless of their views, regardless of their wealth. Canada prides itself as a liberal democracy, yet the heart of that democracy is missing, what is missing is the freedom to communicate.

In Canada, especially here in Ontario the public forum for discussion, the print media, and the radio and television airways are dominated near totally by less than a handful of corporate media giants. These giants control public discussion by controlling what is news. What gets reported? And what is reported is overwhelmingly what is good for the corporations and the wealthy elite that owns them. Naom Chomsky a noted media critic in his book Manufacturing Consent notes that this ability to decide what is news and what is not plays a critical role in the disarming and pacifying of the general public by framing the parameters of public discussion and excluding or ignoring ideas with which they do not agree.

How many times have you caught yourself watching the evening news and began thinking that it was a repeat that you had seen it before? Why is it that every report on government budgets begin with the statement, "that money is tight"? Have you ever asked yourself why with a whole world inhabited by 4 billion plus individuals that the same five news stories are on all the networks? Have you ever wondered why it is that when 125,000 people marched on Queens Park to demonstrate against Mike Harris Corporate government the media focused not on why the marchers were in the streets but the vandalism of a handful? At the Quebec City FTAA talks the media focused on the tear-gassing and arrests of protesters not the destructive policies that the world leaders were setting in place. When OPSEU was on strike, the longest, and largest most costly public service battle this country has ever seen where was the discussion about the cost to the public of this Tory imposed strike? It was virtually non-existent! It did not happen. Instead the public and even more importantly our members were treated to an endless loop of readily reported and unquestioned Tory lies. While Canwest Global, the Sun newspaper chain and the then Conrad Black (I hope he rots in the prison system he advocated for) newspapers attacked us. In order for OPSEU to be heard we had to buy add time to explain our position because it was not reported because the corporate news barons decided that it was not news. Just as they have currently decided that homelessness in not news; that the ever-lengthening line-ups at food banks of the working poor are not news;that the dire shortage of affordable housing is not news; that the wholesale destruction and poisoning of our environment is not news. And that a minimum wage level that leaves full time workers below the poverty line is not news. What is news? Natural disasters be they fire, or floods, or earthquakes, or hurricanes. Brittany Spears implants or not? Stock markets up or down? And of course the nut with the gun, the newest potential terrorist plot or the barely literate politician able to invent facts and have them reported unchallenged. Weapons of mass destruction anyone?

These massive corporations owned by the wealthy elite so control and so profoundly influence the content and context of virtually everything the public and our members see and hear that it is becoming increasingly impossible to have an informed public debate about the issues of the day. The truth in the media is systematically distorted to present the values most beneficial for the wealthy. Why is there no real ongoing discussion about the costs of tax cuts? Why hasn't there been a through expose made of the damages to society that has happened because of tax cuts? Tax cuts overwhelmingly benefit the rich and hurt the rest of society, yet it is not reported. It is not news.

The last OPSEU OPS strike cost OPSEU and its striking members $250 million. Some would argue that we are still paying for the last strike through the poor vote and resultant contract we just signed. That strike was a qualified win for us against an employer The Harris-Eves Tories that despised its' employees, working people and working families in general. When one of their lies were presented as fact on the evening news it took us several days and several tens of thousands of dollars in ad time to get the truth out and by then they had already moved on to the next lie. Even more importantly without balanced reporting the anti Union Corporations were able to set the atmosphere and tone of the public discussion to best benefit corporate values long before the strike even happened. Unions need, OPSEU needs a permanent voice in the media on a daily ongoing basis, if we want to play a role in framing the daily public discussion. We would have a voice in how our society is shaped and on the direction we want to see it develop. The future is at stake. Not just our ability to negotiate our next contract, or fight LHINs workplace reorganizations, or organize the unorganized but also the type and quality of the educational and employment opportunities which will be available for our children. And our ability as unions to grow our membership rolls.

Do you want Multinational corporations setting Canadian values? Even if it cost OPSEU in conjunction with other Unions and other so called left of centre organizations a few million or more dollars a years to maintain and run a Radio or Television station it would be money extremely well invested because it would allow us to influence and frame public discussion and thereby public policy, balancing the current antisocial corporate agenda. Remember the LHINs campaign alone is expected to cost OPSEU, SEIU, ONA and CUPE well over $2 million!
One does not have to look very far back into history to discover that merchants and money traders and their god, Greed did not always hold centre stage in society and that indeed many of today's common business practices were readily punishable crimes not to be tolerated in a civil society.
I recently came across a quote whose source escapes me, but that best sums up what I am trying to convey. Television (or in this case all corporate media) is called a medium because it is neither well done nor rare. It is past time that that organized labour moves ahead and recognizes that not just the field the game is played on but the game itself has changed. In order to set or even influence public policy you have to have the ability to frame the public's perception of the society we inhabit. Appearing on the public radar screens once every three or four years with a threat to strike is an increasingly ineffective and discreditable behavior whose time has past. The issues and values facing working people have to be presented and fought for on a daily basis, or they will be lost as they nearly have been in a sea of corporate slogans, advertisements and sound bites.

Regional Contacts

Regional Vice President
Bob Eaton
Cell 1-613-340-2521
bobeaton@digitalnetworks.ca

First Vice President / Treasurer
Smokey Thomas
1-866- 264-4982
wthomas@opseu.org

Alternate Regional Vice President
Dave Lundy
Cell 1-613-213-1953
Work 1-613-284-8374
dlundy@allstream.net

Provincial Human Rights Committee
Cory Bryan
Excoelis41@hotmail.com

Provincial Youth Committee
Chris Cormier

Provincial Women's Committee
Wendy Chow
1-613-345-1392
wendychow@sympatico.ca

Retires Committee
Joyce Earl-Wills
1-613-283-7007
jewills@sympatico.ca

Regional Offices
Brockville Regional Office
1 800 267 8154
1 613 498 3103
fax 1 613 498 3088

Ottawa Regional Office
1 800 267 9776
1 613 739 9100
fax 1 613 737 0753

Kingston Area Office
1 800 267 0226
1 613 546 3267
fax 1 613 546 1325

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