OTTAWA
If you were headed for a brawl — maybe you would call it the “fight of your life” — you might want to look for a tough friend to back you up as you head for that showdown in the schoolyard.
Muscle up, if you will.
That’s precisely what professionals in Canada’s public service did this weekend, deciding to join the Canadian Labour Congress as they gird for battle with a Conservative government intent on cutting jobs.
The move by the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada — the people who police our food safety, monitor the ozone layer and the threat of invasive species, protect the security of your personal information and forecast the weather — have, in effect, fired the first shot in the coming war.
This is a union that has resisted the pull of big labour in the past.
Beyond the cost to members of aligning with the CLC, the professional institute has steadfastly attempted to remain non-partisan and was leery of the CLC’s historic ties with the NDP.
They are the scientists, the professionals, the so-called “knowledge workers” largely invisible to most Canadians, but those who provide the services that Canadians will miss if the Conservatives deliver on their promised cuts.
Their president, Gary Corbett, is hardly a firebrand.
Even when they protest, they do it politely, and by the rules.
Some 400 of them marched to Parliament Hill on Friday on their lunch hour, pounded their thunder sticks, then were sent back to their convention with a resounding cry to remain on the sidewalks so as not to impede traffic.
Dutifully, they did.
They will take on the government not with brawn, but with brains, Corbett told them.
They will challenge Tony Clement on his $50 million gazebos, but not look like “Neanderthals” as they do it, he said.
They have watched as the Stephen Harper government pre-emptively moved to shut down legal strikes at Air Canada and they watched as postal workers were legislated back to work.
They saw Labour Minister Lisa Raitt muse about changes to the Canadian Labour Code that would broaden the definition of “essential services,” making it easier for the government to intervene in any potential work stoppage.
And they watched as a private member’s bill was introduced by a Conservative MP that would have compelled unions to open their books and provide more financial disclosure.
Corbett called it a “backdoor attack” on unions.
This is where brains over brawn has already won a round.
Corbett’s union sought to kill the bill on procedural grounds, working with the NDP to challenge its validity.
On Friday, Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer derailed the bill, ruling that it was a financial bill that could not be introduced on its own.
This union believes they are being denigrated by a government that does not value their work, and are being scapegoated by the Conservatives’ friends in the media and business.
They felt burned because they feel they reached out to Clement in good faith to try to work with the government, only to have the Conservatives spend $90,000 per day on outside consultants to advise them on how to cut jobs.
“It is my job and the job of everyone in this room to prepare for what may be the fight of our lives,” Corbett told his membership.
These will be tumultuous times because it is not only austerity that is driving this government in its war with labour.
It is being driven by ideology and plain old politics.
The Conservatives are trying to draw the next NDP leader into the fray so he or she can be caricatured as beholden to big union bosses.
Everyone wants their mail delivered and their flights to take off, but the Conservatives must be mindful that these union members are, more often than not, Tory voters at election time.
Those same voters they woo during campaigns are now under attack months after their votes were counted.
Origin
Source: Toronto Star
If you were headed for a brawl — maybe you would call it the “fight of your life” — you might want to look for a tough friend to back you up as you head for that showdown in the schoolyard.
Muscle up, if you will.
That’s precisely what professionals in Canada’s public service did this weekend, deciding to join the Canadian Labour Congress as they gird for battle with a Conservative government intent on cutting jobs.
The move by the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada — the people who police our food safety, monitor the ozone layer and the threat of invasive species, protect the security of your personal information and forecast the weather — have, in effect, fired the first shot in the coming war.
This is a union that has resisted the pull of big labour in the past.
Beyond the cost to members of aligning with the CLC, the professional institute has steadfastly attempted to remain non-partisan and was leery of the CLC’s historic ties with the NDP.
They are the scientists, the professionals, the so-called “knowledge workers” largely invisible to most Canadians, but those who provide the services that Canadians will miss if the Conservatives deliver on their promised cuts.
Their president, Gary Corbett, is hardly a firebrand.
Even when they protest, they do it politely, and by the rules.
Some 400 of them marched to Parliament Hill on Friday on their lunch hour, pounded their thunder sticks, then were sent back to their convention with a resounding cry to remain on the sidewalks so as not to impede traffic.
Dutifully, they did.
They will take on the government not with brawn, but with brains, Corbett told them.
They will challenge Tony Clement on his $50 million gazebos, but not look like “Neanderthals” as they do it, he said.
They have watched as the Stephen Harper government pre-emptively moved to shut down legal strikes at Air Canada and they watched as postal workers were legislated back to work.
They saw Labour Minister Lisa Raitt muse about changes to the Canadian Labour Code that would broaden the definition of “essential services,” making it easier for the government to intervene in any potential work stoppage.
And they watched as a private member’s bill was introduced by a Conservative MP that would have compelled unions to open their books and provide more financial disclosure.
Corbett called it a “backdoor attack” on unions.
This is where brains over brawn has already won a round.
Corbett’s union sought to kill the bill on procedural grounds, working with the NDP to challenge its validity.
On Friday, Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer derailed the bill, ruling that it was a financial bill that could not be introduced on its own.
This union believes they are being denigrated by a government that does not value their work, and are being scapegoated by the Conservatives’ friends in the media and business.
They felt burned because they feel they reached out to Clement in good faith to try to work with the government, only to have the Conservatives spend $90,000 per day on outside consultants to advise them on how to cut jobs.
“It is my job and the job of everyone in this room to prepare for what may be the fight of our lives,” Corbett told his membership.
These will be tumultuous times because it is not only austerity that is driving this government in its war with labour.
It is being driven by ideology and plain old politics.
The Conservatives are trying to draw the next NDP leader into the fray so he or she can be caricatured as beholden to big union bosses.
Everyone wants their mail delivered and their flights to take off, but the Conservatives must be mindful that these union members are, more often than not, Tory voters at election time.
Those same voters they woo during campaigns are now under attack months after their votes were counted.
Origin
Source: Toronto Star
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