CLASS WAR IN ALBERTA
Keith Gerein: Kenney, union leaders heading for collision course on wage rollbacks
Alberta Union of Provincial Employees president Guy Smith.
The reaction, as expected, was swift and ferocious.
“Unfair, inappropriate and illegal,” said Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan.
“An egregious attack,” blasted Guy Smith, president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees.
“The biggest betrayal by a government I have ever seen,” United Nurses of Alberta boss Heather Smith charged.
Alberta’s labour leaders haven’t been this fired up in years, perhaps since the slash and burn days of the Ralph Klein government in the mid-1990s, or the teachers’ strike of 2002.
Ostensibly, the object of their fury is a surprise UCP bill, introduced Thursday, that would void previously negotiated dates for wage talks, and instead delay arbitration until after Halloween.
The government’s stance is that it needs the extra time to better understand Alberta’s fiscal landscape, and to hear back from a blue ribbon panel looking into the province’s spending.
While there is a sliver of merit in that argument, union leaders are right to raise a red flag anytime a government tries to unilaterally torch contracts negotiated through collective bargaining.
Yet the extreme level of outrage on display for what is ultimately a four-month delay implies that something bigger is at stake and that both unions and the government are preparing for a much uglier fight that now seems increasingly inevitable.
As worked up as the labour leaders are today, they may want to save some of their best rhetoric for a future showdown on what I expect to be government demands for wage rollbacks.
I’ll admit this is a bit of speculation on my part. And it’s important to note that Finance Minister Travis Toews insists the government has made no decisions in regard to pay rates.
Nonetheless, there is good circumstantial evidence about where this is likely heading.
Without revealing any figures, Premier Jason Kenney has spoken cryptically in recent weeks about how the NDP left the province’s finances in worse shape than they publicly reported — the kind of messaging that comes in handy when a new government needs to justify surprise spending cuts.
It also serves as a useful distraction from the fact that the UCP has itself been causing grief to the government’s books through a corporate tax cut estimated to reduce provincial revenue by up to $200 million this year alone.
At the same time, the government has committed to cover student enrolment growth for at least the coming school year, without saying how that will be funded.
That money has to be made up from somewhere.
Remember also that the UCP has vowed to have MLA salaries lowered by five per cent and the premier’s salary cut by 10 per cent, which will save virtually nothing but affords the party some political capital to trim the wages of others.
And perhaps the most telling move is in the structure of that blue ribbon panel, chaired by Janice MacKinnon, who co-authored a paper in 2017 recommending restraint in workers’ wages.
Given all those moves from a government laying the groundwork to claim poverty, you can’t blame union leaders for being suspicious of a play to reduce workers’ compensation.
As for the NDP, Rachel Notley’s crew also seems to be gearing up for an extended fight.
It was just over a week ago when the NDP staged an all-night, all-day and into-the–next-evening filibuster that went on just shy of 24 hours. The marathon debate was not on protections for LGBTQ students or the carbon tax, but on a handful of changes to labour laws, including a reduced minimum wage for students and a reduced rate for banking overtime.
Exactly what was achieved by that exercise in sleep deprivation is questionable — the incessant oratory tended to veer off topic at times.
But if nothing else, the NDP did serve notice it would meet any financial attacks on workers with a full-throated opposition designed to raise public outrage.
The problem for the NDP and the union leaders is that the Kenney government also seems quite prepared to have this fight.
As much as the NDP claimed victory for orchestrating last week’s filibuster, the UCP was equally boastful about its MLAs’ efforts to go to the wall for reforms designed to help employers.'
(FALSE THEY ARE NOT TO HELP EMPLOYERS THATS THE EXCUSE THEY ARE ATTACKING PUBLIC SECTOR WORKERS RIGHTS, GOVERNMENT WORKERS, EP)
And remember, Kenney is often at his political best when he has someone to brawl with, and Alberta unions could fill the role nicely.
Yes, union leaders will howl, correctly, that the UCP made no promises about going after wages in its election platform and will pull out all the stops to put public pressure on Kenney.
(HOWL REALLY POSTMEDIA NOW YOU REDUCE WORKERS AND THEIR UNIONS TO A PACK OF WOLVES, EP)
Strikes, walkouts and a pointed advertising campaign are sure to be on the agenda.
But given the results of the last election when Albertans voted for more fiscal restraint, I strongly suspect Kenney feels this is a battle he can ultimately win.
If you think the rhetoric is vicious now, imagine what it could sound like in a few months.
