Capitalism Needs Public Spending

As the United States and UK pull back on government spending they are cutting their noses to spite their face. Austerity measures caused by bank and corporate bail outs as a result of the financial crisis of 2008 are not going to create jobs, nor are they going to increase productivity.

They are counter productive. Modern capitalism requires government to spend on infrastructure in order to function as this analysis by Michael Hudson points out.

The logic of public investment is to upgrade economies and make them more competitive

Nations that today have the highest incomes recognize that rising productivity should enable costs and prices to fall – and that public investment is needed for this to occur. U.S. development strategy was based explicitly on public infrastructure investment and education. The aim was not to make a profit or use its natural monopoly position to extract economic rent like a private company would do. It was to subsidize the cost of living and doing business – to make the economy more efficient, lower-cost and ultimately more fulfilling to live and work in.

At issue is the idea that capital investment is inherently private in character. The national income and product accounts do not recognize government investment even in infrastructure, to say nothing of subsidies for the research and development that led to much space and aeronautics technology, information-processing and the internet, pharmaceuticals, DNA biology and other sectors that enabled private companies to make hundreds of billions of dollars.

Simon Patten, the first professor of economics at the nation’s first business school – the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania – explained that the return to public investment should not take the form of maximizing user fees. The aim was not to make a profit, but just the reverse: Unlike military levies (a pure burden to taxpayers), “in an industrial society the object of taxation is to increase industrial prosperity”[7] by lowering the cost of doing business, thus making the economy more competitive. Market transactions meanwhile would be regulated to keep prices in line with actual production costs so as to prevent financial operators from extracting “fictitious” watered costs – what the classical economists defined as unearned income (“economic rent”).

The U.S. Government increased prosperity by infrastructure investment in canals and railroads, a postal service and public education as a “fourth” factor of production alongside labor, land and capital. Taxes would be “burdenless,” Patten explained, if invested in public investment in internal improvements, headed by transportation infrastructure.

“The Erie Canal keeps down railroad rates, and takes from local producers in the East their rent of situation. Notice, for example, the fall in the price of [upstate New York] farms through western competition” making low-priced crops available from the West.[8] Likewise, public urban transport would minimize property prices (and hence economic rents) in the center of cities relative to their outlying periphery.

Under a regime of “burdenless taxation” the return on public investment would aim at lowering the economy’s overall price structure to “promote general prosperity.” This meant that governments should operate natural monopolies directly, or at least regulate them. “Parks, sewers and schools improve the health and intelligence of all classes of producers, and thus enable them to produce more cheaply, and to compete more successfully in other markets.” Patten concluded: “If the courts, post office, parks, gas and water works, street, river and harbor improvements, and other public works do not increase the prosperity of society they should not be conducted by the State. Like all private enterprises they should yield a surplus” for the overall economy, but not be treated as what today is called a profit center (loc. cit.).

Public infrastructure represents the largest capital expenditure in almost every country, yet little trace of its economic role appears in today’s national income and product accounts. Free market ideology treats public spending as deadweight, and counts infrastructure spending as part of the deficit, not as productive capital investment. The only returns recognized are user fees, not what is saved from private operators incurring interest charges, dividends, other financial fees, as well as high executive salaries.

As Patten showed, the relatively narrow scope of “free market” marginal productivity models applies only to private-sector industrial investment, not to public investment. (What would the “product” be?) The virtue of this line of analysis is to point out that the alternative is to promote a rentier “tollbooth” economy enabling private owners of infrastructure or other monopolies to charge more than the “marginal product” actually costs. Stock and bond markets increasingly aim at extracting economic rent rather than earning profits by investing in tangible capital formation to employ labor to increase output, not to speak of rising living standards.

In the United States, Alaska and Wyoming pay their residents a “citizens’ dividend” out of their resource rent receipts. Alaska’s Senators Stevens and Murkowski, as well as its Governor Sarah Palin, did not believe that it is proper for government to upgrade, educate and provide the population with social services. So Alaska has used its oil revenue to pay each resident a few thousand dollars – and to abolish property taxes. This policy leaves Alaska among the lowest-ranking states in terms of literacy, education, support for the arts and technology, while avoiding progressive taxation.

The state’s neoliberal anti-tax, anti-government ideology condemns its residents to send their children out to work rather than educating them and investing in their improvement.

It is a bankers’-eye view of the world, not that by which Britain, France, Germany and the United States built themselves up to global leadership positions. The focus is on financial returns, not on lowering the cost of living and production or upgrading the quality of work. It views government spending as a deadweight cost, not as productive investment.

Premier Clueless

Koch Industries registers to lobby Alberta gov't - CBJ.ca - The Canadian Business Journal

Koch Industries registers to lobby AB govt :: The Hook

Billionaire Tea Party financiers register to lobby Alberta government

Alberta premier says he doesn't know Koch brothers or who they are lobbying |

Gee I guess Mr. Ed hasn't been reading the press lately, its so lonely at the top, surrounded by sycophants who read the news and interpret it for you. And who they are lobbying is your Government Mr. Ed.

Koch Industries Handles 25% of Canada Tar Sand Oil

OpEdNews - Article: Koch Industries, Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline...BP on the Prairie?

Nope never heard of them says Mr. Ed.

Gee did he cut them a Royalty cheque?

The Tyee – The Kochs: Oil Sands Billionaires Bankrolling US Right

Where is Wisconsin?

Billionaire Conservative Koch Brothers Behind Wisconsin Union Busting?

Class War in Wisconsin - Auburn Journal
The Koch brothers, who own Koch Industries Inc, and whose combined worth is estimated at $43 billion, have now been tied with Walker's election and his push to eliminate collective bargaining rights for public workers. The Kochs have long backed conservative causes and groups, including Americans for Prosperity which organized the Tea Party and which launched a ‘Stand with Scott Walker’ website recently.

ALBERTA FEDERATION OF LABOUR | Alberta unions condemn Wisconsin decision to strip collective bargain

Sounds like they would feel right at home in anti-union Alberta.

ALBERTA FEDERATION OF LABOUR | Unions ask Stelmach to confirm he's not considering U.S.-style attack

Unions defend middle class | Comment | London Free Press

The war in Wisconsin

By GIL MCGOWAN, Special to QMI Agency

Gil McGowan is president of the Alberta Federation of Labour.

What does all of this have to do with Canada?

In the past two weeks, major news outlets have published columns echoing the Tea Party attack on unions.

Don't expect guys like the Koch brothers to stay out of Canada's politics. They may already be funding the Wildrose Alliance and Tory leadership candidates in Alberta. (We can't know for sure, because both parties refuse to reveal their donors).

So, be prepared for the war on unions and the middle class to move north.

And of course Alberta is the home to the Anti-Climate Change lobby so the Koch Brothers will feel right at home

Kochs Profit from Canadian Eco-Nightmare

Koch Brothers Behind Environment Killing Measures
What has been less widely reported is that as soon as Walker entered office, he cut environmental regulations and appointed a Republican known for her disregard for environmental regulations to lead the Department of Natural Resources. Walker is opposed to clean energy job policies that might draw workers away from Koch-owned What has been less widely reported is that as soon as Walker entered office, he cut environmental regulations and appointed a Republican known for her disregard for environmental regulations to lead the Department of Natural Resources. Walker is opposed to clean energy job policies that might draw workers away from Koch-owned interests. What has been less widely reported is that as soon as Walker entered office, he cut environmental regulations and appointed a Republican known for her disregard for environmental regulations to lead the Department of Natural Resources. Walker is opposed to clean energy job policies that might draw workers away from Koch-owned interests. interests.

Wage Controls

Here we go again the recession of the 1970's brought in wage controls under Trudeau. Then again in the ninties with the deficit and debt hysteria public and private sector workers faced assualts on their wages and benefits by provincial NDP and Conservative, and Federal Liberal governments. Now the Harpocrites are suggesting another attack on workers wages. While bailing out the bankers.



Flaherty also said the government is looking at controlling the rate of growth in the salaries of public servants, and is continuing with a strategic review of expenditures at all government departments.



We should not be surprised that Mike Harris's Finance Minister should talk about cutting wages for public sector workers. This was the neo-con aganeda during the ninties, carried out by Harris, Klein and Paul Martin. This is not new thinking, this is reactionary thinking. Attacking workers wages during a crisis of consumer capitalism will further entrench a recession which will then whipsaw into the private sector.



Flaherty says the equalization program itself isn’t threatened but spending growth needs to be controlled. "It’s a federal program, we will limit the growth of the program … it’s not sustainable otherwise," he said, I thought rather gravely.
The problem is, if transfers grow more slowly than inflation, provinces will face shortfalls. So less risky, politically at least, is cutting the civil service.
The Conservatives know there’s a standing constituency for strict control of public spending. And cuts can be doled out in ways that minimize the pain to particular constituencies.
That said, the last round of deep cuts was in the early 1990s, when Paul Martin and Jean Chretien put the brakes on federal transfers to the provinces and hacked away at programs. They cut the civil service and conditioned people to expect public spending cuts as the tactic of choice when times are tough.



While capitalist apologists bemoan any claw back of tax cuts to big business the Harpocrites now are suggesting attacks on workers wages.The reduction in transfer payments and discussions amongst the Premiers with Harper recently shows that the message has also been sent to these levels of government; prepare to roll back wages and benefits to your public sector workers. Anything to avoid a deficit. Class war has been declared by the Harpocrites.

SEE:

Pinocchio Conservatives

Deja Vu

Business Unionism Offers No Solution To Capitalist Crisis

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C.D. Howe Canada's Grand Poobah

There is great irony in the fact that one of Canada's foremost establishment right of centre think tanks the C.D. Howe Institute which often promotes a neo-con agenda is named after one of Canada's foremost Pooh-Bahs of State Capitalism.

Grand Poobah is a term derived from the name of the haughty character Pooh-Bah
in Gilbert and
Sullivan's The Mikado. In
this comic opera,
Pooh-Bah holds numerous exalted offices, including Lord Chief Justice,
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Master of the Buckhounds, Lord High Auditor, Groom
of the Back Stairs, and Lord High Everything Else. The name has come to be used
as a mocking title for someone self-important or high-ranking and who either
exhibits an inflated self-regard, who acts in several capacities at once, or who
has limited authority while taking impressive titles.

Enter Pooh-Bah.

NANK. Ko-Ko, the cheap tailor, Lord High Executioner ofTitipu! Why, that's the highest rank a citizen can attain!
POOH. It is. Our logical Mikado, seeing no moraldifference between the dignified judge who condemns a criminal todie, and the industrious mechanic who carries out the sentence,has rolled the two offices into one, and every judge is now hisown executioner.
NANK. But how good of you (for I see that you are anobleman of the highest rank) to condescend to tell all this tome, a mere strolling minstrel!
POOH. Don't mention it. I am, in point of fact, aparticularly haughty and exclusive person, of pre-Adamiteancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell you thatI can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomicglobule. Consequently, my family pride is somethinginconceivable. I can't help it. I was born sneering. But Istruggle hard to overcome this defect. I mortify my pridecontinually. When all the great officers of State resigned in abody because they were too proud to serve under an ex-tailor, didI not unhesitatingly accept all their posts at once?
PISH. And the salaries attached to them? You did.
POOH. It is consequently my degrading duty to serve thisupstart as First Lord of the Treasury, Lord Chief Justice,Commander-in-Chief, Lord High Admiral, Master of the Buckhounds,Groom of the Back Stairs, Archbishop of Titipu, and Lord Mayor,both acting and elect, all rolled into one. And at a salary! APooh-Bah paid for his services! I a salaried minion! But I doit! It revolts me, but I do it!
NANK. And it does you credit.
POOH. But I don't stop at that. I go and dine withmiddle-class people on reasonable terms. I dance at cheapsuburban parties for a moderate fee. I accept refreshment at anyhands, however lowly. I also retail State secrets at a very lowfigure. For instance, any further information about Yum-Yumwould come under the head of a State secret. (Nanki-Poo takes hishint, and gives him money.) (Aside.) Another insult and, Ithink, a light one!

The C.D.Howe Institute flies in the face of the endeavours of Howe, who as Minister of Everything, oversaw the development of public and crown corporations in Canada. Federally funded, not joint private public partnerships, which of course would have demanded private capital to develop. With the victory of neo con agenda in the ninties promoting privatization of public and government infrastructure the C.D. Howe institute gave establishment legitimacy to the efforts of other right wing lobbyists and thnk tanks like the Fraser Institute and its east coast doppleganger; the Atlantic Institute of Market Studies , and the newly minted Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

The C.D. Howe Institute
(formerly the Howe Research Institute), is a nonprofit policy research
organization established in 1973 by a merger of the Private Planning Association
of Canada, formed in 1958, and the C.D. Howe Memorial Foundation. It is located
in Toronto. Its principal source of funding is the fees contributed by a
membership that includes corporations as well as individuals with a background
in business, the professions or academia. The institute's staff is responsible
for the preparation of the annual Policy Review and Outlook and various other
publications on topical issues. The institute also commissions leading
researchers (academics for the most part) to write papers and monographs on a
wide range of topics such as fiscal and monetary policy, trade policy, social
policy, the environment, federal-provincial relations and constitutional reform.
Although the main focus of the institute's research program is the economy, the
range of topics it has covered over the years is very wide and occasionally
extends to non-economic issues such as culture and ethnicity.

The right wing agenda saw public policy as moving from the State capitalizing public services and infrastructure and moving towards selling off those assets to deal with its debt and deficit crisis. Public good was now replaced with state funding for private profit. Howevere now that we face the economic melt down that this ideology resulted in we will see if this think tank of Canada's establishment changes it's tune. Why do I find that unlikely.

C.D. Howe Institute
Benefactors Lecture, 1997

D.G. McFetridge
Professor and Chair,
Department of Economics,
Carleton University
Toronto, October 22, 1997
Sponsored by Dofasco Inc.

The formation of public policy can be viewed from a number of perspectives.
Some see it largely as the outcome of tradeoffs between contending
interest groups; policy changes reflect nothing more than the ascendancy
of one interest group over another. To others, including the
C.D. Howe Institute, ideas matter. A good idea, well explained, can
overcome the power of even an entrenched interest group.
If ideas do matter, there is certainly merit in bringing the evidence
on the economic benefits of privatization to public attention. Privatization
is about more, much more, than selling off the bus company. It is
about institutional design, and in some countries (New Zealand, for
example) it has involved considerable reflection on just what should be
expected of government.
What we have come to call privatization is part of a larger process
of institutional change involving commercialization, contracting out,
and regulatory reform as well as the sale of state-owned enterprises to
the private sector. The literature on this process is vast but of uneven
quality.

The evidence on conventional contracting out, especially by municipal
governments, is unambiguously positive: it reduces the cost of
providing the services involved. There is more skepticism and less
evidence on the consequences of contracting for social services and for
the joint supply of infrastructure and services (public/private partnerships).
These instruments are likely to present serious—but not necessarily
insoluble — contract design problems. They may require the
government to be an active and strategic purchaser in ways not envisaged
by privatization zealots. Nevertheless, the potential economies,
especially in the accumulation and use of knowledge, make continued
experimentation worthwhile.
With respect to the entire process of commercialization, regulatory
reform, and the sale of state-owned enterprises to the private sector, the
weight of the evidence to date is that it has been beneficial. The precise
contribution of the change in ownership to the gains that have resulted
from the process as a whole is difficult to identify. One can argue,
however, that privatization is an essential part of the process in that it
provides the impetus for commercialization and makes regulatory reform,
especially regulatory forbearance, possible.
Whether or not privatization is a necessary part of the process, once
commercial objectives have been adopted and regulatory reform has
allowed competition or potential competition to exert its disciplining
force, there is little, if anything, to be gained from continued state
ownership — provided that the government sells its interest at a price
equal to the present value of the income it might expect to derive from
continued ownership.
Although the international experience with process ofcommercialization,
regulatory reform, and privatization has been favorable and
there are good conceptual arguments for privatization itself, the case for
individual privatizations must still be made on the merits. The body of
existing evidence is not so strong or so detailed that it can be taken to
imply that, say, the province of Saskatchewan would necessarily realize
significant economic benefits from privatizing its electric power or
telecommunications utilities.
The theoretical and empirical literature on privatization reminds
us to remain open to the potential benefits of employing decentralized
market or market-style incentives in place of hierarchy and command
and control. The ongoing international experimentation in institutional
design has been worthwhile and is clearly worth pursuing further.
The literature also teaches that privatization is frequently not about
pushing a button and getting less government. Unless the political
forces that brought about government intervention disappear (and they
may in some cases), privatization will be about getting different government,
rather than less government. It may involve catering to a different
set of interest groups or catering to the same interest groups in a
different way. It may involve the same or similar political activity
in different forums. It is often not simply a matter of opting for the
invisible hand.

C.D. Howe - "Minister of Everything" - Biography of C.D. Howe

C.D. Howe was a cabinet minister for 22 years, first in the government of Mackenzie King, and then in the government of Louis St. Laurent. Nicknamed the "Minister of Everything," C.D. Howe was forthright and forceful, and more interested in getting things done than in policy. He mobilized Canada for World War II, turning the Canadian economy from one based primarily on agriculture to one based on industry, and after the war turned it into a consumer economy spurred by veterans.

Career Highlights of C.D. Howe:
created a national air service, Trans-Canada Airlines (later Air Canada)
created the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) as a Crown corporation
created the National Harbours Board
restructured the debt-ridden Canadian National Railway (CNR)
established the St. Lawrence Seaway
established Canada's nuclear industry
initiated the Trans-Canada Pipeline
Professional Career of CD Howe:
Engineer
Taught at Dalhousie University in Halifax
Businessman - designed and built grain elevators
Political Affiliation:
Liberal Party of Canada
Riding (Electoral District):
Port Arthur (Ontario)
Political Career of CD Howe:
C.D. Howe was first elected to the House of Commons in 1935.
He was appointed Minister of Railways and Canals and also Minister of Marine. The two departments were soon combined into the Ministry of Transport. C.D. Howe oversaw the reorganization of Canadian National Railways, and the creation of the National Harbours Board and Trans-Canada Airlines, the forerunner of Air Canada.
In 1940, C.D. Howe was appointed Minister of Munitions and Supply in charge of war production for Canada. As head of the War Supply Board, and with the authority of the War Measures Act, C.D. Howe created a huge rearmament program using "dollar-a-year men," business executives called to Ottawa to reorganize the economy. The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, which created more than 100 aerodromes and landing fields and trained over 130,000 airmen, was one of the results.
In 1944, C.D. Howe was appointed Minister of Reconstruction, and then Minister of Reconstruction and Supply, and began turning the economy toward consumer needs.
C.D. Howe became Minister of Trade and Commerce in 1948.
In 1951, with the growth of the Cold War, C.D. Howe became Minister of Defence Production as well as Trade and Commerce and oversaw the growth of the Canadian aircraft industry.
In 1956, C.D. Howe forced the plan for the Trans-Canada Pipeline, a gas pipeline from Alberta to central Canada, through Parliament but paid heavily when the Liberal government lost the next election and he lost his seat.
C.D. Howe retired from politics in 1957 at the age of 70.

C. D. Howe
C. D. Howe was known for getting things done.
That made him exactly the type of leader Canadians needed to channel their domestic energies into military might during the Second World War.
Clarence Decatur Howe is best remembered as Prime Minister Mackenzie King's right-hand man. When King decided to meld responsibility for railways, marine transport and civil aviation into one powerful Ministry of Transport in 1936, the prime minister put Howe in charge.
Not only did Howe's achievements in transport help ready Canada's transportation systems for the massive load they would have to carry during the war, but the transportation policy expertise he acquired left him well-prepared to direct the all-important Ministry of Munitions and Supply during the war.
Howe was, as he put it, a "Canadian by choice." A carpenter's son, he was born in Waltham, Mass., in 1886, moving to Canada in 1908 to teach civil engineering at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He later established a consulting engineering firm that specialized in grain elevators.
King brought Howe into politics in 1935 and he immediately began to cut a swath through bureaucracy, refusing to be bound by tradition and red tape, seeing himself much more as an implementer than a policymaker.
Howe was particularly interested in establishing a strong Canadian presence in the growing field of civil aviation.
He was instrumental, before and after the war, in establishing or expanding Trans-Canada Air Lines, the National Harbours Board, Canadian National Railways, the St. Lawrence Seaway, the TransCanada Pipeline and even the CBC.
Canada's first Minister of Transport took over a Canadian transportation system that was fragmented and outdated.
He centralized the administration of ports and reformed the debt-laden CNR, increasing efficiency and accountability that would be so important during the war.
Unemployed workers of the "Dirty '30s" were mobilized to build airstrips across the country and Trans-Canada Air Lines, Air Canada's predecessor, was established as a Crown corporation.
All these measures helped to pull the country's transportation network out of the Depression, preparing it for the incredible challenge that it would face in 1939-45.
When Canada entered the war in September 1939, Howe retained the Transport portfolio but was also asked to take on Munitions and Supply.
One of Britain's first requests was that Canada play host to the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, which would train nearly 50,000 pilots and groundcrew by war's end.
Howe left Transport to concentrate on Munitions and Supply in July 1940, but continued to prod the transportation sector for the extraordinary performances he was demanding of other Canadian industries.
Before the end of the war in 1945, railway traffic had tripled in Canada as food, munitions and other war supplies were rushed to Atlantic ports.
Howe was criticized for forging ahead with little regard for costs, but the results he engendered soon silenced his critics. Costs wouldn't matter if the war was lost, he told colleagues, and in victory, costs would be forgotten.
The war, of course, was won and the relentless energy of Canada's first Minister of Transport played a major role in the victory.
Canada's other wartime ministers were P. J. A. Cardin, 1940-42; J.-E. Michaud, 1942 - April 1945, and Lionel Chevrier, April 1945 - June 1954.

SEE:

Right Wing Environmentalists

The Real Story of Alberta's BSE Crisis

The End of Public ACCESS

CKUA History of a privatization putsch

Canada’s Billion Dollar P3 Boondoggle

Social Insecurity- The Phony Pension Crisis

Laundry Workers Fight Privatization

Legacy Of The Ralph Revolution

Private Vs. Public Monopoly

P3= Public Pension Partnerships

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Fraser-Institute, C.D.Howe, C.D.Howe Institute, Pooh-Bah, Mikado, Canada, right-wing-think-tanks,

Royalties Pay For Jobs

All those threats about job losses in the oil patch and the bosses protest at the Leg seems to have overlooked a little fact. Job losses in the public sector in particular our hospital sector were caused by the Klein government bailing out Big Oil in the nineties.

As this letter writer to the Calgary Sun pointed out.

JUST ANOTHER INTEREST GROUP

There seems to be a double standard in both media and government attitude regarding regular public service workers and the oil industry. In the '90s, during the Klein "devolution," health-care professionals, teachers, public service workers and their collective bargaining agents protested cutbacks to health-care, education and other public services. They warned of gross shortages and infrastructure deficits in the future (which all came true). They were written off as "special interest groups" by media and government. Now an independent panel indicates the oil and gas industry has not been paying its fair share and the industry gets closed-door meetings with the government and is regarded as a VIP by the media. They come out with a government decision that still has them paying less than their fair share. They still grumble and yet neither the media nor government disregard their threats and grumbling as "just another special interest group."

Larry Connell, RN

The attack on the public sector was the result of low royalties and tax breaks for Big Oil. The neo-con advisers to the Klein government called for cuts to public sector spending, freezes on wages and contracting out to make up for the deficit created by this give away. The deficit was caused by the failure of the government to collect its fair share, even back then, as the auditor general pointed out, of the royalties, even as low as they were; a penny on the dollar.

The cuts to the public sector were ideologically driven, at the time the Klein and Harris governments, indeed in 1995 so did the Federal Liberals, embraced the idea that the private sector can deliver services cheaper and more efficiently then unionized public sector workers.

Well cheaper yes by driving down wages and benefits. Efficiently well no, because they low balled their bids and now the costs are rising. Unionized public sector workers may cost more in wages and benefits, the workers in the private sector, but their costs are controlled by collective bargaining. And the government has controlled public sector wages in Alberta to be below inflation for the past decade. Whereas private sector costs are now skyrocketing.

Today infrastructure costs are higher because the Tired Old Tory government spent the last decade acting like Scrooge when it came to infrastructure expenditures. Instead of spending the annual surpluses they did get, which occurred annually since the pseudo-crisis of 1993, they hoarded the money crying poverty. Now the chickens have come home to roost.

Ralph cut nurses and doctors as well as capping nursing programs in Alberta universities. The cuts over a decade created a crisis we now face in staffing. especially in the hospital sector. The result has been a decline in health care services, with deadly results.

As we have seen investment in public sector jobs have been a boon to the Canadian economy. Costs of having services delivered in house are much lower than contracting out in an overheated economy. So much for the supply side economics of the Fraser Institute and it's pals.

So the next time some oil supply company workers complain that they may lose their jobs tell them to talk to the nurses in this province who left during the nineties to find work elsewhere.



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Day of Mourning

Today is the International Day of Mourning for workers injured or killed on the job.


There are around a million
workplace injuries a year in Canada
— a compensable injury occurs
every seven seconds each
working day.

■ Deaths from workplace injury
average nearly a thousand a year. In
Canada, one worker is killed every
two hours of each working day.

■ Deaths from workplace diseases go
largely unrecorded and
uncompensated; they likely exceed
deaths from workplace injuries.

■ Despite this, many governments are
weakening health and safety rules
and their enforcement.

The Day of Mourning was declared by the Canadian Labour Congress in 1984. Steve Mahoney, chairman of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, said yesterday's occasion was especially sad with the death of a worker in Mississauga on Thursday and the TTC maintenance driver killed Monday. "Sadly it is a normal week. We lose two workers every week.

Every year on April 28th, the national Day of Mourning is observed to commemorate those killed or hurt by workplace injuries or disease. Last year, 101 people died in Ontario because of traumatic workplace injuries; and more died due to occupational disease.

The numbers are staggering. In Canada, some 855 employees die from work-related incidents each year, averaging more than 2 deaths every day. In fact, in 2005 the average increased to 3 fatalities a day. From 1993 to 2005, more than 11,123 people lost their lives due to workplace incidents. Another 900,000 per year are injured or become ill.

"In 1984,  there were 744 workplace fatalities recognized by compensation boards across
Canada," Moist said. "In 2005 there were 1,097 recognized fatalities. As
horrendous as these statistics are, the real picture is even worse because
compensation boards do not recognize a number of occupational illnesses."
   Since 1984 more than 19,000 Canadian workers have been killed on the job
and more than 20,000,000 have been injured. The Centre for the Study of Living
Standards reported that in 2005 the incidence of workplace fatalities in
Canada was 6.8 per 100,000 workers, up from 5.9 per 100,000 workers in 1993.
   "This workplace carnage has to stop and it can stop if governments put
their efforts into prevention programs and enforcing legislation," said Claude
Généreux, CUPE national secretary-treasurer.

In 2005 1,097* workplace deaths were recorded in Canada - up from 928
deaths the previous year. This 18% increase was driven mostly by the
rise in fatality rate from occupational disease, which accounted for
50.8% of all fatalities. Asbestos-related deaths make up more than half
of this number - as well as almost a third of all workplace fatalities.

SFL Lending Voice to Mourning Day Protest

100-thousand people a year die from exposure to Asbestos. That's according to the World Health Organization.

Canada exports over 200-thousand metric tonnes of Asbestos, mined in Quebec, to poor Asian countries that have few regulatory systems in place to deal with protecting those who work with the product.

The Saskatchewan Federation of Labour is supporting an American protest at the Canadian Embassy in Washington Saturday against the use of asbestos in third world countries.

Today is the International Day of Mourning for workers killed in their workplaces.

Day of mourning for workers hits home in Trail, BC

TRAIL, B.C. -- This year's day of mourning for workers killed or injured on the job will be particularly emotional given Monday's railway tragedy, say local organizers.

It is a really sad situation any time you have someone die on the job or any other place," said Al Graham, president of the West Kootenay Labour Council. "To have it happen only days before makes (the event) all the more sad and poignant."

The death of Lonnie Plasko in Monday's CP Rail accident in Trail will be noted at Saturday's ceremony, but the focus will remain on the safety of all workers, added Graham, a Teck Cominco plant worker and Trail city councillor.

"There are no accidents on the job site, only mistakes . . . Lonnie rode the train to the end to prevent others from being injured. Only time will tell what caused the problem. Our condolences go out to his family, and to all the families."

The international day has been marked for 25 years, "and the message is always the same: mourn for the dead and fight for the living," Graham said.

In B.C. last year, 160 workers died on the job or from occupational diseases, including four people who were asphyxiated in May at Teck's closed Sullivan Mine in Kimberley. There were 188 deaths in 2005 and a 10-year average of 150.

Two-and-a-half Workers a Week - The Price of Prosperity?

"Alberta has little to boast about in the area of workplace safety," says
AFL President Gil McGowan. "Workplace accidents are on the rise, despite - or
maybe because of - the boom."
 "Alberta workplaces kill 2 1/2 workers each week. Is that the price of
prosperity?" McGowan asks. "If so, it is too high for me."
    In 2006, 124 workers were killed due to work, and an additional 20
farmworker fatalities, who are not included in official figures. "There were
over 181,000 reported accidents last year in Alberta," observes McGowan. "An
increase of 7.4% in one year."
    "Why do so many workers die, year after year, with apparently little
progress? The answer I come up with is because none of us make occupational
health and safety the priority it needs to be."
    "The government is in denial, and employers are too interested in their
growing profit margins to take safety seriously," notes McGowan. "To hear
government spin doctors' talk, you would think we have the safest workplaces
in the world. However, their rhetoric is made up of misleading statistics and
hollow promises."
    McGowan argues accidents are on the rise because workplaces are too busy
and corners are being cut on safety. "Employers have the money right now to
ensure safety equipment and procedures are in place. By not doing it, they are
failing in their legal and moral responsibility."

   Alberta Workplace Fatalities

    -  In 2006, 124 workers were killed, plus 20 farmworkers
    -  In 2005, 144 workers were killed, plus 14 farmworkers
    -  This is the 10th straight year with more than 100 fatalities
    -  613 workers have been killed in the last five years
    -  Since 1905, 9,466 workers have been killed due to work (not including
       farmworkers)
    -  According to Statistics Canada, Alberta has the fourth highest
       fatality rate in Canada (deaths per 100,000 workers):
       -  Territories: 27.4
       -  Newfoundland: 11.7
       -  B.C.: 8.9
       -  Alberta: 8.0
       -  Ontario 6.5
       -  Quebec: 6.0
       -  PEI: 1.5 (lowest in Canada)

    Alberta Safety Statistics

    -  Number of reported workplace accidents, 2006: 181,159
       -  An increase of 7.4% from 2005
       -  Up 23.8% since 2000
    -  Number of person/days lost to injury, 2006: 1,477,000 (up 9.7% from
       2005)
    -  Percentage drop in WCB Premiums 2005 to 2006: 9.0%
  

Here are my posts on this;

Danger At Work

In Canada Work Kills

Work Sucks

Psycho Bosses Depressed Workers

Which Is True

Outlaw Working Alone

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
workers, injuries, assault, crime, work, labour, labor, government, public sector workers, service workers, Canada, job, dangers on the job, assault, crime, unions, working alone

Danger At Work

Not hundreds, not thousands but;
Hundreds of thousands of Canadians assaulted at work

Work not only kills it injures. And not a word about this crime wave in the workplace from the Law & Order government in Ottawa.

In a report released Friday, the agency said 17% of all self-reported incidents of violent victimization that year, including sexual assault, robbery and physical assault, occurred at the person’s place of work. That figure represents over 356,000 violent workplace incidents in Canada's 10 provinces. And those were only the incidents that were reported.

Don't expect the Law and Order Conservatives to do anything about violence in the workplace because that would interfere in the market place.

As Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day reminded us when he was Labour Minister in Alberta and unions called for Working Alone legislation after workers were assaulted on the job. He said there was nothing he would do about bringing in Working Alone legislation. Instead he cut jobs in his department.

It took the murder of a young woman working alone in Calgary to actually get the ruling PC's in Alberta to take the issue seriously. But by then Stock was leading the New Canadian Alliance Party.

Of course Public Safety in Canada means keeping us safe from foreign terrorists not terror on the job. Especially when most of these assaults were on public sector workers, that is government workers.

The majority -- about 70% -- of the violent workplace incidents were classified as physical assaults. That's more than the 57% of non-workplace incidents that were classified as physical assaults. The three offences were much more common in the social assistance and health care services sectors, the study found. One-third of all workplace violent incidents involved a victim who was working in those types of jobs. A high proportion also occurred in accommodation or food services, retail or wholesale trade and educational services sectors.

As the ILO reported as far back as 1998 the reason for the increasing assaults in the work place is the decrease in workers on the job the privatization of public services and the consequences of the reduction in the size of government. Because the bureaucracy has not declined only front line services.

In situations of structural change and transition, when the main objective is to retain employment and income, safety and health issues are often relegated to second place. However, it is these very situations which generate anxieties, frustration and organizational difficulties, which in turn can lead to violence. In practice, violence at the workplace may include a wide range of behaviour, often of an ongoing and overlapping nature. While attention has traditionally been focused on physical violence, in more recent years evidence has been emerging of the impact and harm caused by non-physical violence which, although often referred to as psychological, can also have physical repercussions for the victim.

A survey by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) revealed that almost 70 per cent of respondents considered verbal aggression to be the leading form of violence, citing physical violence as the next most frequent form. Growing attention is also being paid to perpetuated violence involving repeated behaviour. In itself this type of violence may appear to be relatively minor, but cumulatively it can become very serious, taking the form of sexual harassment, bullying or mobbing. It is this type of behaviour which can have the most negative impact on human resource development at the workplace.

The impact of the 1995 Neo-Con revolution in Canada, the so called "Reinventing Government", when Stockwell Day was Labour Minister in Alberta and Paul Martin was Finance Minister, and both the provinces and Federal Government cut funding and outsourced public sector jobs, is still with us.

And thus the public sector and service workplace is just as unsafe as it was when miners needed canaries to go into the mines. Which is why we mourn the loss of life and the injuries of class on April 28 each year.




See

In Canada Work Kills

Work Sucks

Laundry Workers Fight Privatization

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
workers, injuries, assault, crime, work, labour, labor, government, public sector workers, service workers, Canada, job, dangers on the job, assault, crime, Stockwell Day, unions, Alberta, working alone