Page 10, The Herald, Monday, March 50 ‘

Parti Quebecois still ahead

QUEBEC (CP) — Two
gurprising public-opinion

polls placing the Parti.

Quebecois in the lead for the

‘April 19 election put a new

face on the campaign ~ and
the campaigners — during
the weekend,

- Premier Rene Levesque,
whose PQ holds elther a six-
or a nine-point lead over the
opposition Liberals
depending on which poll you
read, wai all smiles — aman
with wind in his sails. He
even cautioned party
workers in several centres
not to become over-con-
fident,

Libera] Leader Claude
Ryan looked grimmer than
at any time before in the
campaign and sharpened his
attack on the PQ, while Roch
LaSalle, his Union Nationale
a distant third in the polls,
feaded with rural voters to
Ignore the surveys al-
together.

: Before the polls came out
Saturday, it was generally
‘assumed by the media that
‘the Liberals had a com-
fortable lead.

_ Campaigning Sunday in
‘nearby Clermont, Levesque
‘exorted 1,000 party sup-
porters to behave as if the
two opinion polls had
brought gloom instead of
cheer.

_“"We have to work as

though we were losing, even

,

“ig!

if the situation looks good for
us," he said,“

He was almost ebullient
Saturday when he told
reportera that the polls
negate ‘Mr. Ryan’s rather
presumptuous idea of wiping
us (the PQ) off the map,’”’
and reinforce the PQ's claim
that it still is the mainstream
party of Frenchspeaking
Quebecers.

Levesque used a huge
breakfast rally here Sunday
to announce more PQ

- promises in family poliey.

if re-elected, the govera-
ment would add a program
for school-age children to the
provincial day-care system
and give women on
maternity leave the option of
extending it, without pay, for
up to 24 months and still have
first call on their ald job, ora
comparable one. Men would
be entitled to a similar
paternity leave.

Ryan played down the poll
results, saying he has always
run “‘against the tide.” But
in campaign stops Sunday,
he launched some of his
strongest attacks yet against
the government, linking the
PQ’s anti-federalism with
Quebec's economic dif-
ficulties.

The Pequistes have
ereated a negative climate
for investment and re-
electing them would only

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prolong a bad situatidn, he
said, :

“At best, we would be‘
living in the same climate of
uncertainty and tension,”
the Libera! leader told 300
supporters in Sherbrooke.

He indicated Ottawa would
move more quickly on im-
portant economic dossiers,
such as the development of
the Port of Montreal, if there
was a federalist — meaning
Liberal — government ‘in -
power provincially.

LaSalle continued to fight
for his political life, urging
voters to ignore the: two

polls, They show the Union
Natlonale with three and five
per cent of the vote

respectively among decided BEE
voters, suggesting itmay not

even retain the five seats at
dissolution of the last
sesembly, — y

The former Progressive
Conservative MP told
supporters in St. Anaclet on
the Lower St. Lawrence,

northeast of Quebec City, |

that the polls really show the
province heading for a mi-
nority government. ;

“Don’t give up because of
these worthless polls,’ he
said,

Microelectronics
replace workers ©

OTTAWA (CP) — Forty
percent of clerical and office
jobs could be eliminated by
1990 because of the
microelectronics revolution,
delegates to a national
conference on the subject
were told Sunday.

. However, speakers said
there are few statistics on
which to base predictions of
the real impact silicon chips
and computers will have on
the skilled and the unskilled -
in industrialized countries.

Forecasts vary widely
from 500,000 jobs lost to a
whopping 12 million.

Other studies predict one
million new jobs will be
created in scientific fields.

Hardest hit will be un-
skilled workers — mostly
women — who have nothing
to sell but their “time and
physical strength,” said the
chairman of the House of

Lords committee on
wiemployment in Britain,

Baroness Nancy Seear told
the first day of the three-day
conference that there will be
no place in the work force for
the unskilled and uneducated
by the next century.

“There may well be youths

_Feaving school early who,

unless sieps are taken and
taken quickly, may never
find regular employment
throughout their whole adult
lives,” Seear said.

She and other speakers
stressed that low-paying jobs
in banks, offices, factories
and insurance firms are
bound. to disappear with
increasing automation.

The conference, sponsored
by the women’s bureau of the
labor department, is the first
national forum on the impact
of computers on the work

force involving all parties -

i

Alexis Chicoine was a soloist in a German
number in the Terrace Figure Skating
Club's ice carnival held over the weekend.

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DOLLARS

BY MICHAEL A. WALKER, Director
FRASER INSTITUTE, VANCOUVER, B.C.

rte ieee

- Public/Sector versus the Public, Part 1

. The current .strikes by. the Canadian Union of Public
Employees in British-Cofumbia and Ontario have again at-
rag
Unfortunately, the discussion of these activities has tended.
to foeus on the details in these particular job actions. ‘The.
thme has come to look at the basic nature of public sectar uri-
ions and, because of the righls they have been given, ‘the
threat they pose to the public interesl. © *
the principle motivaling the extension of private sector:
labour legislation into the public sector was that employees
in the public sector should be treated in the same way as
employees in the private sector and, on first glance,
treatment seems to be a just principle. Upon reflection, .
however, and now upon the basis of bitter experience, it is
obvious that there are fundamental differences between the
public sector and the private sector. oe
The first and .most important difference: between the
public and private sectors is the nature of the services
Supplied. In almost every case, services are provided in the
public sector in the lirst place because of thelr avowedly es-
sential nature. Governments are monopoly suppliers of
these services and, as aconseqience, the personnel invalved
in their delivery are ina unique position to “hold the public
up to ransom’ in support of wage and other bargaining
claims. A service which is supplied by government as a
reflection of the public's will can be withdrawn on the deci-
sion of a very smail number of: self-interested public
employees. The publie is then faced with the necessity to
bargain for its return. In principle, and even on the basis of.
common sense, this is a ridiculous system and one is driven
to ponder how ever our elected representatives could have
led us to such circumstances.

Even if this essential flaw did not exist. there are
differences between public and private employment that
should suggest the inappropriateness of private wage deter-
mining procedures in public settings, For example, wages in
the public sector are not subjected to any sort of market
test. Higher wages are not reflected in higher prices and.
hence, lower demand for government services — al least nol
directly — and unions can, therefore, make their demands
knowing there will be no direct economic consequence. In
fact. many instances. (he economic effects of a wage in-
crease and forced on some other aspect of public service.
Thus, higher wages for planners or garbagemen. for exam-
ple. may well lead to less expenditure on library books.
parks equipment or Jess effective waste disposal rather than
ewer jobs. i
But, it is precisely the prospective adverse economic con-
Sequence of wage demands that provide the discipline in
private sector wage bargaining. Its absence in the public
sector means that the bargaining process is not firmly

anchored in economic reality. .
A second major difference between public and private

counters at the bargaining table. The private sector
employer is forced to bargain on the strength of profit and
loss calculations. Al the end of the day a private employer
must have created.more value than the value of the labour.
capital. and materials he-used to produce his products —
otherwise he will have to go aut of business, The Chrysler
negotiations with the U.A.W. are dramatic evidence of the
larger-than-life iltustration of this process at work.

. By contrast, the public sector employers. to the extent
they can be identified'at all, are politicians attempting to
maximize their voter appeal. AS a consequence, a rot tov
well hidden. indeed perhaps the only. agenda item in public
sector. bargaining is the political appeal of the stance
adopted by the public employer. Economic considerations
pale by comparison with the necessity to get re-elected.

Political orientation of the public sector bargaining hus. in
recent history, meant that public sector wage Settings have
been very generous. They have been generous because the
tax cost of the wage increases. being spread over time and
many taxpayers, have been judged less important polilically
than the interruption of services to a relatively large
number of well identified, noisy customer, voters. However.
the process has also worked in reverse. -

Once it has been perceived that the public is more sen-
sitive to tax increases than the inlerruption of public ser-
vices, the public employer is inclined lo do a complete [lip-
flup. Generous wage settlement are replaced by a bargain:
ing stonewall; passive acceptance of the mosi outrageuus
pensiun and working agreements is replaced by public out-
rage and condemnation of the bargaining tactics empluveti
by the union. The end result is that the wage bargaining
provess ly no more tational and economic in ils erientatiun
when the cost to the taxpayer Is uppermost in the minds of
the public sector barguiner than when the tax cost ix ig-
nured. In the next column we will explore an intriguing xolu-
tion to the problems posed by civil service bargulning.

q .

$$$$$$$55—

ant |
SENSE»

public attention to the daings of public sector unions. J

ual |.

wage bargaining is the nature of the bargainer the union en- |”

igive... heart.fund

if tax time puts you in
the squeeze, remem-
ber, last year the
trained alists
at H&R Biock took
the pressure off for
over th uarters
ofa million Cana-
vo diansby preparing
accurate income tax returns at an average cost
of about $20. That's a good retum for the
money. And a lotless pressure. This year be sure.

THE INCOME TAX SPECIALISTS
=

HeR BLOCK

‘We canhelp you with

B.C. Tax Credits.

4650 Lakelse

OPEN A.M, tos P.M. weekdays
FAM-.-5 P.M. Sat. ,
Phone 635-2908 |
OPEN TODAY
Ho appointment necessary