Letters

Letters

PSAC activists unhappy with offer

There is still no job security for federal
80vernment employees represented by the
Public Service Alliance of Canada. A tenta-
live offer is being released to the member-
ship for ratification without a recommen-
‘ation from the bargaining committee
( PSAC locals urge rejection,” Tribune
April 3, 1989),

The offer does not contain a ‘‘no layoff
Clause,” which was a mandate to the bar-
&alning teams. While the employers says it
will lay off by attrition, this is hardly a
Satisfactory guarantee.

Alliance president Daryl Bean is uncon-
cerned about this failure to achieve real pro-
tection for his members’ jobs as he regards
the “new breakthroughs” in retraining and
Severance pay as providing for members’
needs,

These “breakthroughs” relate to the
Workforce Adjustment Policy which would
be amended to allow for limited improve-
ments. These would do little for the average
member and their benefits are gone once the
government has achieved the 15,000 job
Teduction announced in the May 1985
budget.

The membership’s demands to use
Seniority as a basis for layoff have once
again been ignored. Layoffs in the federal
g0vernment are processed through “reverse
Order of merit.” Using an employer-
determined formula, employees are ranked
a those deemed of “less merit” are laid off
irst,

The wage offer of 15.2 per cent over 42
months is well behind the rate of inflation.
In the last three years PSAC members have
Teceived increases less than the rate of infla-
tion, and forecasts for 1989 and 1990 are
setting the rate at five per cent while we are
again asked to settle for less.

The union’s position taken to the bar-
gaining table was for flat rate dollar
Mcreases instead of the traditional percen-
tage increases which widen the wage gaps
and discriminate against those at the lower
end of the pay scales.

Coalitions need
to be genuinely
representative

With reference to the last part of
George Hewison’s article (“The Wil-
son budget:the next platform against
the Tories,” Tribune, March 20, 1989)
where he speaks of the need of coali-
tions to fight the neo-conservative
attacks on the people, I thoroughly
agree. Yet it seems to me that we do
need to define just what a coalition is.

I say this because sometimes in the
past a few activists have got together
over some issue and called themselves
the “So and So Coalition” when
they’re nothing of the sort. The
danger of such an arrangement is that
the individuals involved often belong
to organizations that are unable to
make it on their own and have the
vain hope that the “coalition” will
solve their problems. Of course it
never does, for surely a true coalition
is a joint effort by various organiza-
tions, who have already proved them-
selves, for a common aim. And,
further, that each constituent retains
its own identity and programs.

Bill Campbell
Kamloops

\ o ae Re

Li SERVICH
‘LLIANCE

a

members deserve more, reader argues.

There are other items in the offer but
more vacation leave or a higher employer
share of your drug plan are small comfort as
your name joins those of your peers on the
government surplus list.

After 18 months at the bargaining table
the members deserve more. During the last
round of negotiation three of the vice presi-
dents of the Alliance issued a letter urging
the members to reject the substandard offer
and were promptly censured by the Alliance
board of directors for providing leadership.
Today the Alliance officers are silent except
for Daryl Bean who sees this offer as a
“substantive package.”

As is usually the case, the left in the
Alliance responded quickly to the offer with
a vote ‘no’ campaign. In Toronto,
members are at work leafleting and a major
rally of the membership was called for April
1 to indicate to both Treasury Board and
PSAC that we don’t agree with Bean’s
assessment of the offer, and intend to do our
part to see it is rejected.

Unfortunately Daryl Bean is the same
individual who signed away the members
“right to strike” and a majority of our
demands prior to entering into negotiations
in 1985 — not much has changed.

Some of the leaders in the Alliance such
as John Baglow, national director of the
national component and Renaud Paquet,
president of the Canada Employment and
Immigration Union have come out against
the offer.

The members in Toronto are angry and
see this wage offer as a slap in the face.
Bargaining at a national level is obsolete
and members will be calling for some sort of
regional COLA to address the diversity of
the costs of living.

Much depends now on the union’s acti-
vists. The left in the Alliance is amorphous

PSAC MEMBERS’ RALLY, MAY, 1988 ...

after 18 months of bargaining,

and bands together in a reactive way regard-
ing issues rather than setting up a formal
structure to develop strategies.

It is essential that we build and develop a
left caucus within the Alliance and take a
pro-active stand on this and other issues.

C. Kaufman-Sinclair
Toronto

Alta. vote
shows flaw
in elections

After each government election,
either provincial or federal, a question
arises in my mind. “How many voters
does the elected ruling party really
represent?”

Let’s look at the latest election in
Alberta. The Tory party picked up 44
per cent of the vote and yet will receive
49 seats out of 83 which is 71 per cent
of the total. The NDP, with 26 per
cent of the vote, got 16 seats or 19 per
cent. The Liberals, at 29 per cent of
the vote, picked up eight seats or 10
per cent. The two opposition parties
combined received 55 per cent of the
popular vote and ‘yet will be silenced
in the legislature by the “Tory major-
ity.” It just doesn’t make sense.

Another case in point is the last
election in Saskatchewan where the
Tories formed a majority government
with two per cent less votes than the
only other party in the legislature, the
NDP.

The different parties in each
government should have a voice in the
legislature according to the popular
vote they receive. This way the
government would represent a lot
more of what the population voted f
for. We would not end up having to ]
swallow the philosophy of one. party '
which most of the time ‘does not 1

represent the views of the majority of
voters.

These aberrations are ailments of
our Canadian democracy. When
coupled with the cancers like the
Senate and Governor-General, it
shows clearly that there is always
room for improvement in our demo-
cracy.

Fernand Samson

Mergermania concentrates wealth so
drastically that it ultimately can lead to
the world’s people being hoarded into
isolation camps or reservations, while the
world’s land and resources are left to
only a few corporate leaders. As these
“successful” imperialists wander glo-
bally, from empty mansion to empty
mansion, they will ponder: “Gee! The
planet doesn’t seem to be very populated
any more ... seems a bit lonely.”

Now it’s easy to ridicule corporate
executive insensitivity and describe what
ultimate scenario will develop if they get
their way of “unlimited profit,” but it
also reflects an insensitivity within
myself — the hardest aspect of callous-
ness to see.

If I were in tune, I would see and feel
their emptiness, that they have lost their
way, that they have become psychologi-
cally blind, losing their moral compass
and interdependency, both socially and
environmentally. I don’t ridicule a blind
man who has lost his cane, so why

How can we correct the ‘moral
compass’ of the corporations?

should I deride a ruthless entreprenuer?
In fact, the man who has lost his cane
probably needs a lot less help.

. The question that remains is: how do
we help the “out of control” corporate
executives who have money and power
and little compassion for the society and
planet they are destroying? Well, incar-
cerating them may be a necessary emer-
gency measure since requests to become
socially and environmentally accounta-
ble have gone unheeded, but it won’t heal
the disturbance within.

All disturbance needs long-term ther-.
apy, whether its effects result in “white-
collar” corporate executive crime or
“blue-collar” petty theft. This will take
resolve on the healthy part of each of us
to assert compassionate action against
crime, followed immediately with an
equal compassion and commitment to
help them reintegrate their desperate
souls.

Bo Filter
Vancouver

Pacific Tribune, April 10, 1989 ¢ 5