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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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 .

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