It’s official. Reduced public services and cheap labour are the cornerstones of Ontario Conservatives’ latest economic scheme, as outlined in their recent white paper on “flexible labour markets.” For Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak, “prosperity” means turning Ontario into a low-wage, regulation-free haven where corporations rake in profit at the expense of Ontario workers, communities and the environment. Gone, scoffs Hudak, are the days when an ordinary person could imagine a lifetime of work, with a modicum of job security, that paid enough to enjoy a few niceties in life, perhaps even the occasional vacation.
To Hudak, flexible labour means cheap labour — and permanent uncertainty for those who take home a paycheque in exchange for a day’s work.
When Caterpillar workers at Electro-Motive Diesel in London, Ont., rejected a 50 per cent wage cut, the company relocated the plant to Muncie, Indiana, where the wages averaged $13.50 per hour — less than half the earnings of the skilled London workers. This news came in spite of Caterpillar’s posting a nearly 60 per cent increase in fourth-quarter profit in 2011 and the highest yearly growth rate since 1947.
Rather than challenging his federal counterpart Stephen Harper for allowing the company to reap tax cuts, make record profits and skip town, Hudak blamed the workers for expecting middle-class jobs. And now he is marching lock-step with Harper, who has expanded the Temporary Foreign Worker Program to allow employers greater leeway to import disposable workers from all over the world. When the work is done, or if workers are maimed on the job, they are sent back to their home countries with nary a thought. Harper then gave the signal to cut wages for these workers by up to 15 per cent and is pushing unemployed workers to accept these jobs at basement wages. Cheap, flexible and disposable labour: this is the Conservatives’ shared agenda, from Stephen Harper to Tim Hudak.
But implementing this agenda is not possible without neutralizing opposition.
Harper has led the way by attacking the finances of any group or individual that dares to criticize his policies: defunding church-based charities and immigrant advocacy organizations, smearing environmental groups and firing outspoken public servants. And now, Tim Hudak is taking a page from the Harper playbook by attacking unions.
By attacking the Rand Formula used to collect union dues, Hudak hopes to undermine workers’ ability to oppose his agenda. But the Rand Formula is there to ensure that all those in the workplace, who benefit from the improved wages and benefits achieved by the union, make the same financial contribution. And while the law allows workers not to join a union, they are required to contribute to charity an amount equivalent to the dues paid by union members.
For more than two centuries, working people have pooled their pennies to form unions and shared their resources with workers everywhere. In doing so, they have pushed wages and benefits up across the board and fought to extend their gains to the entire population by winning minimum wage increases, expansions to the CPP and better health and safety standards. They even help their communities by contributing more than half of the United Way’s $500 million budget.
There’s little doubt that what really offends Hudak is the fact that union members use their resources to participate in elections. When voters pulled the rug out from under Hudak’s 2011 electoral campaign, he blamed Harris-weary union members for campaigning against him and running television ads to expose his agenda.
Yet Hudak’s concern for fairness and transparency does not apply to his corporate backers. According to a recent study of Ontario election finances, between 2004 and 2011, more than 40 per cent of Progressive Conservatives’ funds — $26 million — came from employers. By contrast, the New Democratic Party received a paltry $666,000 from companies. Corporations provided almost 40 per cent of all election financing; union contributions made up a mere 5 per cent. In last October’s provincial election, more than 500 corporations contributed to Hudak’s campaign, including some 40 numbered companies whose dealings are unknown since there is no financial disclosure requirement for private companies.
Hudak’s plan is hardly original. It’s another variation on the race to the bottom where jobs are permanently in flux, wages are low and the social safety is all but gone — yet corporations make out like bandits. His vision for lean government and labour flexibility represents a fundamentally different future from the one most Ontarians expect — and deserve.
For all these reasons, I am confident that the majority of Ontarians — like they did eight months ago — will reject Hudak’s pathway to poverty, and instead choose to make Ontario fair for everyone.
Sid Ryan is president of the Ontario Federation of Labour
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