This weekend marks both the Liberal anniversary — it was three years ago that the B.C. Liberals swept into office with the largest majority in provincial history — and the one-year countdown to the next election, May 17, 2005.
By any measure, the last three years have been marked by turbulence, a dramatic downturn in the economy, and chaos in government. Tens of thousands of jobs have been cut, hospitals and courthouses across the province have been closed, delivery of health care services has become increasingly privatized, B.C. Rail and B.C. Hydro have been sold off, and children, the poor and the disabled have found themselves under almost constant attack from, perhaps, the most right-wing government on the continent.
In the process, the Lie-beral government has battled with major segments of the population, including teachers, students, seniors, nurses, doctors, health care support workers, lawyers, judges and public sector unions. Strikes and other labour disputes have forced the cancellation of thousands of surgeries and medical procedures, ferries and transit services.
As a result, the government has lost public support from almost the moment they were elected. At present, the B.C. Liberals and the New Democrats are locked in a dead heat in popularity numbers, setting the stage for a political dogfight. Over the course of the next year, VanRamblings will continue to chronicle the litany of government abuses to which the Lie-berals have subjected British Columbians.

B.C.’s Health Minister, Colin Hansen, performs major surgery on HEU contract

A reader wrote into VanRamblings recently singing the praises of the IWA. In his commentary, this VanRamblings reader suggested that a resolution to the HEU-government impasse was readily apparent: adopt the non-confrontational IWA employer relations model.
Further, said (misguided, naïve or, perhaps, just meanspirited) reader went on to say that the union movement in British Columbia, as a whole, would do well to consider adoption of the IWA model as the right and proper model for future employee-employer contract “negotiations”.
In today’s Vancouver Sun, Victoria-based, and generally conservative-oriented freelance writer Paul Willcocks (and regular Vancouver Sun contributing writer on Saturdays) while suggesting …

“health sector wages and benefits in B.C. were badly managed by the (previous New Democratic government), and do need to be reduced. But most British Columbians believe that (negotiation of a new HEU contract) must be done with compassion and respect for people’s basic rights.”

also takes IWA boss, and putative federal Liberal candidate in New Westminster-Coquitlam Dave Haggard, to task for his “critical role in helping the government contract out thousands of health sector jobs at much lower wages and benefits, setting the stage for this week’s events.”
And that’s not all, writes Willcocks. As The Vancouver Sun online is available only by subscription, VanRamblings has made Paul Willcocks’ column available here, or by clicking on the link below.

Continue reading Race To The Bottom: Haggard’s Helping Hand For Liberals’ Plans →

The idea that workers should celebrate on the 1st of May was first raised at a Federated Trades and Labour Unions’ of Canada and the United States meeting in 1884.
The Congress decided that over the next 2 years, they would encourage their members to become involved in struggles for the 8-hour day that would culminate in widespread action on May 1, 1886.
This initial struggle culminated in The Haymarket Massacre in Chicago.
The American workers involved in the 1886 struggles sent delegates to an international Labour conference (the inaugural meeting of the Second International) that was held in Paris on July 14, 1889. The Congress decided to make May 1st ‘a day of international Labour demonstrations.’
Victorian workers held a May Day meeting as a result of this call in 1890.
Although Canada and the United States have avoided acknowledging May Day, and the spirit of rebellion that makes up its history (in North America, Labour Day is celebrated on the first Monday of September), in 2004 — as a consequence of the regressive actions of the provincial Liberal government — the B.C. Federation of Labour and the Vancouver and District Labour Council has called for a march and rally this May 1st.
The May Day celebrations in Vancouver will feature a rally and a 90-minute concert with Shari Ulrich, Bill Henderson and Roy Forbes (UHF). The rally and concert, Voices for Justice, will start at 1:00 p.m. in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery, 750 Hornby Street. During the concert and rally, the B.C. Fed will collect donations in support of the struggle by B.C’s women’s centres to restore government funding. Organizers have asked participants to assemble in front of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre (corner of Georgia and Hamilton Streets) at 11:00 a.m. to join a march to the concert.

HEU members picket St. Vincent’s Hospital. Joshua Berson photo. TheTyee.ca

Less than four days into a strike by the Hospital Employees Union, B.C.’s Liberal government legislated an end to the job action taken by 43,000 health workers. Bill 37 imposes a 15 per cent wage rollback, a longer work week and no protection against the continuing contracting-out of jobs to low-wage, mostly American-based, private firms. The Bill received Royal Assent at 6:30 a.m. this morning after an all-night session.
As of noon today, HEU Secretary-Business Manager Chris Allnutt went on record, stating that health unions would defy the back-to-work order. “I want to be perfectly clear what the union is instructing members to do. You are to respect the protest lines until we decide that you should go back to work,” he stated at a rally held at Vancouver General Hospital. Mr. Allnutt’s address provoked cheers and chants of ‘General Strike’ from protesters.
Rumours have been rampant throughout the day that a general solidarity strike is imminent.
In an article published by the Tyee.ca, and written by Marjorie Griffin Cohen — Simon Fraser University Political Science professor, and Chair of the university’s Women’s Studies Department — the co-author, as well, of a recent study conducted for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), Dr. Cohen begins her article by writing …

By June, 6,000 health care service workers will have lost their jobs as government health care authorities contracts out the work the workers once provided. So it should come as no surprise that the provincial government also legislated striking Hospital Employees Union members back to work on Wednesday, following a three-day strike. The Liberals also cut their wages by 11 percent and increased hours of work in an imposed two-year contract.

The B.C. government’s previous legislation promoting health care privatization was also deeply troubling. It is destroying the pay equity gains that women doing support work in the health care sector have made during the past 30 years. The effect on wages and conditions of work has been stunning: wages in the areas that have been privatized have been cut almost in half and most benefits have been eliminated or drastically reduced.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees supports the argument Dr. Cohen makes in both in her Tyee.ca article and in her CCPA study. “Let’s be clear here,” says Paul Moist, CUPE’s National President. “If men held these jobs and if (Premier) Campbell weren’t determined to open up the health care system to foreign corporations, these workers wouldn’t be on strike and the Liberals wouldn’t be gutting their contracts.”