In February the Public Service Alliance of Canada announced that it intended to fight provisions in The Hapless Government™'s budget implementation bill that undermined collective bargaining and pay equity. I don't know if the PSAC has taken it any further than that but another public service union has.
One of the largest federal unions is challenging the constitutionality of the Harper government's budget legislation for taking away collective bargaining in the public service and pay equity as a human right for federal workers.
The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada filed its lawsuit in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Toronto, arguing the budget legislation's "regressive and illegal provisions" violate federal workers' rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, said acting president Gary Corbett.
The article quotes the co-chair of the National Joint Council as suggesting that 17 other unions are expected to mount their own challenges to the budget. They would all join the Mounties who filed suit in January because the government rolled back a pay increase that had been negotiated last June.
We seem to be moving closer to the American system despite ourselves. Bad legislation sails through without sufficient opposition and the real fight happens in the courts.
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Gosh. How could that happen? Not only are the Conservatives bringing legislation forward that they must know cannot survive a court challenge, but the leader of the opposition isn't opposing it.
You don't suppose that the Liberals themselves have decided that Parliament is kind of quaint and ineffective anyway (see under Self-fulfilling Prophecy)?
"Gosh. How could that happen? Not only are the Conservatives bringing legislation forward that they must know cannot survive a court challenge, but the leader of the opposition isn't opposing it."
That's because there's a coalition government in Canada. Effectively, anyhow. As for the ridiculousness of court-based democratic review:
We should make our politicians pay out of their own pocket the cost of a lost Charter challenge. If a law is struck down by the Supreme Court, then everyone who voted for it has to pay a share of the costs.
That should make them think, anyways.
I speak as an ex-PSAC member who endured years of wage freezes from the Mulroney government, and who did not fare much better during the Chretien years. And since then - having been transferred to the provincial government and serving under both NDP and Sask Party governments - I remain less than impressed and more than a little recalcitrant.
Civil servants have long been the whipping-boy of governments, and putting the boots to their employees has always been a vote-getter for the pols.
'Twas ever thus.
GO for it PIPS!!! Goddammit, take it to court! SOMEBODY has to hold them to the law!!!
Civil servants have long been the whipping-boy of governments, and putting the boots to their employees has always been a vote-getter for the pols.
'Twas ever thus.
As an ex-PSAC member I concur Some Old Guy. Even in Ottawa, were government and the civil service basically props up the economy, I would constantly hear sneering commentary from private sector folk who continued to propagate the myth that we were over-paid slackers. I did a year of 60-70 hour work weeks without claiming overtime (which I was entitled to) because our managers didn't have the budget but yet the file we were working on was top priority. They did try to compensate by giving us extra days off with pay here and there but it never equaled the amount of lost revenue. But yup, back in the mid-1990s, it really didn't pay to make a stink.
I don't think PSAC is pursuing action. The union signed an agreement.
Still, in my opinion, PSAC should support PIPS on this. C-10, as it relates to the PS, creates a serious opening for more violations of workers rights.
Thanks for posting on this!
Thank God for unions!! I've been a member of the Operating Engineers for almost 30 years. Without the protection of a union, you're pretty much on the outside looking in at good wages, pension plans etc. When the government pursues these courses of action, it's up to EVERY union to support our brothers and sisters. From where I sit, this looks like a clear violation of our constitutional rights to fair and equal treatment.