April 15, 2014 - Vol. 3 No.
23
No to Privatization!
Block the Schemes of the
Liberals and PCs to Steal
Our Public Assets to Pay the Rich!
No
to Privatization!
• Block the Schemes of the Liberals and PCs to
Steal Our Public Assets to Pay the Rich!
• Government Announces Panel to Review Public
Assets for Privatization
• Foxes Placed in Charge of the Hen House
Justice For Injured
Workers!
• Scrap the Anti-Worker Draft Benefits
Policies! No to Austerity! - Christine Nugent
• Broad Rejection of Government's Attacks on
Injured Workers
• Ontario Federation of Labour Calls for
Support for Injured Workers
Public Servants
Broaden Fight for Rights
• Union Reaches Out to Non-Unionized Colleagues
- Philip Fernandez
No to
Privatization!
Block the Schemes of the Liberals and PCs to
Steal Our Public Assets to Pay the Rich!
The Wynne government has announced it is selling off
public real estate in Toronto, selling its shares in GM and
establishing a panel to "review" other government assets -- Hydro One,
Ontario Power Generation and the Liquor Control Board of Ontario -- all
as part of a plan to raise funds for a so-called Trillium Trust that is
being created to finance $29 billion in infrastructure and public
transit over 10 years.
It all sounds very noble but of course has been decided behind the
backs of the people who are not party to any evaluation of either the
assets or the infrastructure projects. In addition, the government has
also announced that it will be tabling its latest
austerity/pay-the-rich budget on May 1.
The theft of Ontario's
public assets is being carried out at an ever
faster rate through privatization in the form of public-private
partnerships and other schemes to have the public finance private
profit. It removes immense amounts of added-value from the economy and
puts it in the hands of the filthy rich who destroy societies to enrich
themselves further and maintain their positions of privilege. Not to
mention the way these "partnerships" are used to attack the wages and
working conditions of the working people. Meanwhile, the government
also uses its stranglehold on the decision-making power to dictate
austerity for the working people in order to steal more funds for its
schemes.
The Liberals hope upon hope that the working people will be lulled to
sleep with their claims of not "pre-judging" the outcome of their
review. This is a fraud to hide that the Liberals are putting their
ducks in a row to emerge as champions in the next election by defeating
the PCs and winning a majority in the Legislature.
The working people of Ontario cannot afford to side with either the
Liberals or the PCs in the mistaken belief that one or the other, or
any other champion of neo-liberal assumptions for the economy, is a
lesser evil. Opposition to the austerity agenda and its corollary, the
sell-off and privatization of public assets, is a serious first step to
depriving the monopolies and the governments in their service of the
power to deprive the workers of what belongs to them by right -- wages
and working conditions and a retirement commensurate with the standard
of living they have created for themselves, as well as the right to
health care and education at the standard society has achieved for
themselves and their families. As for the cost of infrastructure the
working people require, not the rich, it can be readily financed in a
manner which is not destructive to the economy and the people if the
motive to do so were present and governments stop paying the rich.
By building on the experiences they have already gained, the working
people can establish a new landmark from which to advance their own
pro-social program for the society.
Hands Off Our Public Assets!
Stop
Governments from Paying the Rich!
Hold Governments to Account!
Government Announces Panel to Review
Public Assets for
Privatization
On April 11, the Liberal government announced that it
will sell public assets it currently owns while establishing an expert
panel to look at ways to "improve
efficiency and optimize the full value of Hydro One, Ontario Power
Generation (OPG), and the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO)." The
announcement
was made by Finance Minister/former Royal Bank of Canada executive
Charles Sousa while speaking to the
Economic Club in Toronto.
Sousa announced that the
government would sell the LCBO
headquarters and possibly the OPG building in Toronto. It also plans to
sell its shares in GM
which it acquired in the 2009 bailout of the auto company. Sousa said:
"those are things that we can start moving on more quickly."
The advisory council was
announced as the Liberal government also confirmed that the next
austerity/pay-the-rich budget
would be tabled on May 1-- International Day of Working Class
Solidarity. This means that a provincial election may also have to be
called shortly if the budget
does not pass.
The Finance Minister said that the
money raised would be
used to pay for the government's infrastructure projects. "The Council
will look to sweat the
income statements so we can reinvest in public infrastructure projects
that will create jobs and grow the economy," he said. The Liberal
government had
previously announced that it would clarify how it would pay for transit
and infrastructure projects in the budget, with Premier Wynne saying
that the "revenue tools" to do so would not include new taxes. In this
way, the Wynne
government is trying to make the issue into a debate about whether
taxes should increase or whether public assets will need to be sold to
pay for transit and infrastructure. It serves to distract from the fact
that the Wynne government has been put in place to deliver more
pay-the-rich schemes, including to the infrastructure monopolies that
will make big
scores.
The advisory council will look at ways "to get more
value out of key public assets," particularly Hydro One, OPG, and the
LCBO, Sousa said. The government's
website refers to efficient governance, growth strategies, corporate
reorganization,
mergers, acquisitions, and public-private partnerships as ways this
will be done.
Sousa commented on the panel's mandate, using
the Liberals' bogus notion of "balance," saying that government
ownership would be
preferred but at the same time saying: "I'm not going to preclude what
their recommendations will be, but they're going to assess what's the
best use of those
assets, and who should own them." He also said that some decisions
require greater care and "we need experts to ensure that we protect the
interests of
Ontarians." He did not explain why the experts chosen were experts in
privatization, however this clearly shows the real aims of the review.
The PCs responded by taking credit for the Liberals'
proposal saying they had proposed the same
idea in 2012 but were ignored by the government.
The NDP meanwhile said that it would
not support any privatization of public assets.
Sousa's comments serve as another example of the
disinformation used to steer people into a debate over which type of
privatization they should accept.
The fact is that the Liberals are continuing the implementation of
privatization of the public authority as governments before them did,
particularly in the cases
of Hydro One, OPG and the LCBO, with the narrow
aim of opening up new areas for the rich to make big scores, by first
buying up public assets and then being paid back those funds to carry
out publicly-financed private
infrastructure projects (public-private partnerships). The
aim is to implement this agenda under the guise of "efficiencies" which
means more austerity for the working people in the form of attacks on
their wages,
working conditions and job security and taking money out of the public
purse to pay the rich. This will only make the situation worse for
Ontarians and the
economy.
The aim is also to silence
the workers' opposition in
any way possible, including through the use of so-called expert
panels which are said to represent the
public good. However, this disinformation is being rejected at every
turn. Just
as when teachers and education workers along with many others refused
to accept the fraud of
austerity when it
came from the mouth of TD banker Don Drummond when he headed up the
Commission on the Reform of Ontario's Public Services in
2012,
such a fraud to privatize public assets will be rejected now.
Working people should go all out to deny the Liberals
and PCs the impression each seeks that their programs meet the approval
of the people. Their destruction of the public authority to make the
rich richer is unacceptable.
Foxes Placed in Charge of the Hen House
The panel of "experts" the government has entrusted with
protecting the interests of Ontarians on the Premier's Advisory Council
on Government Assets
will be headed by Ed Clark, Group President and CEO of TD Bank Group.
Clark sits on the Board of Directors of the C.D. Howe Institute, a
neo-liberal "think
tank" of the monopolies notorious for churning out pseudo-scientific,
anti-worker "studies" to justify, among other things, the privatization
of public assets --
with Canada Post and garbage collection services in the GTA being two
recent targets. He is also on the Steering Committee of the
Bilderberg Group, a
self-appointed group of some of the imperialist countries' richest and
most powerful individuals that hold secret annual summits to which
representatives of governments
and select others are summoned on an invitation-only basis to receive
their marching orders.
Also on the panel are:
David Denison, the former President of a private
investment firm and former President and Chief Executive Officer of the
Canada Pension Plan Investment
Board who currently sits on the Board of Directors of the Royal Bank of
Canada and Bell Canada Enterprises;
Janet Ecker, who held various cabinet posts in the Mike
Harris and Ernie Eves PC governments
from 1995-2003, including
Minister of Finance, governments which waged
an all out war on public services in order to privatize them. Ecker is
currently President and CEO of the Toronto Financial Services Alliance,
a public-private
partnership established to attract foreign capital to Toronto's
financial monopolies (banks, investment firms, pension funds and
insurance companies) and make
them more competitive globally. She is also on the Board of Directors
of Metrolinx, the Ontario government agency created to facilitate the
privatization of
public transit in the GTA and surrounding areas through public-private
partnerships, contracting out of jobs and other arrangements to hand
vast amounts of
public resources over to private businesses;[1]
Frances Lankin, who was a cabinet minister in the Bob
Rae government from 1990 to 1995 and currently sits on the Board of the
Ontario Lottery and
Gaming Commission as well as other boards. She co-led the Wynne
government's Ontario Social Assistance Review between 2010 and 2012;
Ellis Jacob, President and Chief Executive Officer of
Cineplex Entertainment, the biggest exhibitor of movies in Canada and
the fourth-largest in North
America.
Note
1. For more information about
Metrolinx, see Ontario Political Forum, October 1,
2012.
Justice
For Injured Workers!
Scrap the Anti-Worker Draft Benefit Policies!
No to Austerity!
- Christine Nugent -
Injured workers and
supporters hold action outside WSIB
offices in London, April 11, 2014. (Occupy
WSIB)
The Ontario Network of Injured Workers Groups (ONIWG)
held a consultation conference at the end of March to study the
Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB)
Draft Benefits Policies in order to establish their position to present
to the Board. All submissions to the WSIB are to be completed by April
30. The new
policies will be going to the WSIB Board of Directors on June 5.
According to WSIB, feedback will be reviewed by the Board and
considered, after which the
revised and new policies will be finalized.
Injured workers, their organizations and allies have
concluded that the latest draft benefits policies on aggravation basis,
pre-existing conditions, recurrences,
work disruptions and permanent impairments confirm that the WSIB is
continuing to resolve an unfunded liability on the backs of injured
workers. Each draft
benefits policy drastically alters existing policies to comply with the
proposals prescribed by a KPMG audit. Lawyers at the conference pointed
out that the
newly introduced policy on pre-existing conditions will allow
adjudicators to cut injured workers off benefits once the usual healing
time is reached. The
usual time will be declared the maximum time. Any ongoing impairment
will be considered as an asymptomatic pre-existing condition.
The conference further
concluded that the WSIB is on a
path of wrecking the compensation system by these proposed policies
which have been illegally
implemented for the past four years. ONIWG, in a letter to Premier
Wynne says: "We are facing an unprecedented legal and moral crisis in
workers
compensation with these proposed Benefit Policies."
Ontario Political Forum
stands
shoulder to shoulder with the injured workers. It joins the demand for
the WSIB to scrap these policies and for the government to
take responsibility to ensure that the right of injured workers and all
workers to just
compensation is guaranteed. Removing the WSIB's unfunded liability of
$14
billion
on the backs of injured workers
is a clear example of the lengths governments that base themselves on
neo-liberal assumptions will go to ensure
they represent the interests of the rich. In upcoming elections workers
must take a stand to defeat those politicians who stand for such a
society.
ONIWG has launched a
campaign to scrap the WSIB draft
benefits policies through presentations to labour councils and
municipalities, online petitions and letter writing
campaigns to Premier Wynne and the WSIB. Should a general election be
called in the province, they will be demanding that the platforms of
the political
parties include justice for injured workers. The Ontario Federation of
Labour (OFL) has issued a call to action to all labour councils to take
up the opposition to this latest attack on
injured workers. The implementation of the "draft" benefit policies,
denial of claims and other measures have already taken place, resulting
in injured workers
being cut off benefits and being forced to rely on social services like
Ontario Works, the Ontario Disability Support Program, municipal
housing and food banks and the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP).
These services are social programs which are being used to replace the
responsibility of employers to properly fund their workers'
compensation through the WSIB. Municipalities are facing increasing
enrolments in the
programs they administer.
Municipal councils have taken up writing to the Premier to demand that
the compensation system operate as intended. That is to say, that
health services and
compensation
to provide for injured workers' needs and expenses are the
responsibility of employers through premium contributions. In return,
injured workers have
given up their right to sue employers.
Broad Rejection of Government's Attacks
on Injured Workers
The following are excerpts from recent submissions
and letters to Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) Chair
Elizabeth Witmer, Premier Kathleen
Wynne, MPPs
and the leaders of parties in the Legislature demanding that the WSIB
scrap the 2014 draft policies!
The Ontario Network of
Injured Workers' Groups (ONIWG)
An open letter to Premier Wynne from the Ontario Network
of Injured Workers' Groups (ONIWG)
calls on the Premier to "stop the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board
(WSIB)
from changing the
law governing workers' compensation in Ontario by way of internal
policy change. Changing the law should be done by the Ontario
Legislature and our elected
representatives, not the institution charged with following the law,
the WSIB. The usurpation of power undertaken by the WSIB is a 'scandal'
that your
government should be aware of and stop before it adversely affects this
province.
"The proposed Benefit Policy review changes the
foundation of the Act that has been in place since Sir William Meredith
created the modern workers
compensation system 100 years ago. It is a massive and illegal attack
on the rights of the injured workers of Ontario. Instead of a fair
Ontario, which you
promised, we are witnessing a virtual 'coup', happening under your
watch, where an arms-length agency is attempting to change the law
under the guise of 'updating' internal policies.
"Ontario elected your government to make the laws of our
province. Unelected bureaucrats, like Mr. I. David Marshall, President
and CEO of the WSIB,
should follow the law, instead of changing the law, as if the WSIB were
the government of Ontario. [...]
" [T]hese changes are already in place and, once
illegally codified into WSIB policy, the Appeals Tribunal will be bound
by them. This will result in injured
workers being denied justice and becoming more reliant on social
assistance, food banks, OHIP and so on. This is in direct contravention
of your government
concern about poverty reduction and the historic compromise, in which
workers gave up their right to sue in return for fair and just
compensation for as long
as the disability lasts.
"The Benefit Policies will also introduce a massive
intrusion into the private life of injured workers. The new focus will
be on what happened before, not
after, the injury. This will produce a massive intrusion into private
medical records. Even before the policy change, we are already seeing
workers who seek
compensation for psychiatric conditions, being routinely asked to
release all medical records for five years before the injury. This is
in line with the most
intrusive and socially backward legislation in states such as Alabama,
Texas and Arizona. It is as though Tim Hudak were in charge of the
WSIB, with his
sympathy for the social policies of the regressive 'right to work' US
states.
"We want to alert you, Premier Wynne that what is
happening is not only a legal scandal, it is also a moral scandal.
Under the leadership of Dalton
McGuinty, the Government hired Mr. David Marshall with an explicit
bonus attached to his 'success' in reducing the WSIB's unfunded
liability. We do not
know of any other previous President of the WSIB, with an incentive
directly connected to benefit reductions to injured workers. Injured
workers are offended
by this bonus. The WSIB should be fair, and should be seen to be fair.
Instead, the bonus structure of its President compromises the Board and
the Government
that hired him."
Explicit Attack on Rights
of Injured Workers
Four
lawyers who have practiced workers' compensation law for a collective
134 years call for the draft policies to be abandoned in a letter to
the Premier. They state that it is a matter of record that the
WSIB has been illegally adjudicating the claims of injured workers
largely according to the draft benefit policies for the past four
years, as the draft policies are contrary to the law as set
out in the Workplace Safety and
Insurance Act, existing operational policies and a long
history of decision making at both the WSIB and the Workplace
Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal. They say that "no
workers' compensation policies have ever been such
an explicit attack on the rights of injured workers in all of the years
since the Meredith principles and the workers' compensation system were
established 100
years ago."
They point out that the WSIB asserts that the mere
presence of even an asymptomatic pre-existing condition is
evidence that an injury is not work-related and that benefits can be
terminated even if the injured worker continues to suffer from a
work-related injury/disease
causing functional impairment.
Action outside WSIB
offices in London, April 11, 2014. (Occupy
WSIB)
United Steelworkers Injured
Workers Program
The United Steelworkers Injured Workers Program, a
project of the Steelworkers Toronto Area Council,
in a letter to the Premier explains that the draft benefits policies
allow the WSIB to cut benefits simply because a person has aged.
They say: "When WSIB turns its back on injured workers,
Return to Work Services are withdrawn and employers are no longer
pressured to accommodate
persons with disabilities. Grievance procedures are in place in
unionized workplaces to ensure OHRC [Ontario Human Rights Commission]
compliance, but
if an injured worker is on their own and receiving social assistance,
they do not have the resources to fight the discrimination. Further,
when the Board ends
entitlement to health care benefits, the cost burden of treating
injured workers is downloaded to the (OHIP) [Ontario Health Insurance
Plan] rather than
employer-funded WSIB."
"Put these Damaging Changes
Aside" Says CUPE
In a letter to the WSIB Chair Elizabeth Witmer,
the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) states that they are
opposed to the draft benefits policies which propose to blame workers'
disabilities on pre-existing conditions rather than what happens to
them
at work. CUPE explains its involvement in the tragic situations facing
many workers who are not covered by WSIB, in which employers have been
let off the
hook. They have launched the "WSIB Cover Me" campaign. The campaign
exposes
the pro-employer situation in Ontario whereby only 72 per cent of
workplaces
protect their workers under the compensation system managed by the
WSIB. Their campaign material states: "That's
the lowest rate in the country, and it leaves 1.8 million Ontario
workers with no WSIB protection in the event of a workplace illness or
injury." CUPE is
demanding that the draft policies be scrapped and that the Ontario
government ensure that workers' compensation is universal and that all
employers collectively fund
the compensation system.
Proposed Benefits Changes
Will Significantly
Reduce Compensation
The Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario, Ontario
Nurses' Association, Ontario
Public Service Employees' Union, Service Employees International Union,
Ontario Professional Firefighters' Association, Provincial Building and
Construction
Trades Council of Ontario, Teamsters Canada Rail Conference and the
Society of Energy Professionals, in a joint letter to Elizabeth
Witmer, state that in their
view the policy on pre-existing conditions is simply a prescription to
deny workers' claims, and for direct decision-makers to ignore the long
accepted
significant
contributing factor test, a test that is used to determine whether a
worker's injury or condition is compensable.
They highlight the fact that not only will the proposed
benefits polices significantly reduce the compensation owed to injured
workers but they will impact return
to work and health and safety. They say employers will have little
incentive to return injured workers to work when their accident costs
are significantly reduced
by these policy changes and the reduced claims costs will have a
negative impact on the employers' obligation to provide a healthy and
safe workplace.
The unions oppose the policies which attempt to diminish
the contribution of work to the disability and that create a disposable
workforce.
Ontario Federation of Labour Calls for Support for
Injured Workers
Earlier this year, the
Ontario
Federation of Labour (OFL) issued
a call to action to all its affiliated unions and their locals to take
up the opposition to the direction
the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) is taking with its
latest
attack on injured workers through its proposed draft benefits policies.
Background notes provided by the OFL for labour councils
state:
"In November 2013 the WSIB
released amended draft
policies dealing with issues including Recurrences, Determining
Permanent Impairment, Work
Disruptions, Aggravation Claims, and the Effects of Pre-existing
conditions. These policies will have a drastic effect on a worker's
ability to collect compensation
for a work-related injury/disease. The underpinning theme throughout
all of the policies is addressing the perception that workers are being
compensated for
symptoms that are more related to the natural aging process rather
than the work-related accident. Injured workers will witness a chilling
effect on their
compensation entitlement. This will result on injured workers being
forced onto ODSP benefits or Ontario Works, leaving municipalities or
tax payers footing
the bill, not the employers who injured them.
"The draft policies direct Board and Tribunal decision
makers to focus on cutting compensation, especially where there is any
evidence of what is called
a 'pre-existing condition.' It is critical to understand that
pre-existing conditions are defined very broadly, and include
age-related changes or vulnerabilities
even if they have never affected the worker's ability to do his/her job.
"The most common example of a pre-existing condition is
'degenerative disc disease,' which isn't really a disease; it is just a
sign of an aging back. On
an MRI of almost any worker, especially those over the age of 40, you
will see evidence of degenerative disc disease -- even if the worker
has a strong and
healthy back and is completely symptom free.
"Under the new policies, decision makers will be
directed to focus on the worker's pre-existing condition instead of the
injury that happened at work. If
they find a pre-existing condition, they are to deny ongoing benefits.
Even if benefits are granted at the outset, the pre-existing condition
will be used as an
excuse to reduce longer term benefits, especially those for permanent
disabilities.
"These policies undermine long-accepted principles of
workers' compensation, such as:
- the 'significant contributing factor' standard
for causation. The work place need only be one contributing factor to
the workers' disability, it need not
be the only one; and
- the 'thin skull rule' which means that a worker is
entitled to benefits even if the injury is more severe because he or
she was more vulnerable.
"It is also likely that some aspects of the draft
policies would be illegal, contrary to the Workplace Safety and
Insurance Act, the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms, and the Human Rights Code. The litigation over these changes
could destabilize our workers' compensation system for years,
interfering with
cooperation of workers and employers on preventing work injuries and
helping injured workers return to work. These policies should be
scrapped now."
The Niagara and District
Injured Workers Group made a
presentation to the Niagara Regional Council on this question. It
resulted in
the Council agreeing to write a letter to Premier Wynne
opposing these changes. More letters are forthcoming as compensation
activists in labour
councils take up involving City and Regional Councils in taking a stand
against these unjust benefits policies that are also affecting the
delivery of social services,
including housing and homeless services in their municipalities. In
their submission to their municipal council, the Niagara Group reported
that one in five injured
workers end up on social assistance.
Union representatives from the Ontario Disability
Support Program (ODSP) say that injured workers are forced to apply to
social assistance programs that
then refer them to ODSP where they are, in some cases, assisted in
filing appeals to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal
(WSIAT). If the
worker wins the appeal the WSIB must refund thousands of dollars to the
ODSP. As part of the austerity agenda of the government, the WSIB
is implementing its plan to get rid of its "unfunded liability" on the
backs of injured workers and this has caused a tsunami of appeals to
the WSIAT. The legal clinic Injured Workers' Consultants says that
appeals are now taking
up to five years.
Public
Servants Broaden Fight for Rights
Union Reaches Out to Non-Unionized Colleagues
- Philip Fernandez -
On April 5 the Association of Management, Administrative
and Professional Crown Employees of Ontario (AMAPCEO), the bargaining
agent representing
12,000 professional and supervisory public servants which is currently
in
negotiations with the
Ontario government, took the step of
reaching out to their colleagues in the Management Compensation Plan
(MCP) and the
Senior Management Group (SMG). These management employees are excluded
from the bargaining unit and are also facing the Ontario government's
unilateral
demands for concessions in the form of wage freezes and reduced pension
and health benefits and job protection arrangements, among other
things. MCA and SGM
staff provide advice to
elected officials, help organize and keep projects on track, manage
conflicts, implement human
resource policies and perform other management functions within
the Ontario Public Service.
A website has been set up -- mcptogether.ca
-- to
invite collaboration and joint action in common cause to fight for a
just contract that recognizes the vital
contributions of employees working in all sectors of the Ontario
Public Service.
In related news, on
April 11
AMAPCEO announced that negotiations with the government have stalled
and that both sides have agreed to mediation as the next step. The
union continues to inform and engage its
members through ongoing actions -- letter-writing campaigns, public
leafleting, issuing press statements
and other strategies -- to keep the membership informed and involved as
well as to inform the people of Ontario about their just struggle.
Ontario Political Forum
calls on all working people to stand with the AMAPCEO, MCA and SGM
employees whose work is vital to the functioning of the government and
whose fight for rights is a fight for the rights of all workers in
Ontario to dignified working and living conditions.
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