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Topic: How will Harper treat federal public sector workers?
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Sanitary Engineer
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 10538
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posted 26 January 2006 08:47 AM
Michelle Says quote:
Gir, stay out of this forum from now on if that's the kind of contribution you have.
As someone who's wife works in the Federal Civil service, I thank you for that comment. Since the late 80's, federal public servants pay raises have consistently been below the rate of inflation, or at times, have been frozen. My wife works hard at her job, and doesn't need the bashing of uninformed people venting their frustration at others, probably due to other issues. If it wasn't for the court mandated pay equity reward, she would have quit years ago.
From: Now Living In Ontario | Registered: Oct 2005
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DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490
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posted 27 January 2006 01:41 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Gir Draxon:
Hopefully, the way they deserve to be treated. Which in many cases will mean being treated to a permanent vacation without pay.
You've been around here long enough to have seen that stupid, lazy, ignorant and baseless statement refuted time and again with statistic after statistic showing that in many cases the damage is entirely self-inflicted by the same right-wing bozos you cheer on when they assuage the general public's revenge fantasies on the allegedly "bloated public sector workers making $3297589375973 an hour". You know, for you right-wingers to accuse the left of playing the "politics of envy" is pretty damn hypocritical considering how fast that envy hot-button gets pushed by idiots like Mike Harris and Gordon Campbell. Swear to god it's like the last twenty years of all the policies you know and love seem to you to just ... not have happened. Now who's in the 1960s time warp?
From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001
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Michael Watkins
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11256
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posted 27 January 2006 11:06 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Gir Draxon:
Hopefully, the way they deserve to be treated. Which in many cases will mean being treated to a permanent vacation without pay.
When I see comments like that I can tell the person has little experience with the real world or government. In government (as well as in private enterprise) its been my experience that real rot generally exists at the management level. I used to deal extensively with Indian and Northern Affairs, Coast Guard, a number of BC ministries, and many municipal governments. Where I saw real waste, it was virtually all at the hands of inept management - in positions low through high on the totem pole. There's a particular individual in INAC that I'd love to see out on his butt; this gentleman is the very definition of the peter principle. His staff, on the other hand, were good at taking a raw deal and doing the best they could.
From: Vancouver Kingway - Democracy In Peril | Registered: Dec 2005
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Michael Watkins
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11256
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posted 27 January 2006 12:18 PM
lucas - what I've found over the course of my career is where there is good management there tends not to be unusual problems with the workforce. Sure, we'll always find examples of people who try to get the most for the least, in both staff and management. And sure - unions give equal protection to both good and bad workers, protection the good, and bad, would not have otherwise. I can't point to studies that underscore my belief but no doubt somewhere out there I could find such backup. There is no doubt in my mind that most economic waste occurs as a result of management ineptness, rather than the actions and demands of workers. [ 27 January 2006: Message edited by: Michael Watkins ]
From: Vancouver Kingway - Democracy In Peril | Registered: Dec 2005
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lucas
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6446
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posted 27 January 2006 12:48 PM
I would not argue against that point, that from an economic standpoint, management ineptitude has the potential to impact the company to a greater degree than staff ineptitude. Having watched some inefficient managers get the boot, I can say that my experience has been that people get warned to clean it up, then a second warning comes, usually accompanied by the absence of any annual bonus and a reduced LTI, then they are simply 'packaged out'. Yes, done to avoid any litigation, and this takes longer than just walking in and firing them... but I have seen that done as well. At the end of the day, not everyone that should be dismissed IS dismissed... regardless of their position in the company. I guess the relative tolerance for dead wood is different from corp to corp. I just think that there is a perception that in the public service the tolerance is pretty high, largely due to an ingrained culture that it is a 'job for life'. I don't know too many folks that view any private sector position as 'for life'... although I am sure they are out there.
From: Turner Valley | Registered: Jul 2004
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skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478
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posted 27 January 2006 02:43 PM
I think that the Cons are interested in this issue at two different levels. Pretending that there is a simple contrast in efficiency between private and public sectors - I mean, such a HUGE overgeneralization - is just that, a pretence. That is pure propaganda, and it is pitched about as low as rabble-rousing can be. It is pure hot-button gar-bahge, and it is heart-breaking to see how many people allow their buttons to be so pushed. The boys in the backroom are not that simple-minded, though. They know that the public sector (like the private sector) is more than one kettle of fish. The lower levels interest them only in so far as they want to privatize as much as they can. They want those workers working for their private-sector friends, except for less, so that their friends can get rich. Above all, though, it is the higher levels of the civil service that the Cons have their knives out for. They want to take out the mandarins - not because they are opposed to a mandarinate, only because they want their own guys in as mandarins.
From: gone | Registered: May 2001
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N.Beltov
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4140
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posted 06 February 2006 08:39 AM
Under the Public Service Modernization Act, (PSMA) there will be a wide variety of changes to the working conditions of federal public sector workers. As I noted above, there is every reason to believe that these employer atrocities will continue, or even intensify, under the Harper Conservatives.Broadly speaking, there will be changes to: Grievances, an Alternate Dispute Resolution or Informal Conflict Management System (ADR or ICMS), Consultation and Co-development, Essential Services, Strikes, Unfair Labour Practices, Two-Tier Bargaining and Staffing. While is it far from a homogeneous assault on civil servants, the overall balance of changes could be viewed as a reduction of rights, information and remedies for disputes masquerading as a new, pretentious regime of social harmony in the workplace. One area of special atrocities applies to new employees of the civil service. There's a new definition of "merit" that radically changes the system of competitions to a system of appointments. Relative merit is gone. There will be no eligibility lists. Merit now only means that the applicant has met the "essential" qualifications of the position and has certain other "assets" that the department considers important. So the prospective candidate won't know if s/he came 1st, 2nd, or 100th since such lists will be abolished. Instead, there will be "pools" or potential employees to choose from. One wise saw has called these pools "cesspools". The new laws say that it is not inconsistent with merit to only consider one person for a job, say, e.g., the son, daughter or sibling of the hiring manager. This also has an impact on layoffs, since reverse order of merit no longer applies to that process. Appeals, and the Public Service Appeal Board, are gone. Complaints for internal selection processes can only be made, on limited grounds, to a new Public Service Staffing Tribunal. This last one is really quite despicable. It is so bad that even an error, say, getting a person's test results wrong, is not a grounds for complaint. The only grounds for complaint are egregous abuses of authority and failure to assess a person in the official language of their choice. Now, what employees will have, is the opportunity to discover how "they might improve themselves" and not, as one might think, how well the winning applicant did and so on. The legislation seems designed to magnify and encourage a sullen and angry civil service, fighting among themselves, with special sections designed as union-busting. All in all, the new Liberal atrocities can be expected to continue, or even intensify, under the new regime. If there is a lot of hiring, as one of the contributors here have suggested, then count on a lot of members of the immediate family of hiring managers getting hired. "Merit", as it is now defined, is a fig leaf over some very revolting practices. Positive: There are now individual, group and policy grievances. That's a good thing - because there's going to be a lot of them...
From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003
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Email this thread to someone!
What public sector workers will discover, if they didn't know already, is that if you've seen one neocon you've seen them all. Perhaps the NDP can push the Cons to actually enact Whistleblower protection - but the best way to do that is to enshrine it in the Collective Agreement. Don't count on that from neocons. 
