Canadian Labour Reporter

CANADIAN LABOUR REPORTER 7 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2014 Continued from page 1 Joe Skipper (Reuters) Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak recently proposed a sweeping plan that would contract out government agencies and see public sector unions competing with private companies. Cleaning and food services have been named as suitable possibilities for outsourcing. Public services for people, not profit: Union resource we can't afford to waste. We're just asking that this accountability officer take a look at the services that are being provided by the province of Ontario and just see if there's a better way of doing it." Labour-intensive services will likely be the focus of the ac- countability officer, Holyday said. Maintenance, cleaning and food services have been named as suitable possibilities for con- tracting out. Warren (Smokey) Thomas — president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) — said public services should be for people, not for profit. "Quality, without fail, goes down," Thomas said of the switch from public to private. He said the focus on profit leads manage- ment to cut corners public workers would take pride in main- taining. In an open letter to Hudak he wrote: "Privatization… puts pri- vate wealth ahead of common wealth, special interests ahead of public interest, privilege ahead of democracy. Privatization also represents a loss of public accountability and control." Thomas fears further privatization will lead to reduced access as well as less transparency and accountability. For example, he said Hudak's promise of profit is misleading. "There's this mistaken notion in the public that once the gov- ernment privatizes it, taxpayers no longer pay," Thomas said. "That's not true. Thirty-seven per cent of all government expen- ditures go to the private sector." Also misleading, he believes, is Hudak's promise to step away from right-to-work. Right-to-work, popular in several American states, mandates workers can join a workplace without having to join its union. Right-to-work is often mentioned alongside a desire to abolish the Rand Formula. The Rand Formula — while it does not re- quire anyone to join a union — requires every worker to pay union dues to prevent so-called "free riders." Once a passionate supporter of right-to-work, Hudak recently announced he would be backing off the controversial labour re- form and putting his focus on bigger fish — including, appar- ently, the amendment to the Financial Accountability Act. Thomas called the move one step forward and two steps back, saying, "Tim Hudak's not giving up on anything. In my opinion, he's just recalibrating. If he were to win the election, he'd come after the Rand Formula, I have no doubt about it. He's ideologi- cally opposed to unions." With tensions still high in the wake of Hudak's push for right- to-work, Verma proposed a plan that avoids the dichotomy be- tween private and public altogether. "The government could choose not to subcontract to the pri- vate sector but rather create an independent agency," he said. Like the Toronto Pearson International Airport Authority, an independent agency could be formed, its governance provided by a board representing various stakeholders. "They are basically non-profit agencies," Verma said. "Some services are very appropriate for this sort of sector and I think that it's a very viable and very well-validated model that we have already used and used successfully."

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