Testimony - My Public Service

The public opinion is shaped with the information that is out there for everyone to see and decide for themselves. Currently our unions are doing exactly that, influencing public opinion, with our money, but against our best interests.

There are no golden handcuffs. Public servants are not paid for their work, they are getting compensated for getting turned into contribution-paying paperweights.

All unions take a cut on an increasingly large compensation volume, using these funds to push the public opinion persistently towards the left. This does not serve for the general betterment of work conditions at large anymore, as stated by a judge in 1991; it has become foremostly the engine of political activism.

Lavigne v. Ontario Public Service Employees Union, [1991]

My story is the shocking realization of the striking contrast of union reaction between the conservative red tape reduction and cost cutting initiative of Harper's Conservatives and the recent federal vaccine mandate of Trudeau's Liberals. The sought efficiencies were admittedly warranted if we want to recognize the fiscal effort of Canadian taxpayers. Today's technology does not warrant obsolete work organization, maintaining the same volume of employees for a given output is against the very nature of serving Canadian citizens, it is an insult to their efforts.

Still, despite the rational necessity to provide Canadians with the best possible services at the best possible cost, unions teared their shirts on the public square over what was the right thing to do. They placed their interests, union dues being directly dependent on salary mass, above that of the Canadian population they pretend to help.

What attrition enabled without hurting anyone's livelihood was and is still refused for obvious reasons of cash flow from contributions.

Unions pretend they achieve general betterment of work conditions stemming from their political influence, while that might have been true in the past, there is a large gap between compensation in the public and private sector. Most studies make the mistake of comparing average salaries without regard for actual positions and qualifications, statistics stratified by employment categories would offer a much different picture.

Reality is salary within the public sector are normalized towards the middle, not much higher or close to the private sector across the board. Practically, this means a clerical employee might make two to three times what their private sector counterpart makes. While professionals will make similar salaries compared an average counterpart, but be limited in terms of ability to invest more time and energy in their careers, work organization not allowing initiative to take more work voluntarily. The general pace does not enable it, the work culture is also responsible for this.

Having a job with lower expectations is a double edged sword, while it might be less effort, it is also easier to be replaced. Implications of finding work with compensation on par afterwards are not considered by those whose conception of a career is biding their time. But do government employees not have solid job security? Oh wait, that is only for those who cannot lift their own weight, not those who want to make choices that regard only themselves.

While it might not be acceptable to push workers in the back, it is not more acceptable to hold them back. Everyone has different limits, they should not be imposed on others; some might want to work more, get more things done, but they are not allowed to by collective agreements. Despite some members asking for more flexibility in work organization, union representatives never bring this matter on the table for collective agreement negotiation.

Going back to the red tape reduction years, I sliced off close to one quarter of the yearly budget that was under my control, without firing anyone nor negative impact on service delivery. In contrast, some applied the cuts to where it would be the most visible and most felt by the public, this could not be anything but political posturing to gain public sympathy, but these cuts did not have to hurt anyone.

Short terms savings are possible on immediate efficiency gains and a shift from subcontracting, decried by unions themselves, toward in-house work, giving a chance to employees to show what they are capable of, harnessing their full talent. Perhaps raise overall salaries in consequence, having this increased productivity to trade at the bargaining table. On the other hand, long term savings are made possible through attrition, while no immediate job loss is warranted, the headcount status quo is not, but harnessing the full possibilities offered by modern technology is.

Regarding the current vaccine mandate, unions were quick to have embraced in unison a policy that hurts people, forcing them to proceed to a medical intervention against their will. But what evil do efficiency gains imply that made them so unacceptable to unions in contrast?

Did unions have to return a favor for the cancellation of the union disclosure Bill C-377? Would a federal vaccine mandate be comparable in terms of trading value? Are the political contributions of our unions so egregious that it would expose why was a law deemed necessary for transparency?

The vaccine mandate exposed unions' obvious political partisanship, their propensity to place their interest above their members and the Canadian population and we cannot dismiss the political influence of unions working against all of us.

Let's face it, unions are pulling the political landscape consistently to the left, an ever growing public service comes with a hefty bill that makes every Canadian life more expensive. After a dollar has been processed through the system, not much is left in actual services to the population that saw decades of stagnating wages.

But what are 2% wage increases going to do against political choices that increase the cost of life at a much higher rate?