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May 30, 2011 - No. 89
In Defence of Public Services
Speak Out in Support of Postal Workers
- K.C. Adams -
  
Postal workers Day of
Action, May 11, 2011
• Speak Out in
Support of Postal Workers - K.C. Adams
• Continued Resistance to Wrecking of Toronto
- David Greig
• Vancouver Island Health Care Workers Face
Potential Layoff - Barbara Biley
• Concerns of Alberta Government Employees
- Interview, Glen Scott, Vice-President, AUPE
In Defence of Public Services
Speak Out in Support of Postal Workers
- K.C. Adams -
 Defend postal workers
rightful claim to wages, benefits,
pensions and decent working conditions as part of building a quality
public post office in the service of the people and economy
Canadians should reject with contempt the big lie that
Canada Post and its workers are a "cost" to the economy. Canada Post
and its workers add immense value to the economy without which a modern
standard of living would be impossible.
Canada Post workers add value to the economy from their
work to move material from point A to point B. Postal workers' claim to
wages, benefits, pensions and decent working conditions is not a cost
but comes from the value they add from their work. Contrary to the
ravings of Canada Post executive managers
and the Harper government, the wages, benefits, pensions and decent
working conditions of postal workers are not a cost to the company or
economy. They are rightful claims on the value postal workers produce.
 Furthermore, a modern
definition of wages contends that
the level of workers' claims on the wealth they produce should be
decided in discussion and analysis amongst workers themselves and with
their peers based on what workers require for a cultured standard of
living commensurate with the work they perform
and the particular details of safe and decent working conditions.
Executive managers and government ministers who claim salaries far
above the level of workers and perform qualitatively different work
should not decide these matters. The job of executive managers is to
provide efficient overall operational management;
their role must not be to dictate to workers their level of claims on
the value they produce or the detailed minutia of safe and decent
working conditions.
Workers should reject the old definition of wages as a
cost to the economy and that those in positions of authority and
privilege should decide workers' claims and the details of working
conditions. This old definition denies the rights of workers and their
peers to decide their claim on the value they produce
and the essence of their working conditions. The outdated definition
reduces workers to infantile wage-slaves without rights.
The Source of Value
The old definition of wages refuses to recognize that
the source of all value is work-time transforming the natural bounty of
Mother Earth. Transporting material from point A to point B is a
necessary feature of producing value, whether inside a factory or
moving documents
or other material from one business to another or delivering a letter
or parcel from business A to business B or house A to house B.
The fact that value created by workers transporting
material must be realized in money is not the fault of workers; it
arises from the nature of capitalism. Business and individuals are
required to buy the value workers create when they transport material
from point A to point B. The newly added value is combined
with existing value from machines and other inputs. The total value
when calculated and adjusted according to a modern pricing formula is
called the price of production. This pricing formula for delivery of
parcels, letters and other material takes into account the consumed
amount of existing value (cost of fuel,
electricity, wear and tear on machines etc.), the claims of workers and
governments on newly added value, and an average profit on the total
invested capital also claimed from the newly added value. The existing
previously created value consumed while creating new value (fuel etc.)
is equivalent to what should
be called the cost of production. The realized value of the cost of
production replaces the amount the company spent to purchase the
various costs of production (electricity, machines etc).
The cost of production approximates the value in money
of the congealed work-time of all consumed material inputs.
The sum of wages, government taxes and profits
approximates in money the total work-time of postal workers, which is
the value they add to the economy.
Buying or "realizing" through postage the value postal
workers produce plus the costs of production, transforms the use-value
of transportation into money, which then is divided up into workers'
claims, government claims, claims by owners of debt, and money for
company expenditures on buildings, machines,
fuel, electricity etc.
A private for-profit company has an additional claim of
equity profit from owners of equity as a return on its investment. At
present, the government claims a certain amount of postal equity profit
(not debt profit) while the rest of the profit is claimed through low
postage rates by designated business users.
An issue with Canada Post has always been that the
bigger the business using the postal service, the less it pays to
Canada Post for the value of transporting material. This means that big
business customers make an indirect claim on the value postal workers
produce overall. Certain privileged companies receive
an amount of postal value for less than its price of production. An
argument has been made that this was necessary to stimulate growth of
certain sectors of the Canadian economy in the past such as
manufacturing and was part of nation-building. This is a contradictory
political practice that can be used to benefit
the economy if applied consciously to uphold public right rather than
monopoly right. The important issue is to be conscious of this
application of value produced by postal workers as a political act and
whether it serves public right to support certain industries, regions
or people that need assistance or whether it
serves monopoly right and the domination of the economy by global
monopolies.
Price of Production and
Privatization
 The exchange value of a
use-value such as the value of a
delivered letter or parcel is determined by its price of production,
which essentially is the value in money of all the work-time required
to deliver the material calculated according to a scientific formula.
Canada is a large country with a spread out population with quite
different particular prices of postal production, such as a lower price
within and between Montreal and Toronto, and higher prices
between Saskatoon and Halifax. Charging the same market price as an
average of all Canadian postal prices of production
has been an important aspect of nation-building. To privatize and
separate the areas of the lower prices of production to take advantage
of a higher rate of return on invested capital would raise the price of
production of the other regions outside the main urban centres. This
would do serious harm to the country besides
introducing another layer of claims on postal value from owners of
equity. Privatization and the subsequent siphoning away of the more
profitable sectors would add to a negative trend of uneven economic
development across the country.
Building Canada Post as a public enterprise was a
political decision made in the course of building Canada as a bulwark
against continentalism and domination by the emerging U.S. Empire.
Aside from the loss of those aspects of the postal business that
generate higher rates of profit, which compensate for
those sectors that generate lower rates of profit, private ownership of
some of the postal business, such as the big private courier companies,
creates another factor against nation-building and for annexation into
the
U.S. Empire. Private postal companies, mostly centred in the U.S.,
fully charge business customers for
the price of production of transportation value and as private owners
seize a portion of that value as private profit. This draws value away
from those sectors such as manufacturing and public services that need
value for extended reproduction and in the past were favoured
politically with lower postal rates as a political
act of nation-building. The Harper neoliberal line is that the most
powerful private monopolies should dominate and profit from every
aspect of the economy including moving material around the country
regardless of how this wrecks the nation and leads to annexation by
U.S. imperialism. According to this line,
conscious intervention through government into the economy is warranted
only under exceptional circumstances to save monopolies from economic
crisis with public money or defend monopoly right through legislation
negating public right such as injunctions against workers or
expropriation of property wanted by
a private monopoly.
The neoliberals insist that with privatization and the
introduction of a private capitalist claim of equity ownership on the
value postal workers produce, the additional claim for equity profit
should be offset by a reduction in the claim of postal workers;
otherwise, the price of production and market price would
have to be adjusted upwards because of the new capitalist claimant on
value or the quality of the product would have to be reduced.
To fatten up Canada Post for privatization is one of the
reasons executive managers and the Harper government are demanding
concessions from postal workers at this time. The neoliberal line in
privatizing public services is that private monopolies have the right
to trump public right and nation-building, and
claim value away from the actual producers who perform the work and
create the value or provide the service. To maintain the quality of the
public service under private ownership, the new claim of the private
owners must be offset with lower claims by workers or a lower quality
of service. Canadians should reject
the neoliberal line of privatization of public services wherever it
raises its head. Denounce the old saw that workers' claims are a "cost"
to the economy. The actual producers are the backbone and necessary
human factor of the economy.
The neoliberal line views workers' claims on the value
they produce as a "cost" to the rich and big business. The more workers
claim in wages, benefits, pensions and decent working conditions from
the value they produce, the less value is available for the rich and
their private monopolies. That is why they
label workers' claims a "cost," and try to spread a fiction that
workers' claims are a burden on the economy and that workers should
make concessions for the benefit of the rich and their monopolies. In
reality, working class concessions and lower claims eventually damage
the economy as more and more commodities
remain unsold (unrealized), and production and services are adjusted
downward to reflect the lower standard of living. To compensate for the
damage to the domestic economy, the neoliberal line in Canada is to
shift production away from manufacturing for internal consumption and
to concentrate more on raw commodity
exports and certain specialized manufacturing mostly to export. An
increasingly impoverished local market is of little concern to the
global monopolies.
The outmoded position of Canada Post executive managers
and the Harper government on wages as "costs" reflects the neoliberal
line to drive down the claims of workers and impoverish the local
market. Canada Post spokesperson Jon Hamilton said May 24 that the
Canadian Union of Postal Workers' "latest
contract proposal would increase the Crown corporation's labour costs
by $1.4 billion."
That is a gross anti-worker distortion based on an old
definition of wages, which should be rejected. Postal workers create
value through their work transporting material from point A to point B
and their claims come from the value they produce and are not a "labour
cost" to the corporation or economy. Regardless
whether certain aspects of the work are being replaced with electronic
means of transmission, a modern economy cannot function without the
transportation of material for business or personal reasons and without
the actual producers receiving a modern standard of living and their
family members living in security
from birth to passing away. Transporting of goods directly from an
Internet supplier to customers has increased dramatically and a public
Canada Post is the best institution to fulfil that task to the benefit
of the entire economy and nation and not have the private global
monopolies sucking value out of the Canadian
economy and impoverishing the domestic market.
In a modern economy dominated by private monopolies,
where their self-serving manipulation of market prices causes serious
problems, the issue of the market-price of production for delivery of
material is a political issue. The market-price of production should be
decided publicly and transparently using a modern
formula that serves nation-building and not monopoly right. How to
realize the value created by postal workers and at what market price is
a political decision, just as how the realized value should be divided
up is political. The reality of modern life demands that workers must
be political as individuals, within their
collectives and together as an effective and powerful Workers
Opposition to defend their rights and the rights of all.
 Canada Post is an essential
public service binding the
people and their economy together into a single whole. The whole is
stronger than its parts, especially when the parts are torn asunder
from the whole and each other through privatization. The existing
Canada Post facilities and workforce are precious national
assets that should be nurtured and developed to provide even greater
value for the economy. The Harper government and post office executive
managers are being socially irresponsible in attacking Canada Post and
postal workers through demands for concessions and privatization. In
contrast, CUPW's global offer
to settle the dispute is socially responsible, as well as its proposal
to expand Canada Post as a public financial enterprise. Resistance to
concessions and responsible proposals for strengthening Canada Post are
excellent ways to strengthen nation-building, counter the lingering
effects of the 2008 economic crisis, deter
a new one and build Canada again as a bulwark against falling into the
clutches of the U.S. Empire.
The post office, as a centre of the transportation of
material, should be a thriving hub for public financial transactions,
culture and social interaction, something that is especially important
in smaller centres. In Canada, providing postal workers with security
in their claims on the value they produce and expanding
postal service into the financial and other sectors would prove to be
both efficient and useful in serving the needs of the people and
society. A strong public post office acts as a counterweight to
economic crises and the power and privilege of the rich and their
private monopolies, which in their narrow quest for private
wealth abuse public right and divert value out of the economy and away
from serving the needs of the people, their economy and the general
interests of society.
The postal workers' struggle to defend the rights of all
their members, including those retired and the new generation entering
the workforce, and to enhance the quality of the post office is one
that all Canadians should embrace as their own.
Defend postal workers and
Canada's post office!
Demand that Canada Post executive managers and the
Harper government stop their reckless and irresponsible attacks on the
actual producers, Canada's economy and nation-building. They should
accept CUPW's global offer to settle the dispute
and get down to the job of expanding postal services not wrecking them.
Workers are not a cost of
production!
Workers produce value. Their claim on the value they
produce or for the service they provide is just and necessary for the
well-being of the economy and nation and must be respected!
A victory for postal workers is a victory for Canada!
Canadians stand united with their public post office and
postal workers.
Continued Resistance to Wrecking of Toronto
- David Greig -
 On May 17, Toronto City
Council debated Mayor Ford's
garbage privatization plan. The public gallery was filled with city
workers and other Toronto residents overwhelmingly opposed to this
project. As the mayor and his sidekicks vociferated about their
supposed mandate and dubious claims of savings, and
insulted the workers who provide the service, the audience frequently
erupted with audible disdain. The council chair, an already infamous
Ford facilitator, repeatedly threatened to expel those present.
Arguments were made to the contrary pointing out that
the purported savings are doubtful at best, that the elimination of
jobs with standard pay and benefits is unjust and has harmful
consequences, that much control of the service will be lost to the
private waste business, that environmental harm may arise with
private profit in charge, among others. But the final vote was 32 to 13
for proceeding to bids. Some amendments were made: a final contract
will still have to be approved by the Council rather than just a bid
committee of bureaucrats and waste management monopoly BFI's
"Progressive Waste Solutions" is excluded
from bidding. (Geoff Rathbone, former city Solid Waste Management
head, and co-author of the cost report favouring privatization, left
his position with the city on May 27 to become the vice-president of
PWS. PWS has announced
it
may sue the city as a result of its exclusion.)
The collectors, other workers and residents left the
meeting determined to carry on the fight against privatization as the
Ford regime continues on its anti-social course. They understand that
their dignity and well-being and that of all workers and society as a
whole are at stake. Even as the debate concluded, words
from the Ford camp reiterated that for them this privatization is a
step toward more of the same, the sell off or privatization of
"everything that's not nailed down." And a few days later, CD Howe
Institute ideologue Benjamin Dachlis co-authored a report advocating
privatization of Toronto's water and sewage service.
Vancouver Island Health Care Workers
Face Potential Layoff
- Barbara Biley -
 Recently over 500
housekeeping and food services workers
employed by Compass Group on south Vancouver Island were issued layoff
notices. The layoff notices were issued as a result of Compass losing
its
contract with the Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA) due to many
problems with the quality of
food and housekeeping services. Wages and working conditions of the
Compass workers are significantly lower than those of workers employed
by the Health Authority directly. The workers are members of the
Hospital Employees Union which organized them following the massive
contracting out of housekeeping
and food services by VIHA and the other health authorities in the
province following the passage of Bill 29 in 2002. That bill stripped
the collective agreement between the unions and the Health Employers
Association of BC of all provisions prohibiting contracting out of work
done by members of the unions Facilities
Bargaining Association.
When the contract was put out to tender in May 2010 the
union argued that the Health Authority should make it a condition of
the contract that the new employer hire the workers currently employed
at all the sites and honour the existing collective agreement in order
to
minimize the disruption of services to patients and
residents. "Throwing hundreds of experienced workers on the street will
just lead to chaos in the delivery of services in extended care
settings," said Judy Darcy, Secretary-Business Manager of the Hospital
Employees Union. The Health Authority did not ensure there would be any
continuity and at the end of
March 2011 announced that the contract
had been awarded to Marquise Group, a Richmond, BC-based company.
Within days of the announcement that Marquise had replaced Compass as
the contractor, Compass announced that it had purchased Marquise and
would continue, through its new subsidiary, to provide the cleaning and
housekeeping services
at the VIHA facilities with the Health Authority bound to keep the
contractor that it wanted to replace.
Compass has agreed with the union to honour the
collective agreement that covered the Compass workers before the layoff
notices were issued but has not yet committed to rescind the layoff
notices.
Since the health authorities began privatizing
housekeeping and food services in hospitals and, in some cases, the
entire operation of seniors' homes, the quality of cleaning, food and
care has deteriorated in large part due to staff shortages and poor
training and quality standards. In many cases care has suffered
by repeated "contract flipping," where once a union
contract is signed and wages and working conditions improved and
stabilized, the private contractor changes, the workers are all laid
off, a new contractor comes in and the process starts again. The result
is constant insecurity on the part of both patients
and residents and the staff that take care of them.
The demand of the workers, both those who are still
employed by the Health Authorities and those who work for private
contractors, is that the government end the privatization of health
care, including the so-called support services that are integral to a
modern health care system.
Concerns of Alberta Government Employees
- Interview, Glen Scott, Vice-President,
Alberta Union of Provincial Employees -
 AUPE
Rally, Edmonton, October 14, 2010
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TML: What are the major concerns
of the provincial government employees in Alberta?
Glen Scott: Privatization remains a
major concern. The government says this is all about saving money. We
have done a lot of studies that show that privatization does not save
money and in most cases it costs taxpayers more. In the 1990s the
Alberta government privatized many public services
including highway maintenance, the liquor stores and government
registries. Thousands of jobs were eliminated. When we did some
digging, we found that former government ministers, former MLAs, and
friends of government sit on the Boards of Directors of these
privatized companies. Then individuals
and private companies make money on what should be public services by
cutting wages and benefits and reducing the level of service to the
public.
The government of Alberta has lots of real estate all
over the province and now they are privatizing and contracting out all
the maintenance
contracts to various large companies. To show the impact on jobs, the
membership of Local 4 which represents the maintenance workers has gone
from 3,000 members twenty years ago
to 400 members today. Their jobs have all been contracted out to
private companies. When you contract out services you lose control.
How come the government refuses to disclose the cost of
these contracts? When a request is made under the Freedom of Information and Protection of
Privacy Act you might get a blacked
out sheet of paper in about a year. If these privatized services are so
good for Albertans, I am sure this would be front page news.
Another issue is the unacceptable
services private operators provide. For instance a Lethbridge nursing
home brought in a company called Sysco, a huge U.S. multinational to
replace meals cooked on site with "heat and eat" food. Everyone suffers
but Sysco. Residents do not get the
quality food they deserve, the cooks lose their jobs and the local
economy suffers. When this happened to the health care facilities in
Claresholm, food was no longer purchased in the community. Now Sysco
sends in a big truck and drives a big truck away. It's like Walmart.
Once you dispose of all your infrastructure,
and you get rid of the cooks and are just left with the equipment to
re-heat food, then all of a sudden Sysco decides they want a 23 per
cent increase. You can't say no; you have no cooks and you have no
equipment.
TML: So that's how it works. They
deplete the public infrastructure. That is what the City of Toronto is
planning to do --
dispose of the trucks, get rid of the landfill stations, and so on.
GS: The Alberta government is not
building any new long-term care facilities and private companies are
rolling in and building assisted living facilities where people either
rent or buy a unit. These facilities are very costly. In the past when
people got older and needed more medical care,
they sold their homes, put the money in the bank -- often there was a
nest egg for their children and grandchildren -- and moved into a lodge
or nursing home as needed. Now these private companies are going to
take every cent you have, so by the time you pass away you have nothing.
In the assisted living facilities, the government funds
a portion of your care, and then the company that owns and manages the
facilities charges you for individual services. As your health
deteriorates and you need more and more help, there are charges for
each service -- for an escort to the dining room, for someone
to push your wheelchair, for laundry, meals, and so on.
TML: So it is a deterioration of the
healthcare system and the economic conditions of the people.
GS: Yes. The privatization agenda is
insidious. For example, the government announces that they are moving
services for people into the community. This means they are going to
put people out onto the street. For example with Alberta Hospital
Edmonton, a
large mental health facility, they say they
are going to move services into the community, but they don't have the
infrastructure to do this. Often people with mental health problems end
up in the criminal justice system and in jail where of course they do
not get better. I am a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) and I work in
home care. In Calgary, Alberta
Health Services contracts out personal care services to private
companies such as We Care Home Health Services and CBI Home Health.
We have had years of brutal co-existence with these companies. One
private company simply folded up and left their patients without care,
including many adults with disabilities
and seniors. Another thing is that the private companies charge for one
hour of service for each home visit, even if the actual time of the
visit is much shorter.
TML: What work is Alberta Union of
Public Employees (AUPE) carrying out on
this front?
GS: AUPE has an anti-privatization
committee to create awareness and educate our members and the public.
So we put pressure on governments. We have done a series of commercials
called "Alberta's Working People" which show the public what we do. We
also educate our members to report
any rumours about privatizing and let us know as these things are done
by stealth so there is often no opposition until it is too late. We
also try to negotiate collective agreements that include provisions to
make it less of an option to go down that road of privatization or
contracting out. For example, negotiating a very
substantial severance package could be a deterrent to privatization. As
well, we are unionizing many of these areas that were privatized.
TML: Right after the election, Harper
stated that he was in favour of "experimenting" with alternate forms of
health care delivery. Could you comment on this?
GS: With forty years of Progressive
Conservative rule in Alberta we have already seen them do lots of
experiments in
health care. They are the same party federally and provincially. [...]
We have seen what they have done in this province and I think that the
provincial government is optimistic about
the election of the Harper government because it is going to assist
them to carry out their further plans of privatization.
I was in Wisconsin when the public sector workers were
fighting. The Saturday that I was there there were 100,000 people. I
get
asked all the time, what did you see that worked in Wisconsin? My
conclusion is that labour has to get together stronger, way stronger.
We have to put all differences aside and think
globally. Not just that I am an AUPE member or a steel worker, or a
teamster. We have to start thinking about the needs of labour.
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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