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Nova Scotia Situation Underscores the Necessity for the Leadership and Voice of the Working People at All TimesThe Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union (NSGEU) is the largest union in the province of Nova Scotia, representing the individual and collective interests of over 30,000 public and private sector employees. NSGEU members work in the civil service, centres of education, universities, hospitals, liquor stores, correctional facilities, municipalities, and other organizations across the province.
The Liberal Party in power has passed laws declaring home care workers and nurses essential to the health of the province yet has denied these essential workers the right to decide their working conditions and wages and what they require to perform their work properly. This contradiction has carried over into the current COVID-19 crisis where the government continues to deny public health care workers a leading role and voice in organizing to defeat the pandemic. Without mobilizing and unleashing the initiative and power of the working class, the fight against the pandemic is seriously undermined and weakened. The history of depriving the health care sector of the leadership and voice of the working class has created a crisis with staffing shortages and escalating wait times even before the onset of the pandemic. The NSGEU has published reports with clear solutions reflecting the views of health care workers from the front lines but the government continues to suppress the rights and voice of the people who do the work. The NSGEU writes on its website of decades of cuts to the civil service having a negative impact on its members working in community services, child welfare, corrections, and courthouses. Occupational health and safety are top of mind. The COVID-19 pandemic reveals in a stark way the folly of weakening the health sector, social programs and public services. The anti-social offensive must be reversed with increased investments in social programs and public services. For the sake of all the people, the province and society, the working class must present its views on what is needed in its own loud voice and not be silent in the face of the anti-social measures of cartel party governments and employers. The modern world cannot function and solve its problems without the organized leadership and voice of the working people.
This article was published in Article Link:   Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca |
In recent years,
the NSGEU has been resisting the attacks of the
McNeil Liberal Party government in power which
has unleashed assault after assault on workers'
right to bargain collectively for wages and
working conditions acceptable to themselves. The
working conditions of NSGEU workers in many
cases have a direct effect on the conditions of
the people they serve.