(November 5, 2020)<\/p>\n
By: Chelsea Nash, rabble.ca<\/p>\n
In Alberta, it started with\u00a0provincial parks. The trend towards the privatization of public services — and the loss of public service jobs — has only snowballed since.<\/p>\n
Last Monday, hospital workers in Alberta walked off the job in a wildcat strike, after Alberta Health Services announced it would be laying off 11,000 public positions so their roles could be filled by private contractors. On Thursday,\u00a0more rallies\u00a0were held\u00a0across\u00a0the province.<\/p>\n
In the midst of a pandemic that has resulted in widespread economic crisis, Alberta is not the only province undertaking austerity measures in response. This is a round-up of the recent steps from provincial governments that indicate they are moving towards more privatization of public services.<\/p>\n
When public services are privatized, and public service workers are laid off as a result, the layoffs are often presented by the government as being temporary. Soon, they say, those workers will be picked up by the private sector and regain employment.<\/p>\n
However, the concern for public service workers is a resulting erosion of their working conditions. The same jobs in the private sector may not have the same level of pay, job security and opportunity for advancement, and workers may have to fight for union representation in the first place.<\/p>\n
Advocates for strong social services like health care and education\u00a0argue\u00a0that neither of these services should be commodified. When they are, wealth disparities dictate who gets care and who gets a better education.<\/p>\n
Alberta leads Canadian provinces and territories in its\u00a0pursuit of privatization, and it’s October announcement that it was laying off up to 11,000 hospital workers has led to worker resistance and criticism from the province\u2019s doctors. (One Calgary physician even\u00a0set up\u00a0a grassroots political organization against health-care privatization).<\/p>\n
Affected workers\u00a0include\u00a0those working in housekeeping, food services, laundry and laboratories. The Alberta government claims that these roles are not being eliminated, but instead transferred from public positions to ones filled by private contractors.<\/p>\n
Those who had been listening to Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) president Guy Smith would have seen this coming: he’d been talking about preparing his members for strike action since the\u00a0summer, in the wake of provincial legislation that he said restricted workers’\u00a0rights.<\/p>\n
At that time, he told\u00a0rabble.ca\u00a0<\/em>that if his members decided to take strike action, AUPE would support them. Smith\u00a0denies\u00a0that the wildcat strikes were organized by union leadership and says they were worker-motivated.<\/p>\n The wildcat strike was deemed illegal by the Alberta Labour Relations Board shortly after it began, and workers returned to work last Tuesday. According to the\u00a0CBC, Alberta’s Finance Minister Travis Toews said workers could face fines, suspensions or even be fired for their participation in the walkouts.<\/p>\n When the 11,000 layoffs were initially announced, Trudy Thomson, the vice-president of the Health Sciences Association of Alberta (HSAA)\u00a0told\u00a0rabble.ca<\/em>\u00a0that privatization of lab workers is something that’s already been tried, tested and found to not work.<\/p>\n In that interview, Thomson said when laboratories become privatized, they lack the cohesiveness needed to communicate well amongst each other. Workers also lose their seniority if they move from one private company to another, meaning their job options and chances for promotions become more limited.<\/p>\n This past summer, Alberta Bill 30 was also\u00a0criticized\u00a0as opening the door to further privatization of health care. The\u00a0Health Statutes Amendment Act\u00a0was an omnibus bill that passed at the end of July.<\/p>\n The\u00a0Huffington Post<\/em>\u00a0wondered whether that legislation would allow for American-style health care to infiltrate Alberta. Ultimately, Bill 30 does allow for the government to contract more private clinics as a way of reducing wait times, including for surgeries.<\/p>\n On September 1, the word “public”\u00a0was removed\u00a0from the names of all of Alberta’s school boards, with no clear reasoning initially presented for the decision.<\/p>\n This move stoked concerns that Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party (UCP) could be taking steps towards further privatization of education in the province, though his Education Minister Adriana LaGrange said that was not the case.<\/p>\n Earlier in the year, the\u00a0UCP’s Choice in Education Act\u00a0also raised eyebrows for public education workers and advocates.<\/p>\n That legislation, also known as Bill 15, relaxed rules and requirements for charter schools to operate and allowed for home schooling to go on unsupervised by public school boards. The changes drew criticism from the Alberta Teachers’\u00a0Association, who were cited by the\u00a0Calgary Herald<\/em>\u00a0as saying the province should be focused on improving public education instead.<\/p>\n After the Manitoba government’s throne speech in October, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Manitoba released a\u00a0statement\u00a0expressing alarm at indications of privatization on a variety of files, including child care, long-term care homes and liquor sales.<\/p>\n In that speech, Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister\u00a0said\u00a0that his government would be offering a new funding model for the province\u2019s child-care services, one that would offer parents more choice.<\/p>\n In its statement, CUPE expressed concern that:<\/p>\n “this government is going to move further in the direction of private-for-profit child care under the guise of “choice,”\u00a0while letting the non-profit child care centres continue to struggle under the combined challenges of inadequate funding and COVID-related challenges.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Pallister has also expressed interest in privatizing liquor sales,\u00a0drawing ire\u00a0from the union that represents employees at the province’s Liquor Marts.<\/p>\n And, over the summer, Pallister expressed an intention to cut public service jobs by 25 per cent,\u00a0according to\u00a0the Manitoba Government and General Employees Union (MGEU). The union avoided such layoffs by\u00a0instead agreeing\u00a0that workers would take five unpaid days vacation, saving the province $9.5 million.<\/p>\n In Ontario,\u00a0private medical clinics\u00a0were offering a for-profit option for those who did not want to wait for their COVID-19 test result through the public system, including\u00a0one diagnostics service\u00a0offering home testing visits in Toronto.<\/p>\n On September 24, the Ontario Health Coalition — an advocacy group for public healthcare — released a statement condemning the practice, arguing that single-tier health care must be protected.<\/p>\n “The idea that the wealthy would buy their way to the front of the queue in a pandemic \u2026 is abhorrent,”\u00a0said Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition, in the statement.<\/p>\nAlberta government actions raise\u00a0concerns about privatization of education<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Unions fear privatization of public services, including child care, in Manitoba\u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Ontario’s private sector has stepped in to fill gaps in COVID-19 healthcare\u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n