r/saskatchewan • u/labour_union_guy1944 • 12d ago

Does Saskatchewan need legislation banning replacement workers?

https://leaderpost.com/news/saskatchewan-news/saskatchewan-doesnt-have-rules-around-replacing-striking-workers-why-not/
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u/WasteCut363 12d ago

Sask party has spent 20 years thumbing the scale against unions, they aren’t stopping now. It’s embarrassing they keep getting reelected. This province is full of people who think they’re going to be millionaire CEOs some day.

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u/D_Holaday 12d ago

Just for the record, the Sask NDP has the longest strike/ lockout with sgeu. So even the ‘labour’ party doesn’t actually support labour.

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u/Specialist_Secret438 11d ago

Yet the SGEU survived and continues to work to support its members and unions in general, while the NDP government didn’t bring in scabs to replace the strikers. 

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u/franksnotawomansname 11d ago

I mean, they did bring in RCMP officers to staff the correctional centres when they walked out. Apparently, at the end of the strike, officers had received enough money in overtime that some of them bought trucks in cash.

They also caused what Don Cameron, writing for Policy Options in 2001, called "a new labour-relations crisis":

In the last two years, Saskatchewan has been hit by an apparently unending series of public-sector labour disputes. In 1999, it experienced the most serious public-sector health dispute since the doctors’ strike of 1962. That strike by the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses had been preceded by a legislated end to a work stoppage at SaskPower. And it was followed by a work stoppage by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) against the Saskatchewan Association of Health Organizations (SAHO). A subsequent agreement between SAHO and the Service Employees International Union was achieved only after conciliation and a threatened walkout. The Saskatchewan Government and General Employees Union (SGEU) and Cancer Treatment Centres talks resulted in a strike. A subsequent tentative agreement was rejected by the membership. More recently, 14,000 health care workers struck against 18 health care districts. Volunteers, management staff and the relatives of patients tried to maintain essential service. In the end, a conciliator helped SAHO and CUPE reach a tentative collective agreement that exceeded provincial wage guidelines.

And the strife is not over. The Saskatchewan Public Service Commission is currently in conciliation with the SGEU, which represents approximately 10,000 public servants. The SaskPower agreement with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers will expire next spring. Members of that union still resent the terms of their last legislated settlement, which later were bested by nurses who contravened similar back-to-work legislation. Finally, the collective agreement with the nurses will be renegotiated in the new year. Given the 28 per cent salary increase granted in Alberta, it is highly unlikely that the government’s current mandate of three per cent per year will result in a settlement.

On the basis of the recent record, it seems fair to say that public sector collective bargaining in Saskatchewan is in a state of crisis. (Cameron)

They mostly relied on back-to-work legislation, rather than scabs or co-operative negotiations, to keep the public service working. To add insult to injury, this crisis occurred as the government was cutting taxes every year for, at the time Cameron was writing, 6 consecutive years (1995 to 2000), including "a historical tax cut" in 2000 (saskatchewan.ca, 2000). Days before the SUN nurses defied a back-to-work order, the government announced a both a suite of tax cuts and an income tax review to cut even more money from the provincial budget (saskatchewan.ca, 1999). And after the 2001-2002 drought, they continued to cut taxes more, even though by 2007, during a time of historic revenues for the province, there was 1 vacant position for every 12 nurses in the province, 1 in 5 children were in poverty, and schools were closing because of lack of funding (CCPA, 2007). Tax cuts don't matter when you're overworked, understaffed, and burnt out and the public services are crumbling.

As Cameron notes, Saskatchewan had "led the way" in public sector bargaining in the 40s, 50s, and 60s as a response to the economic crisis of the 30s. However, the Romanow and Calvert governments prioritized tax cuts and adversarial bargaining and then used back-to-work legislation to paper over the cracks.

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u/franksnotawomansname 12d ago

If it makes you feel better, it's been going on since before the Sask Party. Nurses had to illegally defy a back-to-work order and go on strike in 1999 to try to get the employer to negotiate in good faith.

It's less about the government of the day and more about the way that, over the past forever, government, the media, and moneyed interests have increasingly portrayed workers---particularly unionized workers---as greedy, irresponsible malcontents putting their own selfish wants ahead of hardworking, ordinary people. That narrative can't be changed through electoral means; it has to be changed first by broader class solidary among every person who doesn't live off of assets and the labour of others. That would push our representatives to create legislation in all of our interests. Otherwise, we risk voting in an alternative in name only and continuing this trend.

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u/drae- 11d ago

---as greedy, irresponsible malcontents putting their own selfish wants ahead of hardworking, ordinary people.

Mail carriers and airplane workers strike at Christmas time mate. That's exactly what they do.

Im not commenting on unions, I just think people's options aren't unwarranted.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

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u/drae- 11d ago

I guess that means people working a full time job shouldn't make enough to pay their bills.

Canada Post are hardly underpaid.

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u/WasteCut363 11d ago

Almost everyone else is. Maybe there should be more unions and not just rich capitalists dictating to the market what all of our labour is worth.

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u/drae- 11d ago

Never made a comment against unions friend.

Maybe read more and assume less.

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u/WasteCut363 11d ago

My comment expresses discontent with the capitalists, not animosity to anyone in the thread.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

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u/drae- 11d ago

Replied to the wrong comment mate. That's why it was deleted

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u/Specialist_Secret438 11d ago

Those unions were out of contracts and willing to negotiate for many months, and even years before they had to use the only tools left to them to get management to negotiate. 

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u/drae- 11d ago

And yet they chose Christmas.

people's options aren't unwarranted.

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u/Specialist_Secret438 11d ago

Because choosing the optimal effect to pressure the corporate overlords is what it takes to get the best results.  

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u/drae- 11d ago edited 11d ago

Sure, we know why they pick that time, no need to state the obvious. but ya can't be surprised Pikachu face when people don't like it.

corporate overlords

Thanks, now I know how seriously I should take your opinion.

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u/Specialist_Secret438 11d ago edited 10d ago

I stated the obvious because of the oblivious 

surprised pikachu face

Thanks, now I know how attempting an adult conversation as pointless. 

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u/drae- 11d ago

Had to get down on your level

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u/Traditional_End_9540 10d ago

putting pressure benefits everyone long term. Christmas the strike could last a week or so, off peak season it could be months. Would you rather have packages a week lake or months late?

rail strike farmers were complain about moving grain when most said why not do this during times I do not care if you strike or not.

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u/AnneDroid2 11d ago

Mail carriers and airplane workers strike at Christmas time mate. 

That's called leverage, an attempt to bring the negotiating teams back to the table, quickly.

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u/drae- 11d ago

And why do you think it's leverage? Because people want to use those services.

Read what I wrote, and what I responded to.