Housing As A Right

Should housing be a right. That is the question. But the real question is what would that mean and how do we make it more than a token right but an actual effective right.

In North America we had this mythology that everyone could own their own home. That has never been true. The closest we have come is at the peak of unionization when unions brought much of the working class into the middle class. But then the capitalist owners of the means of production moved the means of production to low wage countries and left the auto industry as the remaining remnant of what was once an industrial economy. They then transformed the service industry to a piece-work model, much of it based on “apps” that pretended low wage workers were independent contractors not entitled to the protection of employment and labour laws. This returned us to a state where the dream of home ownership was limited to the wealthy and professional classes.

However this myth led governments to create tax advantages for home ownership that distorted the housing market leading it to be dominated by much larger than necessary energy wasting homes which contributed to the creation of urban sprawl.

So how do we create housing as a right for everyone.

If housing is actually to be a right then everyone one must have access to decent and properly maintained housing at an affordable cost. The private sector will not provide this.

North America needs to take a more European approach where public sector housing is not relegated to the poorest of the poor but is available to the general population. Funding needs to be provided to eliminate public housing waiting lists and provide necessary maintenance. Co-operative housing needs to be encouraged and facilitated with government assistance. Living in publicly provided housing has to be normalized rather than stigmatized.

Fortunately the solution to the funding problem is the same as the solution to all public expenditure programs. Society has the money, it is just improperly distributed through an economic and political system that has created excessive financial inequality. The answer lies in taxing corporations and the wealthy appropriately, especially the excessive wealthy.

The private sector can still play a role as long as they realize the slumlord model is no longer an option with affordable decent publicly provided housing available to everyone. And they must accept that with housing as a right no one can be evicted without somewhere else to go.

Is There a Conspiracy to Break and Then Fix Health Care ?

So how would this work. I suggest first you underfund public health care as well as simply not spending budgeted funds. As the public facilities fail to meet the needs you claim private facilities are needed. You then transfer funds from public to private facilities further reducing the public facilities capability. You then claim the private facilities are the answer to the crisis and start increasing funding diverting more to the private sector. As care improves you declare that privatization has solved the crisis and is the saviour of health care. You then claim to be spending more on health care than ever as the added profit expenditures make it appear that more funds are being spent on care.

The winners are the private heath care corporations and the political parties they support that made this all possible and we get a bunch of new multi-billionaires as a bonus.

The Bottom Line on the Parti Québécois Proposed Values Charter

I was going to write a long blog post on this but since so much has been written about it I think this captures the spirit and intent of the proposal succinctly.

The bottom line on Quebec's proposed values charter is that you can visit a hospital named after a saint with a crucifix in the lobby and be guaranteed not to be treated by a Muslim doctor in a hijab because they want to remove religious symbols from public institutions.

What's The Big Deal About OC Transpo Scheduling

The OC Transpo strike is not about the money. If the proposed changes to the scheduling system were taken off the table the drivers and mechanics would be back to work immediately and accept OC Transpo's wage offer without the signing bonus.

So what is the big deal about the scheduling system that gives drivers with more seniority better routes and schedules.

Perhaps, if your a new driver, you might think you could even benefit if the older drivers don't get the best routes and schedules. Until, of course, you realize driver fairness would not be a factor in scheduling, only administrative convenience.

As a newer driver under the current system you know you are going to get stuck with the worst routes and schedules now when you are young, to benefit from the system when you are older and family time is more important to you. If your an older driver, that did his time under the system, no doubt you are very upset to possibly lose the benefit that you paid for as a younger driver.

How does OC Transpo, the city and bus riders benefit from the current system. Well for one it is a great incentive for driver loyalty, and the more experienced drivers there are in the system the more efficiently the whole system will run, contributing to cost savings for the city.

The benefit of being able to choose your routes, even when your at the lower level, gives drivers a feeling of empowerment and belonging. For senior drivers the, system probably contributes to keeping the same drivers on the same routes, getting to know the routes and the regular passengers. It contributes greatly to job satisfaction, which is very important for workers who are dealing with the public on the front line, and that easily translates into rider satisfaction.

So why does the city want to change a system that works to everyone's benefit for some theoretical cost savings and put bus riders through a strike, that the city very well might lose, to try do it.

OC Transpo Union Chief - World's Worst Communicator

Some of you may have thought it was Stéphane Dion, but as OC Transpo workers start a strike that will impact thousands of members of the public, the award must go to Amalgamated Transit Union Local 279 President André Cornellier.

When you are a public sector union, public opinion is very important. I saw the union president interviewed on CTV and he came across as very arrogant and not caring about the public. I do not believe that he is, is but that is the impression he presented. And he failed to present the union's case very well, mainly because the facts he was trying to present got lost in his attitude.

And the union itself has not presented any information supporting their position on their website, not even a single press release.

So let me try to do what the union and it's president have failed to do so the public can see that the hard working OC Transpo workers do have a reason to strike.

The Ottawa Citizen reported the facts this way.

The union has been without a contract since March, and the two sides have held talks off and on over the months. Things heated up last week when the workers voted 98 per cent to reject a city offer and to give their leadership a strike mandate.
…

The main unresolved issues are wages, scheduling, sick leave and contracting out work.

The city is offering a three-year deal with three-, two- and two-per-cent wage increases in each year, retroactive to April 1st and a one-time $2,000 signing bonus to each member.

The union is proposing a three-year contract with increases of 3.5 per cent in each year and has said they will not accept smaller wage increases than other city unions have received recently, which are minimum three per cent per year.

The city is proposing to take some scheduling control away from workers in order to run operations more efficiently, while saying it will respect booking seniority rights. The union wants to maintain the current scheduling practices.

The city is looking to relax language about contracting out work, which prevents non-unionised workers from performing some duties, too.

So the first thing we note is that the union has given the bargaining process a long time to work before deciding it was necessary to go on strike to get the City and OC Transpo to pay attention to their concerns.

While this may not be a good time for the union to ask for new benefits, their major reason for striking is management's attempt to take away previously won contract provisions regarding scheduling and contracting out. If there is one thing that workers will strike for it is to protect hard earned rights and contract provisions, and attempts to replace their jobs with non-unionised contract employees. Such attempts are almost always certain to lead to strike action. According to the union, such attempts made in the past have always been withdrawn.

The one area that the union is asking for increased benefits is sick leave, where they are asking for the same sick leave provisions as other city workers. As well, in regards to wage increases, they are asking for the same increases given to other city employees.

These do not seem like extravagant demands being made by some of the hardest working city employees with very demanding and stressful working conditions.

So why has OC Transpo forced them to strike. One thing to note is that everyday OC Transpo operates it costs the city money. Everyday they are on strike the city saves money. An OC Transpo strike is an effective way for the city to save money while deflecting the blame for the inconvenience onto the OC Transpo workers and their union.

Is this a strategy dreamed up by Mayor Larry O'Brien or just the result of his arrogance and continued inability to lead the city.

Should the Right to Strike be Sacrosanct

The labour movement has always held the Right to Strike to be sacrosanct. In reality though, the biggest gains made by workers have been gained during illegal, rather than legal strikes. Indeed it is union solidarity rather than the legal Right to Strike that is key. Workers will always have the effective ability to strike as long as they have solidarity in their ranks.

But that does not mean that strikes are always the best way to settle a dispute that cannot be settled at the bargaining table. As one who worked for, perhaps the most essential of public services, democracy itself, I did not have the Right to Strike. Instead we had compulsory arbitration. On at least one occasion simply serving notice of arbitration brought the employer (House of Commons) back to the table with an offer we could not reject. I have to admit it was somewhat reassuring to not have to worry about going on strike and losing income to settle a bargaining dispute. And, of course, the bottom line was that as long as we had solidarity we always had the effective ability to strike if that became necessary.

The recent TTC strike fiasco is an example of the ineffective use of the legal Right to Strike. The TTC workers are one of those groups of public sector workers that have a fictitious legal Right to Strike. It is often expressed this way by politicians: “we will respect your Right to Strike as long as you do not abuse it”. And by “abuse it” they mean actually “go on strike”.

The TTC strike was a fiasco because the workers went on strike knowing they would be legislated back to work and knowing they did not have the intention, or the solidarity, to continue the strike after they were legislated back to work. So all they accomplished was upsetting the general public. There was obviously something else going on there. The strike was more of an “emotional” response to something going on between workers and management beyond the terms of the proposed contract or something going on between the workers and their union leadership.

The real problem with public sector strikes is that they do not affect the employer’s bottom line. In a private sector strike you shut down production and the employers revenues and profits go down. In a public sector strike you shut down public services and the employers costs go down. There is a real bottom line incentive in that situation for the employer to try to manipulate the union into a strike.

A more effective TTC union response would have been to take the initiative to propose arbitration at the same time they announced the membership had rejected the tentative agreement. This way they could have not only avoided the wrath of the public but gained their support. Instead they called a strike they had no intention or ability to continue, knowing that the end result would be compulsory arbitration.

Why is arbitration not used more often voluntarily in the public sector.

Employers have often expressed a dislike for it because it means turning over “budgetary decisions” to a third party, or so they claim. They also, apparently, fear costlier settlements than those after a strike. It also means they do not have the savings from unpaid wages during a strike to offset wage increases awarded by an arbitrator.

Unions do not like it because of the feeling that the Right to Strike is sacrosanct and that agreeing to arbitration can be seen as a sign of weakness.

Strikes are not always successful. The big problem with public sector strikes is that they affect the public more than the employer and indeed they can save the employer money. Another way that does not upset the public is worth trying. I think public sector unions have a lot to gain by giving arbitration a chance. It does not require giving up your Right to Strike, just not using it for one set of negotiations at a time.

It may very well be that in many cases the employer will reject arbitration. So be it. The employer can then feel the wrath of the public when workers are forced to strike.