Labour's Wider Fight in BC

[Editor's note: These comments are drawn from an address given by CUPE B.C. President Barry O'Neill to his union's convention on May 9, 2007, in Victoria.]

Since the provincial election in 2005, we have not seen the kind of sustained attack on working people and communities that we saw from 2001 to 2005, at least on the face of it. But of course the cuts for the poor, for women, for community services, for childcare -- they stayed in place. And thousands of our brothers and sisters in the HEU who lost their jobs did not get their jobs back. Those who did but were hired by privatized companies -- or the people who replaced them -- often live in poverty.

We have seen changes in the last two years, and in many ways, the changes we are seeing in British Columbia today are even worse than what happened during the Campbell Liberals' first term.

There is legislation now that will fundamentally undermine our school boards. School trustees are elected democratically and locally to manage the education of our children. We have our differences with them sometimes, but they represent their communities and I think they are great.

Bill 20 creates new provincial superintendents that can overrule school boards. And for some issues, it makes school board superintendents responsible not to the elected trustees, but to the province. The B.C. School Trustees Association has passed a motion opposing the undermining of their autonomy and called on the province to withdraw this legislation.

TransLink hijacked

The province is also undermining municipal local governments. We have seen this happen before. The province brought in legislation undermining municipal authority over things like power projects and other major projects. But the new legislation they have brought in to govern TransLink goes further than anything we have seen.

Among the worst of these changes is the one that creates a "screening panel" that will nominate TransLink directors. The six-member screening panel will be composed of one representative from each of: the Vancouver Board of Trade, the Gateway Council, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of British Columbia, as well as the provincial government and the mayors' council. In other words, local elected representatives get one vote.

The Council of Mayors will be forced to choose from amongst investment, planning and taxation options put before them by the new unelected board. If the Council of Mayors declines to choose from amongst these options, then the unelected directors will be able to impose a decision. Effectively, taxation and investment decisions will be predetermined or imposed by the unelected directors.

Now let me ask you, how many people from the Board of Trade do you think ride the bus? How many chartered accountants ride the SkyTrain everyday?

Let there be no doubt: this is unprecedented. Can you imagine if the NDP were in power and they appointed the B.C. Fed, CUPE and the Canadian Labour Congress as the new Labour Board? The media would go ballistic. In this case? Barely a peep.

More rights... for corporations

Then there is TILMA -- the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement. We know this deal is not about trade. We know that any barriers for trade between the provinces are minimal and can be dealt with. So why is the province jamming this through? Why can't we have public hearings on this? They are having them in Saskatchewan. Why can't we have a debate in the legislature on this?

The reason we can't have public hearings on this, is that the more the public knows, the more it realizes that the TILMA is not a trade agreement and not in the best interest of citizens. It is a bill of rights, and more rights, for corporations to defend their ability to make more profits. It affects the province, but it also affects school boards, municipalities, colleges and universities.

It means that school boards may not even be able to ban junk food in schools. Why? Because Clause 3 of the TILMA guarantees that there will not be any measures that restrict investment. This by their own admission. But not to worry: they are encouraging business to be in "voluntary compliance." And the Coca-Cola company just might feel that a ban on junk food restricts its investment -- you think?

Municipalities face the same thing in anything they do that restricts investment -- and that would mean just about anything a local government might do.

Private profiteers

And finally, there is privatization. We have seen the high-pressure campaign on the TransLink Board to do the Canada Line as a P3. Even though we were told that would not happen. And today we are seeing how they are being punished because they didn't come on side fast enough.

We have seen how a P3 was imposed on the Abbotsford hospital over the objections of the health region board. And now we see how they are trying to do the same thing in Victoria, both with sewage treatment and with a new patient tower for the Royal Jubilee Hospital. The Capital Regional District has to pay for 40 per cent of the cost of that health complex, but it is not permitted to see any planning documents.

Last autumn, Gordon Campbell told the Union of B.C. Municipalities that if the province contributed $20 million to a project, then the municipality didn't have the right to decide how the project would be done. Instead, Partnerships B.C. would have to be involved, and we know what that means. Partnerships B.C. is a whole topic in itself.

Campbell brought that measure in because Whistler said no to a P3 for sewage treatment. The P3 companies were outraged, and they told Campbell to do something about it. And Gordon Campbell promised them he would. How dare the public get involved in a project in their own community?

Democracy under attack

All of these things I've mentioned have something in common.

Each and every one of these measures undermines the democratic process in British Columbia. Each and every one takes away power from locally elected officials and puts it in the hands of either the province or corporations.

The TransLink legislation is the most blunt. It actually hands the power to tax over to Gordon Campbell's corporate cronies. But the rest of them move in the same direction. And they reinforce each other. Kevin Falcon was furious that TransLink said no twice to his pet P3 on the Canada Line. Now he is making sure they don't get the chance to do that again. I can say that in my 30 years as an activist, I have never seen such a blatant affront on democracy by any government in this country. All of these measures do not happen by accident.

Think about our most valuable assets: health, water power, education, recreation, transportation, communication. Each and every one of these resources is already in private hands or is being proposed to go into private hands. This is not an exhaustive list, but these assets and services will all be controlled by private business if this government is not stopped.

Fighting back

We in CUPE and the labour movement have a proud history of fighting for public services and fairness. And fighting back when those things are threatened. Our challenge, in this world where there are new technologies and everything is "more, faster, better," is to find new, faster and better ways to fight the good fight.

Well, we're off to a good start with our information sharing. The school trustees at their annual meeting in April not only said no to Bill 20, they said no to the TILMA. And they also passed a resolution saying they didn't want Partnerships B.C. looking over their shoulder every time they made a decision about a high school.

Municipalities across British Columbia have said no to the TILMA. Many of them have said they want to be exempted, or they want the agreement dumped.

I am proud to say that CUPE was the first organization in this province to take action against the TILMA. Today, we are working with a coalition of unions, environmental groups and organizations like the Council of Canadians to fight this agreement.

And finally, we come to privatization and public-private partnerships. We know these deals do not work for our citizens. They are secretive, they are expensive and they don't deliver. But they are very, very profitable, and they are coming at us faster than we have ever seen before. We know that to meet the needs of municipalities over the next few years, there will need to be 60 billion dollars invested, and both the federal and provincial governments want that to fall in the hands of their corporate buddies.

We are fighting them, and despite the vast resources they have, we are often successful. How do you beat the money they can throw at these projects? Knowledge, skill, dedication and hard work.

Related Tyee stories:

• Campbell Government Violated Charter Rights: Supreme Court
  Tearing up health union contracts ruled unconstitutional.
• Taking Stock as BC Fed Turns 50
  Some views on labour's achievements, challenges.
• What Happened to Labour Rights?
  You'd hardly know collective bargaining is a human right.