Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Nearly 700 federal job cuts coming at Public Works: unions

OTTAWA—The federal Conservatives will cut 687 public service jobs over the next three years in the Public Works department alone, unions announced Monday.

Three major unions were notified Friday that the exercise is expected to save about $100 million. Individual workers learned early Monday afternoon their jobs were on the chopping block.

Under collective agreements, the federal government will attempt to make other reasonable job offers, train employees to work in other areas, or offer severance packages for them to leave.

In all, nearly 300 people will feel the cuts this year, starting with federal economists, policy analysts and auditors.

The Canadian Association of Professional Employees (CAPE), which represents some 14,000 members, says 103 federal economists and policy analysts who work in the consulting services branch of Public Works providing analysis for all federal departments are to be cut.

Although the department has offered an eight-week transition period in which to help employees find other work, CAPE president Claude Poirier said the cuts are worrisome.

It raises concerns about what kind of scrutiny proposed legislation or program cuts will receive in the future, and the Canadian public should be concerned, said Poirier, that “we’re going to see more and more decisions made by this government on an ideological basis, instead of on a learned basis.”

“Are we going to start building prisons for unreported crime?” he asked. “Having less and less (sic) really skilled advisors means you’re going to start making your decisions on other bases,” Poirier added, pointing to the elimination of the long-form census that was popular with the Conservatives’ political base, but he said found no support among professional policy analysts.

The balance of the employees affected by Monday’s notices that went out internally — about 180 people — are employees unionized with the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) or the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPS).

Poirier predicted much deeper job cuts are to come. He said the Conservatives made a “pitch” during the election that the spending cuts could be painless because some 80,000 public servants would retire over the coming four years. But Poirier said the number is wrong, and that Treasury Board officials have told the unions that the number is closer to 40,000.

Therefore, he said, the federal government will have to find another 40,000 jobs to eliminate — a drastic slashing that he predicted will cost the federal public service “a huge gap in knowledge and corporate memory.”

Origin
Source: Toronto Star 

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