Hidden Agendas

"Both are appealing to their base, which in turn supports fundraising for the party, or in the case of the PS (public service) unions greater support -- which has been wavering -- for the PS union leadership. In short, the federal public service is now larger than when they came to power in 2006 -- notwithstanding the claims by the Harper Conservatives and the public sector unions."
"Increasing, Stephen Harper is revealed to be the 21st century Conservative equivalent of Mackenzie King, the master incrementalist, who famously said 'lean to the left, lean to the right but straddle the centre."
Professor Ian Lee, Carleton University, Sprott School of Business

Finally, PSAC has a legitimate (in their professional union perspective) battle on its hands. Their "Stephen Harper hates us" campaign succeeded in presenting the Prime Minister as a hostile adversary of the public service, intent on crushing its hard-earned perquisites achieved through the bargaining process, and intent as well on restraining the growth of the public service, and indeed cutting it back dramatically in an effort to cut government spending.

Dr. Lee's findings that this government's intention to down-size the public service payroll through its gradualist approach to decreasing the size of the public service came after a prolonged period under this very same government when the public service grew at an astonishing rate, is not a story the 17 federal unions like to hear.

On the one hand the unions plan on taking the government to court in a challenge of the constitutionality of new labour laws the Conservative government plans to put in place to overhaul collective bargaining, and that will also affect what the unions insist will be health and safety in the workplace, by a government which cares nothing for the workers that represent the public weal.

On the other hand, this activity, calling the unions to the greater contest of flailing away at the legislative and decision-making powers of the federal government, has taken them away from their preferred options of lobbying against a foreign country as they champion what they feel is an underdog population, halfway across the world.

In a sense, however, the current government has been very kind to the public service, reversing the drastic cuts that were imposed under a predecessor Liberal government that instituted the largest downsizing in the history of the public service, under the Chretien government. That downsizing cut $17-billion in spending and 55,000 jobs in the public service, the military and the RCMP. To cut a federal deficit and pay down the nation's debt.

When the Conservatives were elected in 2006, a big hiring surge came into effect, peaking in 2010- 2011, at 375,500 employees; 283,400 in the core public service and agencies, another 92,100 in the military and RCMP. Despite this hiring bonanza in the public service and the related growth in membership of the public service unions, the Harper government was viewed as sinister.

The "hidden agenda" government that the unions fought tooth and nail. The cuts that were heralded by government and mourned by workers and unions as an unprecedented intention to gut the public service never quite materialized. As Dr. Lee argues, the "empirical record" does not give support to the claims by the government that major reductions occurred in the public service.

Nor does it support the government's opponents' claims that the government has been "savage in imposing draconian, unprecedented cuts." With the 2012 budget that called for the elimination of 19,200 jobs over a three-year period, representing an 8% reduction from peak employment of the 2010-11 years, 11,000 jobs were eliminated by November 2012.

And most of the reductions resulted from attrition and retirements, along with buyouts, early retirement or education packages under the Workforce Adjustment Agreement that had been negotiated with the unions to manage layoffs.

As for the reforms the unions are determined to battle through the courts which are meant to change the Public Service Labour Relations Act, they would put the government in control in determining which unions may strike and which must go to arbitration to resolve contract disputes. And it would be government to decide which workers to deem essential and non-striking.