No surprise at how strike ended
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As the recession rages on, would you be happy with a three per cent wage increase for one year?
Chances are, in this age of salary freezes and cutbacks, a wage increase of even a few single digits would be welcome.
In this time of economic turmoil, many would be happy to simply have their job.
However, if you are a paramedic in British Columbia, chances are you are quite miffed this week.
The B.C. Liberal government has decided to end the paramedics’ seven-month strike by enacting back-to-work legislation.
The Ambulance Service Collective Agreement Act will impose Victoria’s last offer, a September proposal that gives paramedics a three per cent wage hike over one year, retroactive to the spring.
While the public can be excused for not noticing there was a strike — essential-service provisions meant the ambulances were still rolling and paramedics were still on call — Health Minister Kevin Falcon admitted the work action has taken its toll, with managers working up to 80 hours a week and a sharp increase in the number of ambulances taken off the road for service.
Falcon cited the H1N1 situation as part of the reason for his government’s decision to legislate an end to the strike.
That’s part of it.
But the Olympic Winter Games are three months away and that’s part of it, too, even if Falcon won’t say as much.
This decision is obviously frustrating to paramedics, but it is hardly a novel approach to ending labour disputes.
Not is it the domain of centre-right parties like the B.C. Liberals.
While NDP Leader Carole James predictably rails at the legislation, she needs to be reminded it was her party in the 1990s that legislated employees off the pickets lines on four different occasions, and it was her party that, in 1975, ordered 40,000 people back to work.
Governments of all stripes will dig in their heels when they are adamant about how much more they will pay a group of workers.
And rarely do they ever budge.
– Kamloops This Week
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