Editorials

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Nurses' demands vex NDP

By: Editorial

Posted: 02/8/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

THE strike vote taken by St. Boniface hospital nurses -- the third of them, at least, who turned out for the vote on a strike mandate -- may be a sign that few are deeply engaged in the negotiations with the province and that has a certain logic to it. The NDP government has been Manitoba nurses' best friend, awarding lucrative wage increases in the last decade that made them fourth highest paid in Canada. All this in relative peace.

The nurses sit now in fifth place because other provinces have seen wage increases for 2009 kick in, with 2010 raises on the cusp. In Saskatchewan, that saw hourly earnings rise by five per cent last spring, to be followed by an equal raise in April. The Doer government in 2008 doubled that year's scheduled wage increase to nurses with an additional five per cent, keeping them at fourth; it should not chase Saskatchewan's largesse now. That province, grappling with a huge reversal of fortunes, is paying dearly for banking on a booming economy to float its boats today.

The Manitoba Nurses Union says it knows that the game of catch-up is at least on hold, if not over -- Manitoba's forecasted deficit has tempered monetary demands at the bargaining tables. All nursing locals are at a central table, with some negotiating issues specific to their hospitals -- St. Boniface nurses are upset the province wants to update a 35-year-old seniority clause that gives prominence to the number of years a nurse has worked when she or he is vying for a new job in the hospital. All other Winnipeg hospitals make seniority one of a number of conditions. The province says standardizing seniority clauses makes it easier to move health programs among the sites, something the union disputes.

The Selinger government cannot offer rich monetary incentives to its public sector employees -- also bargaining this year are civil servants, college staff and personal care home employees. The NDP government has poured enormous amounts of cash into the health department each year so that just a two per cent increase would trigger close to $90 million more in spending.

The risk is that the government will trade off wage increases by negotiating benefits that simply defers the pain to take the heat off this current administration, while writing future governments into hefty indemnity. The nurses, conceding dramatic wage increases are politically unpalatable, are seeking cost-of-living provisions for their pensions.

Aside from the cost implications, the early retirement provisions for this workforce can exacerbate a nursing shortage that has proven resistant to a variety of fixes -- improving work/life conditions; raising wages; boosting the number of annual nursing graduates. Indexing pensions to inflation makes retirement more attractive and compounds the future costs to the public treasury.

Nurses and other publicly paid workers have done very well with the reign of a union-friendly NDP government that has broadcast the benefits of record-level federal transfers over the last decade. The private sector workforce has been forced to share the pain of shrinking revenues in this recession; civil servants are expected to do the same. Tagging future governments to shoulder the costs of indexed public pensions is a disservice to the taxpayer.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 8, 2010 A12

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