-Caveat Lector- from; http://www.zolatimes.com/V3.25/pageone.html <A HREF="http://www.zolatimes.com/V3.25/pageone.html">Laissez Faire City Times </A> ----- Laissez FaireCity Times June 21, 1999 - Volume 3, Issue 25 Editor & Chief: Emile Zola ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Public Sector at the Expense of Private Life by Peter Topolewski I graduated from high school nearly ten years ago. The decade that follows graduation is a tumultuous one. For most it’s time to get a job (either immediately, or after college briefly postpones the inevitable), and so careers are hatched and paths set by choice or necessity. I can’t speak for other generations, but for many Canadians my age walking into a government job, whether it requires a college degree or not, is something akin to winning the lottery. When the government hires you, your proud family and jealous friends alike will say rather frankly that you’re pretty well set for life. Rightly or wrongly, most lottery winners think that too. The reasons are many, whether they’re assumptions or not. First, your government job will on average pay more than any other job you could hope to land. Second, most government jobs come with premium benefits packages. Third, the government being what it is, your job is more secure than most. (Given the bizarre labor rhetoric that suggests a secure, or guaranteed, job is a human right, this might be the biggest incentive for becoming a government employee.) Other perks come via your mandatory enrollment in a union. Membership there will often guarantee you plenty of holidays, counseling should you need it, conflict resolution training, an up to date PC guide book, and a specific job description backed by tough rules that will preclude you from doing any work outside your area of "expertise". And whether it’s justified or not, many people will walk into their new government jobs (depending on the sector) believing that while there is undoubtedly stress to come, they can work at a pace they choose without fear of reprisal. This cannot be simply a myth, for the nightmares told about inflexible, unresponsive, sloth-like government bureaucracies are very real, in virtually every government department you’re likely to encounter. No one in the public sector seems to move as fast as any human out of it. This inefficiency, inherent as we well know, is of course rooted in a bureaucracy’s… well, rootlessness. Although the public sector is to serve the public, it does not on its own whim answer to them and there is little anyone can do to make it. And yet despite public employees who in many ways mandate more than they serve, there is an almost underlying morality which states in theory that employees of the public cannot – and should not expect – to get rich at their jobs. They are public servants, after all. So if you get a government job you can’t expect to get rich, but you should expect to do well. Remember, that’s why your friends and family congratulated you. So "expect" you do. Which explains why it seems that in the last year across Canada every public sector union has either been on strike or threatened to. Nurses in Quebec are currently off the job in what is called an "illegal strike", demanding more pay and less work. This spring community social services workers in BC went on strike for a five year deal that would ensure they are paid the same amount as government workers who do the same type of jobs, such as health workers who earn $4 to $8 more an hour. Ingeniously noting that the provincial government has found financial assistance for other sectors, the 10,000 community social services workers fought until they won wage increases of up to 30 per cent over five years. Earlier in the year the provincial government rewarded British Columbia’s building trade unions with a 5 per cent wage increase over five years. The $1 billion-deficit-government handed this over in violation of the highly publicized 3-year freeze on public sector wages that the premier introduced to convince business people of his financial astuteness. The finance minister stated in complete seriousness that the raise would bring road-builders in line with direct public servants. Of course the wage increases negated those so-called fixed contracts that union road-builders have with the government, and the additional cost that the increases create will go straight on to the taxpayer’s ledger. Chicken & Egg and Animal Farm In Vancouver, the city council voted to scrap a four-day work week that was implemented 23 years ago to fight pollution and traffic congestion. The city claims that resumption of the five-day week will ensure more uniform service at city hall. The change affects about 1,250 of the city’s 8,000 employees, and some of these (depending on the union) are ready to go to strike over it this fall. Staff admittedly viewed the abbreviated week as a perk, and now claim its absence is hurting morale. In fact, it’s so bad local union president Rick Gates predicts that the city "will end up having to pay more for more sick time, overtime, and for leave." But according to newspaper reports, opposition to the schedule change is most vehement because the four-day week is the family friendly week. That is, parents – particularly those in two income families – get to spend more time with their children. Now I don’t know which came first, two parents who decide to work, or the rising cost of living which makes two incomes a necessity (for most). Regardless, here is how one Vancouver city employee lamented the end of the four day week: "Because my wife (a city employee as well) also worked a four-day week, our kids were able to spend more time with us each week than the daycare staff." So, why a four-day week? To work two jobs and get your kids away from daycare workers. And why do both parents work? Well, in Canada between high taxes and the cost of living, sustaining a middle class lifestyle requires that both parents work. And when both parents work who raises their children? No surprise, mostly government-funded daycare workers. The question this evokes—Why is government raising our children?—merely exemplifies hundreds more like it. Such as, What is government doing in the road construction business? Well, the answer to all such questions is that this is the relationship we have developed with government, and this is the relationship we expect to keep with government. For example, in arguing that daycare workers should receive a wage increase comparable to the five-year 30 per cent increase that the community social services workers received, a daycare spokeswoman disgustedly stated that government is "not honoring their commitments to child care." So while once again the order of events is unclear, two things are certain: government made a commitment to childcare, and the public demanded a government commitment to childcare Now remember the man who said "because my wife also worked a four-day week, our kids were able to spend more time with us each week than the daycare staff." Well he followed that up with some melodrama aimed right at the heartstrings, saying timidly: "But I guess my employer (the city), and perhaps society, does not see the value in that." Who doesn’t value their time with their children? The ubiquitous society? Your government? Those are probably close. But it seems plain to me that if you want government to look after your kids, and you want government to pay your wages, then the government has to come up with the money somehow. And you are the only source. That means you and your spouse both have to work. Surely this is a recognizable picture, frighteningly close to the nightmare George Orwell painted for us in 1984. It is the ugly and creeping blur between the individual and the State. It is the unadulterated and unconscious acceptance of Statist society, for it is more and more likely that when you and your spouse go to work to support your family, you’re going to work for the government. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Peter Topolewski was born in Canada in 1972. Against the odds that seem stacked against everyone at birth, he is just now beginning to learn that the society and system of authority one is born into is not the society and system of authority one must accept. He lives and works in Vancouver, where his corporate communications company is based. -30- from The Laissez Faire City Times, Vol 3, No 25, June 21, 1999 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Published by Laissez Faire City Netcasting Group, Inc. Copyright 1998 - Trademark Registered with LFC Public Registrar All Rights Reserved ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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