I’ll have to admit to being a little bummed out Monday morning.
Full disclosure, I had written a full week’s worth of articles, all of them dependant upon my assumption that Executive-Director Jennifer Lavallee of Community Living Renfrew County South would not respond to OPSEU Local 472’s invitation to resume bargaining.
There was a noon Friday deadline to RSVP the invitation, but despite me following various sources quite closely for any news, I had not heard anything by the time that deadline came and went. So I assumed that my initial prediction was correct, and being a rather industrious sort of fellow, proceeded to write a series of scathing articles slamming CLRCS for not showing up to talk.
But then late Sunday, from a surprising source, I got an indication that she, Jennifer Lavallee, had in fact responded, and had done so on the Thursday evening before the deadline.
Way to go Jenn. Way to wreck everything.
And they were good articles too, each one increasingly more brilliant than the last. And now they’re all shot to hell, because the premise behind them was no longer in play.
I hate when that happens.
Apparently CLRCS is prepared to talk, but can only do so without the condition of the so-called “funder” being present. Fair enough, since no Executive-Director anywhere is going to pick up the phone and compel Doug Ford to sit down and talk. But she seems to have indicated she’d still talk notwithstanding the absence of the province at the table. I don’t know if she mentioned the possibility of mediation being a potential sticking point for her. I say that because the original union invitation called for the provincial government and mediators to both be present during talks.
In what was supposed to be yesterday’s article, I excoriated her for not even responding. I chided her for poor judgement, and for ceding the high ground in public opinion to the union by ignoring the invitation altogether. I counselled that, even if the province couldn’t be compelled to talk, that she could still make use of the opportunity, if for no other reason than to signal her willingness to legitimately talk in good-faith. Show people that she’s making earnest and legitimate efforts to seek a just and fair deal. A chance to gather intelligence on the opposite side. An opportunity to listen to what they have to say, and perhaps have them listen to what she has to say. And what, I asked, could be the harm in that?
But then she tossed a grenade into my morning Cornflakes by proposing to do the very thing that I was counselling her to do, to regain some of the high ground that I thought she had lost to the union by not responding to their invitation. But she, in fact, did.
Applying the same logic to both sides, you can say you want to talk all you want but it only goes so far if barriers keep getting thrown up that prevent such talks from even beginning. So there’s no talking yet that I know of, and no plans to meet. If there are, that’s unknown to me at this point. That, and apparently an awful lot of other stuff
So, saying that you want to talk is a good and positive thing. But it’s not talking until you’re actually at the table talking. Talking about talking scores you fewer points than actual talking does.
So while at face value this appears to be a positive development, the reality of things may still dictate that any proposed talks may still get derailed by either of the parties, and for any number of reasons. So with that in mind, I’ll hold off on the purchase of balloons and noisemakers.
To me, the two biggest sticking points are the reluctance, or refusal, of the so-called funder to grow up and take some responsibility. The government doesn’t want to be seen as having anything to do with this dispute, the better to escape any negative public reactions to their policy of intentionally underfunding critical programs and services. They’d rather it be the agency Executive-Directors spinning in the wind and taking any heat from the public. So that’s one thing.
The second thing is the union insistence on the presence of a mediator, or mediators. The union is actually proposing both sides follow a mass mediation model where the parties sit down at a big provincial table, or tables, to hammer out agreements issue by issue over the course of several days. This is something I’ll talk about in some greater detail tomorrow, unless Jennifer blows me away again with some other positive step or act of kindness.
If talks were to ever actually happen, how I would love to be in that room, or even just the proverbial fly on the wall. Then I’d be able to hear for myself what both sides are saying and how they’re saying it. I could hear the words spoken, the tone and tenor of their delivery, but would also have available body language and non-verbal communication to witness, assess, and evaluate.
It would allow me, a member of the taxpaying public, to get the skinny on each side’s “official” positions, and to do so without any spin or counter-spin. It would give me an opportunity to assess what the sticking points are, who those sticking points belong to, and whether they’re legitimate sticking points in the first place. In short, I want to see who it is that’s holding up the train.
So as to apply pressure where pressure is needed.
I’m absolutely certain that both sides would rather tell me to go pound salt, mind my own business, stay in my lane, maybe go knit a sock. But this is my business, since it’s my money everyone its playing with. If I don’t get a seat at the table, then who the hell should?
I know that the government should be my representative in these talks, but they’re not doing their jobs with fidelity, and would rather play harmful political games that cost hundreds of millions of dollars and cause great negativity between groups of people who, at the end of the day, have to work with each other. So if the government is my only chance of having my tax dollars properly represented, then I guess I’m just going to have to advocate for myself since I have absolutely no confidence in this current government’s ability or desire to do the right thing of their own volition. This government prefers confrontation, Supreme Court decisions, and the wasting of millions of dollars in retro-active penalties as their preferred method of choice when it comes to fighting what it perceives to be ideological and political enemies. You know, people who belong to public sector unions.
But it’s a government made up of characters from The Wizard of Oz, trying to present as strong and tough, but actually lacking in the core attributes needed for successful government, including courage, and quite possibly intelligence. Right on the government benches you’ll find all the Scarecrows, Tin Men, and Cowardly Lions you could ever want. And if there’s one thing they’re really gold at, it’s the bugle call of retreat they sound anytime anybody of any oomph stands up to them. Then they can’t run away fast enough. And they have a habit of chucking millions of our dollars out the car window as a distraction while they make their escape.
I don’t really pretend to know how this all ends other than I feel I can safely predict that it will, in fact, end. But my worry is that it’s going to end in such a manner as to end up costing us far more than if the government had just treated its workers fairly from the very beginning. Also, I’m ashamed to have to admit that I live in a province that would hang people out to dry the way they do to satisfy their stupid and cynical political calculus. And by hanging out to dry, I refer to the clients, client families, workers, and yes, even the Executive-Director and the Board of Directors.
I say pressure these people, government members, all that we can. Don’t listen to them when they say they’re not involved. Tell them you don’t care, do something anyway.
Let them know that you and others like you are really pissed off, and if they don’t smarten up, there may be a political price to be paid. Put pressure on their jobs. Threaten their employment.
And watch them run home to momma when they discover that everyone else on the playground is getting tired of being bullied by a bunch of weenies.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 