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What a difference a day makes….24 little hours |
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Written by Al Hollingsworth
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Saturday, 03 January 2009 |
Sorry, Dinah Washington, not plagiarizing, but the words from your hit of 1959 came rushing back as I stared at the morning paper and the headline Premier gave staff raises. Washington’s album, entitled What a difference a day makes, which featured that great song, won her a Grammy and it also aptly describes the period between the first two publications of the Chronicle-Herald in 2009.
With no paper on New Year’s Day, their first publication of ’09 hit the streets on Friday and had a front page story entitled Money will be tight, premier warns public-sector unions. The story went on to highlight the Premier’s warning to unions that our difficult financial times will affect public-sector bargaining this year. Either the Premier doesn’t know what day (in this case, year) it is or he likes to get a head start on difficult chores. The contract with unionized civil servants doesn’t run out until 2010.
Maybe it is something in the resin. He is back fiddlin’ and breathing in the fine dust.
More importantly, it seems now that one day he warns the little guys not to come begging, and 24 hours later it is revealed that the suits in his office got salary hikes ranging from 9.7 10 15.7 per cent in 2008.
Tell me, do Rodney MacDonald and his key advisers stay up nights trying to figure out how to lose the next election? The latest revelation and the veiled threat to the unions is a page out of the John Savage play book. Savage, you will remember, took on the unions – and lost.
Joan Jessome, president of the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union is scheduled to meet with MacDonald later this week. She might want to give the premier a bit of a history lesson, reminding him of the time when the then Nova Scotia Government Employees Union, headed by Dave Peters, launched a campaign that was the beginning of the end for the Liberal Party in Nova Scotia. The assault began in 1994 and continued until the Grits were in shambles. They went from having a huge majority, to a minority, to the third place status they enjoy (?) today.
The NSGGEU has the resources and the talent to make life very uncomfortable for this minority government. And given the double standard MacDonald is displaying, big bucks for his staff, peanuts for the masses, the only sympathy he will find is in the pages of the dictionaries.
Even the MLAs will receive a meager 2.9 per cent raise this year. Were the Tory MLAs aware of the double standard? They are now - and I doubt if it is going over big with those who represent us. Add to the mix how the taxpayers will react - taxpayers who have been hit between the eyes with a recession, and are in no mood to see this kind of wasteful spending. What makes this really hard to swallow is that these raises are part of contracts that include 12-month severance packages.
If you are starting to think something is rotten in Denmark, look no further that this clause. The average Nova Scotia working stiff is, under labor laws, entitled to one month’s pay for each year of employment. Work three years, get fired, or in this case, voted out, and you are eligible for three months pay. No more - no less.
Take the example of the Premier’s director of communications. Wade Keller joined MacDonald’s cadre last year and if they get the boot this spring will walk away with a year’s salary. In this case110,000 tax dollars.
Roll that one around in your head as you wonder how you are going to heat your home, pay the power bill, save you investments, ….
One last thought. Was this crowd in charge of the coat check at the Cunard Centre on New Year’s Eve?
(Al Hollingsworth is a retired journalist and broadcaster)
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