Stephen McNeil's bogeyman brings a spot of calm to labour landscape
Michael Gorman | CBC News | Posted: December 9, 2017 11:00 AM | Last Updated: December 9, 2017
For several years Stephen McNeil has spoken against arbitrators; on Thursday he praised them
For those who have been paying attention to Nova Scotia politics since Stephen McNeil became premier in 2013, perhaps one of the more surreal days in the last four years came on Thursday.
Since coming to office, McNeil has waged one battle after another with public-sector unions, all in the name of fiscal restraint.
There were weeks of round-the-clock sittings at Province House in the name of passing legislation tied to essential services, wage patterns, imposing contracts and ending strikes — all while thousands of public-sector workers took turns parading around the legislature, chanting the premier's name the way the crowd at a hockey arena chirps a visiting goalie.
This was about what Nova Scotia could afford, McNeil would repeat again and again.
He would double down on that point by passing legislation — Bill 148 — that imposed a wage pattern and prevented an arbitrator from giving more than what the Liberals believed they had to spend.
The "unelected, unaccountable third-party arbitrator" became a type of bogeyman talking point McNeil used so often reporters would sometimes jokingly predict how long it would take for him to utter the words in interviews.
McNeil's re-election this past spring was, for him, a validation of his win-at-all-costs approach to bargaining: It didn't matter he couldn't get a deal with any of the major public-sector unions, or that they were all on the verge of taking him to court. He took a hard line in the name of fiscal sustainability and it paid off in the form of electoral success and balanced budgets.
How strange it was then for Province House observers to hear McNeil and Labour Relations Minister Mark Furey talk Thursday about how pleased they were with that day's ruling from an arbitration panel — the aforementioned unelected third party. The panel extended the three per cent wage increase over four years the Liberals had imposed on NSGEU members to six years and a seven per cent increase. (The two additional years each come with a two per cent wage increase.)
McNeil said he didn't believe such an arrangement could have been reached without the hard fights over the last few years, without the government showing it wouldn't sign off on the larger and more generous wage increases the previous NDP government was willing to green light — about seven per cent over three years.
"Let's not kid ourselves: Without the challenges that we faced, without having these tough conversations, we would have had a very different scenario in my view," McNeil said Thursday.
In this case, it seemed the decision of an unelected third party was OK, because it was within the realm of what McNeil and Furey said the province could afford.
We'll never know if the reaction would have been different had the award been higher.
The union, meanwhile, saw this as a victory that went beyond the wage package imposed on all public-sector unions — never mind that the ruling did not change the general wage terms for the portion of the contract already imposed.
With the unions all having filed their notice of challenge to Bill 148, it will be up to the courts to decide if that one will stick.
"It's not necessarily in the government's hands," said NSGEU president Jason MacLean. "People can't be dictated to; processes need to work themselves out."
At this point, it's not a stretch to suggest McNeil doesn't have a glowing view of unions.
And while he uses political jargon to try to get around that — it's not doctors or teachers we have a problem with, he'll say, it's their representatives — it is nothing more than a talking point.
How could it be anything else when, at least in the case of teachers, 100 per cent of members vote on a contract and eight out of 10 reject it?
The arbitration panel noted it tacked on two additional years to the NSGEU contract partly in an effort to delay the return of the two sides to the bargaining table.
That's probably wise.
Given the amount of scorched earth on the labour front, a longer cooling-off period might not be such a bad thing. The same could be said with other public-sector unions, such as the teachers and health-care workers, who may now be wondering if similar deals would make more sense than a looming return to bargaining.
Perhaps that unelected third party is more accountable than the premier would have everyone think.