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Premier Andrew Furey’s new budget is titled “Change is in the Air,” but it’s still unclear if his government is blowing towards implementing additional damaging PERT report recommendations or towards a fair and inclusive economic recovery for all.
Budget 2022 indicates the government is ready to make some significant transformations, but not yet ready to decide which direction that change will lead. I’m left with more questions than answers about which path they will choose or if they will opt to do the bare minimum on both – essentially sticking with the status quo.
To be honest, workers were bracing for worse, expecting deep cuts to services and public sector jobs, but the fact that the budget isn’t as bad as feared does not make it good.
In fact, Furey and his Finance Minister essentially ignored workers’ needs and the role that encouraging high-quality employment can play in building an economic recovery that benefits the many instead of a few.
In 2020, more than 1,400 Unifor members at Dominion grocery stores went on strike. More than 80% of the workers were part-time, with many earning minimum or just above minimum wage. The three-month-long strike raised the issue of low-paying, precarious work in a province with the fourth lowest minimum wage in the country. In this budget, the government failed to acknowledge this problem could be rectified by simply raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Instead, the most vulnerable workers were ignored.
The unemployment rate in the province is already the highest in the country, an issue the budget also fails to address.
It is time for Furey to focus on creating higher-quality employment by implementing fair scheduling practices to create more full-time work, ensuring the value created by the fisheries stays in Newfoundland and Labrador by reversing corporate concentration, capitalizing on the skill of energy workers by investing in future energy resources and by maintaining and investing in strong public services.
If it wasn’t known before, the pandemic was an eye-opener on how deeply we depend on our public services.
When public sector workers are not supported, services fall apart. When the services we rely on fall apart, we all fall apart.
It may be counter-intuitive to many of us, but investing in public services during times of crisis attracts private sector investment and creates jobs. Improving wages and working conditions grows the economy from the bottom up, ensuring more people have the means to participate more fully in economic life.
A crosswinds decision in the budget saw an increase in health care spending while simultaneously announcing the amalgamation of regional health authorities. This leaves it unclear if the government intends to follow through on the PERT recommendation to slash 35% of the health care budget or move to further invest in job quality and retention initiatives for health care workers to improve quality of work and quality of care.
This stands in stark contrast to the actions taken in Nova Scotia’s budget just last week. In that budget, we saw Premier Tim Houston take strong action to improve the conditions of work and care in the health care sector – acknowledging the improvements as the worker retention strategy that they are.
The truth is Furey has been setting the table with sharp knives for the last year-and-a-half, first evidenced by his choice of Dame Moya Greene, internationally recognized for her penchant for cuts and privatization, to head his Premier’s Economic Recovery Team (PERT).
In many ways, this budget sends a signal that the damaging plan laid out in the PERT’s “Big Reset” are on hold but haven’t been taken off the table.
As outlined in the “A Fair Reset’ blog series, the Big Reset would result in the loss of 9,000 jobs, reduce wages for public sector workers and result in increased inequality by pushing more people into low wage work.
So the question remains - is this a temporary moratorium on PERT report implementation or a change in direction that is sorely needed? Until we have the answer, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians will be left twisting in the wind.
