I actually intended to say institutional memory.

City Hall’s management ranks are being gutted for sure. It seems intentional and irreversible.
Ballem, Robertson and Meggs are people on a mission, intent to make a cultural change at City Hall. The voters who fell in love with this group before the last election were probably fooled into believing that change would be beneficial. Now the big question is “will they be fooled again in about 18 months?”

There will be a small handful of departures from the hall come June as well. Not because of anyone being pushed but because of offers from neighbouring cities. There is the sense among a growing group of employees that the grass is greener on the other side. I’m old enough to know green grass just means more mowing; I plan on staying put and watching the weeds grow.
Brent no need to be such a politician your job is secure under this administration.

I recently talked to the city manager of a nearby municipality. He said he had received 70 applications for work from CoV staff unhappy with their current situation.

Am I the only one who sees all these retirements as the big wave of baby-boomer retirements that us young folk have been promised for so long would happen…. rather than a sign of the apocolypse?

Or is that insufficiently paranoid enough of me?

If anyone had some common sense they would invite some of this brain trust back on contract to keep the boat afloat.

I’m a bit confused – I thought you were all against the “unfairness” of your taxes. Why would you support even the possibility of increasing your tax bill by having the government pay those dazzling high-priced consultant fees?

Here’s a crazy alternate idea: Why not hire someone not of the boomer generation?

We’ll see what happens when the union contracts are up in the next year but, once again, the only case that can be made for mass unhappiness appears to be in the upper ranks.

I’ll take that bet.

In fact, I think it will be CUPE that folds – the City will cry “recession” and public opinion will back them. An increase to match the cost of living…at best. With Greece on the verge of default and the dominoes lined up in Europe, we’ll probably be back in credit crunch territory.

Speaking as a boomer, we’ll quit when you young people learn how to spell and get some goddamn manners.

We were talking about people who had already chosen to retire, were we not? Perhaps it came off as rude, but Sharon is an anti-tax crusader…I found the spending proposal odd in that light.

It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. I was just riffing on the learn to spell gag.
I’ll win that bet. Take another look at just how much money the civic unions lavished on the Vision campaign. You don’t seriously think Councillor Meggs is going to tell them times are tough, maybe next contract, oh and I need even more to run (Gregor) at the provincial level (again).
I presume you know what happened to the original Spartacus. It’s a good name for a Stalinist ballet or second-rate Bulgarian football club but the man himself (if he existed) didn’t try to abolish slavery. He was just a bandit-chieftain whose rebellion was doomed from the start. Crassus’ legions slaughtered every last one of them.

See above as to what I think will actually happen, but Re: CUPE 15% / 25% / 12.5%…

Where are you getting these numbers? I’ve looked, and nothing is online? Are you just speculating?

What’s the term are you speculating for these numbers? 5 years? 3 years?

Assuming these numbers aren’t fantasy, why are they unreasonable? Vancouver is expensive to live in and it’s getting worse: Vancouver is now only four percentage points cheaper than New York and more expensive than any other city in North America.

[ignoring the families who’ve been laid off & are no longer members]

You mean the 14 CoV workers who have received layoff notices. What is the union supposed to do? I’m assuming you would rather see the unions accept a pay cut rather than have the City change it’s arbitrarily arrived at cap to the rise in property tax? Kind of a weak negotiating strategy, wouldn’t you say? Why not raise property tax 0.0001 to keep those 14 on? Or, better yet, recognize that Vancouver has a significant business cost advantage (some of which is provided by the excellence of our civil service) and cease shifting the business tax on to the property tax.

This is classic class warfare politics @ work.

The “class warfare” at work is the usual right-wing attack on the Canadian system of labour negotiations working as it was intended and designed to do. Don’t like it?

What’s your alternative, Bill McCreery?

Should we emulate the States and war on the unions until the inequality of income is so great there is a few very wealthy individuals and a majority struggling to get by? Is that the society you want to live in? It’s not a very appealing vision, in my view.

The living wage in Vancouver is calculated to be $18/hr, and yet you seemingly support a position that would see those families you are so concerned about not even make that.

Vancouver had, almost, gotten past that. It’s divisive, destructive & rotten.

Like 2007? Right….

“…the Canadian system of labour negotiations working as it was intended and designed to do”. You mean the system where the public-employee unions buy elections and have their infiltrators sit on both sides of the table (e.g. Vancouver school board, Vancouver city council and the golden age of NDP government in Victoria)?
Conflict-of-interest isn’t confined to business lobbies. My oft-stated question (name three CofV councillors who would put the public interest ahead of the wishes of their campaign donors) remains unanswered.
Spartikus’ real worry is the current trend in public-sector employment. The public administration industry’s share of GDP and employment has been falling for twenty years (http://www.guidetobceconomy.org/major_industries/public_administration.htm). If, as and when the three levels of government begin to rein in deficit spending and try to reduce the debt, this trend will accelerate. This is naturally a concern for public-service unions and their apologists.

Alternative vision (love that word)? Let’s see, how about we have politicians fronting for public-employee unions pass laws that take from the most productive members of society and give to the least productive?
Funny you should mention Greece and the other “social-democrat” states in Europe. They bankrupted their economies by following that very same policy.
Left out of your paean to collective bargaining is the concept for the strike/lockout and the implict threat of mob violence.

For the interested: Anatomy of a Euromess

what significance does a US report on public vs. private compensation have to make your point? We are talking about BC.

It’s online, for one, and the points made struck me as comparable. If you know of a Canadian specific version, please post.

Does anyone actually take the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatves seriously?….I mean really.

It’s all about the benefits. That’s where the disparity truly lies.

Even if one argues that the salaries are equal, the inflation adjusted benefits for life are always going to be the issue.
How many future 90 year old baby boomers are there going to be collecting their 40th year of pension benefits after putting in 25 years of actual service? The percentage will increase every year and it’s all on the public dime.

It’s always so ironic to me that “the left” are so anti-business and anti-profit, yet the gold plated pensions are so utterly dependent on the profits and growth of the very types of companies that they despise.

The constant slamming of the banks and the fees they charge or the profits they make, for example, yet the public pension funds are the largest shareholders.

It’s almost as comical as CCPA “research”.

How many future 90 year old baby boomers are there going to be collecting their 40th year of pension benefits after putting in 25 years of actual service? The percentage will increase every year and it’s all on the public dime.

Speaking of fast and loose: What’s is the percentage of the workforce that retires at age 50 and then live goes on to live 10 years over the average life expectancy?

I ask because you seem to know.

The percentage will increase every year and it’s all on the public dime.

Yes, we all contribute to our CPP and other pension over the course of our life – private and public sector worker alike. If the population is shrinking, well, that’s not the union movements fault, is it?

yet the gold plated pensions are so utterly dependent on the profits and growth

The only growth seems to have been in the level of executive compensation, but I digress…

It’s almost as comical as CCPA “research”.

If so comical, why aren’t you dazzling us by demonstrating exactly how it’s so flawed? Are the numbers wrong? What’s the deal?

It’s really so simple…

…because I don’t work in a union library job where I can give it to the pooch all day.

If you ,sincerely, need to see empirical research on the lifespans of municipal pensioners who take retirement early, in order to feel this may be a long term problem, so be it.

You will have to settle for fiscally conservative rants only, from me.

It’s like Greece. They retire at 54 and then smash windows when the people working until 67 (Germans) suggest that maybe this ain’t workin for society.

sorry, “their” constomers.

Shorter rf: Rather than see if my presumptions are actually supported by the facts, I’ll just attempt to intimidate spartikus into silence by posting what I think is his place of employment.

What a schmuck.

It’s a perfect example, Chris. The ethos and the mechanism for achieving it go hand in hand. Unless you meant to make a really empty point.

We could use a good Reagan v. air-traffic controllers in this town.

for some partisan “fact” piece

How do you explain the other study I posted. You know, the one from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business?

The critique of the CFIB I also posted and the one which you are dismissing out of hand – probably unread – either makes it’s point, or doesn’t. And it can be demonstrated so. For those only half paying attention, the right-wing study is criticized for not taking in to account the gender gap and immigrant worker. By practice, women and qualified immigrants have to be paid equally by the public sector. While statistics show in the private sector a gap remains – a gap which explains some of the differences b/w public v. private sectors. Yadda yadda yadda.

It’s either a good point or flawed one. Waving your hand dismissively won’t make it go away, though.

Poisoning the well is a common tactic of those who don’t want to deal with the questions.

“It’s a perfect example, Chris. The ethos and the mechanism for achieving it go hand in hand. Unless you meant to make a really empty point.”

There are hundreds of mechanisms for achieving the same goal (maximizing ROI). Individuals, unions, and businesses all share the same ethos that getting the best return on their time or money is a good thing, despite the differences in the ways they might go about it. Same ethos, dissimilar mechanisms.

I might add that the banks’ recent entreaties to gov’t in the wake of the economic meltdown were essentially along the lines of ‘give us more money or we stop working’… sound familiar?

Proclaiming things are otherwise without some examples or arguments as proof can’t make it so. On that note, I’ve invested enough time making this point.

cheers,
CK

“You can not use the Canadian federal, provincial and municipal pension “trough” in a comparison to what happend with US banks.”

Good thing I didn’t then. My posts were addressing your sweeping generalizations about ‘the left.’

cheers,
CK