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BCGEU working to ensure placement for impacted members.
Vancouver (8 March 2010) - The Campbell government, using the economic downturn as an excuse, has made significant budget cuts to resource ministries that will impact employees who provide public services, says the British Columbia Government and Service Employees' Union (BCGEU/NUPGE).
"This is causing great anxiety for our members who are in the line of fire," says BCGEU president Darryl Walker.
"With two recent rounds of redundancy notices underway, and more coming, our members are very concerned about their future. I want to assure our members that the BCGEU will be working with the Article 29 committees to ensure that a placement process is in place to provide alternative work for impacted members."
The 2010 budget imposes $250 million in funding cuts over the next three years to forests and range, the integrated land management bureau, agriculture and lands, community and rural development, energy, mines and petroleum and the sustainable environment fund.
BCGEU says staffing levels will likely be affected in the forests and range and energy, mines and petroleum ministries this year because the budget cuts $30 million from staffing costs. Attrition and a near-hiring-freeze will account for part of the reduction but a letter from the deputy minister of forests and range states that approximately 160 jobs could be affected in the near future.
'Hollowing out' the ministry
"This not simply trimming so-called fat - this is a hollowing out of expertise in the ministry," says Walker.
Basic ministry operations - forest health and stewardship, research, planning, conservation, protection, enforcement and combating forest theft - will absorb a $42-million cut this year.
Walker notes that BCGEU has "long argued for tougher enforcement of forest stumpage fees and timber theft rules" as well as a tax on raw log exports to generate revenue. Instead, the B.C. Liberals are moving in the direction of "professional reliance" rather than direct government oversight, he notes.
"The economic downturn is being used as an excuse for a wide range of politically-guided changes to (create) a much smaller ministry of forests that will stay out of industry's way and have much less research, inspection and enforcement capacity," says Walker.
"Our collective agreement lays out rights for impacted members to placements elsewhere in the public service, and seniority plays a role. But we know these drastic cuts will negatively impact service delivery and employee workload. Smaller ministries means fewer services and less employment in rural communities, where so much of the work of the ministry gets done."
Forest fire budget cut too
In addition to these cuts, the forest fire fighting budget is also being set even lower than usual.
"This seems surprising after forest fire fighting ran 560% over budget last year," Walker says. "Should fires return anywhere close to the levels of last year, are we going to see further scrambling this summer to marshal resources, and what will be cut to pay for it?"
NUPGE
The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) is one of Canada's largest labour organizations with over 340,000 members. Our mission is to improve the lives of working families and to build a stronger Canada by ensuring our common wealth is used for the common good. NUPGE