Ontario Families Should Not Have To Pay for Corporate Tax Cuts

McGuinty's corporate tax cuts dwarf compensation freeze savings

TORONTO, Sept. 3 /CNW/ - Ontario's Liberal government should not make working families pay for its reckless corporate tax cuts and other misguided provincial policies, the United Steelworkers union (USW) says.

"The McGuinty government runs a deficit, gives corporations yet another large tax cut, and then through a proposed compensation freeze expects ordinary working families to pay for it by sacrificing their standard of living," says Wayne Fraser, USW District 6 Director.

"This ill-conceived proposal would simply transfer the burden of corporate tax cuts onto low- and middle-income employees of universities, nursing homes, hospitals and government offices.

"The Liberal government should be working with its key stakeholders - employees in the broader public sector - to find fair and equitable solutions to fiscal concerns, not making them scapegoats for problems they did not create."

Finance Minister Dwight Duncan launched the assault on lower and middle income employees in his March 2010 budget, telling Ontarians that a projected $21.3-billion deficit required sacrifices from workers, while his planned corporate tax cuts would continue on schedule.

At the same time, the government is pushing for increases in employee pension contributions in the university sector.

"Combined with the government's proposed compensation freeze, this would mean significant cuts in take-home pay for working families, beyond the effects of inflation," says Fraser.

"The government has invited the Steelworkers and other unions to 'consultations' later this month," Fraser notes. "We have and will offer constructive alternatives to this regressive proposal, but we will reject a net rollback for working families."

The Ontario Federation of Labour requested that the province engage in joint, coordinated deficit-cutting discussions with unions and employers by sectors. However, Minister Duncan rejected the OFL proposal and has been meeting with unions one-by-one, with no progress achieved to date.

The Steelworkers also attended a brief "pre-meeting" with government officials. In August, District Director Wayne Fraser, the presidents of the two largest USW public sector locals and economists from the Canadian National Office participated in a meeting and made clear there was no interest whatsoever in subverting free collective bargaining or accepting a wage freeze that would make our members pay the price for a financial crisis they had no part in causing.

USW's leadership and rank-and-file place a high value on the hard-fought right of free collective bargaining.

"We do not challenge the need for the government to manage its deficit and bring the budget back into balance as the economy recovers from an international financial crisis," says Ken Neumann, USW National Director for Canada.

"However, it is wrong for government to cut the real, take-home pay of low- and middle-income workers, then give this money to profitable corporations in the form of new tax cuts.

"The Liberals' plan for another round of massive corporate tax cuts will significantly reduce provincial revenues and, as in the past, will do little to create jobs. Cancelling even a portion of these cuts would eliminate the supposed need to penalize public-sector workers," says Neumann.

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