NDDLC Brief on Municipal Election Voting

The Nanaimo, Duncan & District Labour Council has come out strongly opposed to allowing businesses to vote in municipal elections. In a brief submitted to the

Local Government Elections Task Force, the Council also called for spending limits and for Elections BC to oversee municipal elections in the same way it now does for provincial elections.

For the complete brief, click here NDDLC BRIEF Municipal Voting

 

A Better Bang For The Buck

There is a real trend on the part of Canadian employers to move from defined benefit pension plans to defined contribution pension plans. This allows the company to shift the responsibility for funding adequate pensions from the employer to the individual. Instead of bargaining a specific defined pension payout, defined contributions allow the company to make only a specific contribution to a pension plan, and whether or not the plan is sufficiently funded to meet your pension needs doesn't matter to the company.

A 2008 study by the US National Institute on Retirement Security, into differences between defined benefit plans and defined contribution plans, however, show that to provide the same level of retiree benefits a defined benefit plan costs about half as much as a defined contribution plan, and employers should rethink their strategy.

The Study, called "A Better Bang For The Buck" can be found here:

Download full report in PDF Bang for the Buck Report. 

Read Press Release.

Report Fact Sheet Bang for the Buck Fact Sheet. 

Frequently Asked Questions Bang for the Buck FAQ.  

PowerPoint Bang for the Buck PPT.  

NDDLC Brief on Financial Literacy

This brief will be presented to the Federal Task Force on Financial Literacy in Vancouver April 6, 2010. 

NDDLC Disappointed Task Force Structure

The NDDLC is extremely disappointed in the makeup of the task force. We do not see a single elected union official. We don't see anyone from those actually dealing with poverty in its many forms. We don't see any representation from Canada's Credit Unions and Caisse Populaires. We don't see representation from Provincial Ministries of Education or School Boards.
The lack of elected union offiicals is especially troubling since Unions are involved every day in educating, negotiating and advocacy to improve both financial literacy and economic security of working people.

Task Force Misses the Point

The task force consultation document essentially blames Canadians for not investing in their own retirement because we're not smart enough, motivated enough or financially literate enough to make good choices about retirement planning.

It reminds me of what Marie-Terese, the wife of Louis XIV of France said when told how serious bread shortages were impacting the French Peasants and working class, whose staple food was bread. "Let them eat cake", she said. It was a callous and ignorant statement.

Canadians don't save enough because they don't make enough to put away more money!

The answer is not in blaming Canadians for not investing in their own retirement. Nor is it finding yet another way for private investment firms to extract funds meant for retirement from workers. Those living on “minimum wages” are so far below the poverty line they simply cannot afford to put away money for retirement.

Those living in my area of Vancouver island have seen their careers and retirement plans built around the forest sector disappear as a result of federal and provincial mismanagement of their industry and international trade. Workers who gave up wage increases in favour of negotiating pensions for their retirement have seen their pensions evaporate when the companies they worked for went bankrupt. 15 years ago, we had 3,500 Union Woodworkers in the I.W.A, with good defined benefit plans and wages. Today, in their successor local of the Steelworkers, we have less than 700. How would financial literacy have helped them?

And let's have some financial literacy for those attacking public sector workers who are now finding their negotiated deferred income – their pensions - attacked by scoundrels calling them 'gold-plated' while upper management CEOs are getting $1.4 Million defined benefit plans topped up with RRSPs.

And those who try to contribute to their personal retirement via RRSPs find much of their accumulated savings eaten up by Canada's extraordinarily high management expenses.

Information on financial saving products is useless if you can't afford any of them!

Lack of financial literacy is NOT the reason Canadians have low savings rates! They don't save because they don't have the money to save more! According to Census data, since 1981, middle class real wages have remained at about the same level, while the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. No wonder savings is not increasing. If you want to increase savings, we need to go back to better distribution of income amongst all income groups.


For the entire brief on Financial Literacy and Pension Reform, go the link Below:

NDDLC Brief re Financial Literacy

NDDLC Brief re Pension Plan Review

The Provincial Government has asked for public input while reviewing proposals on pension reform in Canada. Here are the highlights of our proposal, followed by a link to the entire document.

Improving Pensions and Retirement Income Adequacy in Canada

Current Retirement Income System

Calling Canada's current form of providing retirement income the “Retirement Income System” is a cruel misnomer. The RIS is not a system – it's a patchwork quilt with a great many holes through which countless Canadians do not receive sufficient income to allow them to live in dignity in their retirement years. Calling it a system implies that everyone's situation has been considered and addressed, which is far from the case.

Improvements to Pensions Badly Needed

One third of Canadians have no retirement savings of any sort. Only 38% of Canadians have a private pension plan of some sort. Many benefit plans are seriously underfunded, most are not portable, and they are far more subject to pension fund collapse if employers go bankrupt.

The recent panic in financial markets caused those markets to slump in value by about $4 Trillion. As a result, employer funded pensions have also taken a big hit, especially with interest rates as low as they are now. According to the Canadian Labour Congress, the average private pension plan is underfunded by 20-30 %. As a result, many of them cannot deliver what they are expected to deliver.

We urge you to do the following:

• Increase the Guaranteed Income Supplement by 15%.

• Double the Canada Pension Plan payout.

• Create a Pension Insurance Plan

Click on this link to read the entire document.

Improving Pensions and Retirement Income Adequacy in Canada

This year, the Liberals have asked for suggestions from the public about what they should do in the BC 2010 Budget. Here are our suggestions.....

NDDLC Brief to Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services 

Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services,
Room 224, Parliament Buildings,
Victoria, British Columbia, V8V 1X4




Dear Members of the Select Committee,


Thank you for the opportunity to provide input to your committee on what we feel should be budget priorities for this next year.


In our view, what should be done are the following:

• Abandon the plan to impose the HST on British Columbia taxpayers. “Harmonizing” the federal and provincial sales taxes will hit low and middle income families the hardest. Moving from a tax on business inputs to a tax on consumer goods and services entails a substantial and highly visible shift of the tax burden from business to consumers, even if reduced input costs are eventually passed on to consumers in the form of lower prices. And they won't be if the HST results in taxes on goods or service not presently taxed by PST.

• Stop Focusing on Tax Cuts – we need Fair and Adequate taxation to fully find projects that need to be funded.

• Press the federal government for improvements to Employment Insurance to allow people who have paid into the plan to actually receive benefits, instead of forcing them on Social Assistance.

• Press the federal government for improvements to Canada Pension and Old Age Security. A small increase now can enable us to double the amount that goes to C.P.P. recipients when they retire.

• Press the Government of Canada to come up with a Pension Insurance scheme like the one the CLC recommends that would assist private pension plan recipients when their corporations go into bankruptcy.

We know that some of our proposals require federal, not provincial government legislation. However, since the federal and provincial finance ministers are scheduled to meet in Whitehorse in December of this year, we hope you will ask them to push these proposals.

Here's a link to the Entire Document NDDLC Brief on Budget

Here's a Link to the PSAC Spotlight on Pensions

PSAC Spotlight On Pensions

Unlearning The Trades - 

The BC Liberals Plan to Dumb Down 

Trades Training in BC

In March 2006, the Nanaimo, Duncan & District Labour Council held a skills shortage forum in Nanaimo. The follow-up to that forum was a plan to research apprenticeship and skill training in the region. The Canadian Labour Congress awarded a small research grant to research apprenticeship training in the region. The B.C. Federation of Labour supported the research and provided information and support.

During the process of the research it became apparent that the BC Liberal government's changes to apprenticeship training were massive and far-reaching, and the damage to the apprenticeship training system was just beginning. Therefore the NDDLC granted permission to expand the research to encompass the changes that the Liberal government had already made and were proposing to make to the apprenticeship training system. The research results have been divided into two separate papers, this paper and one entitled “Apprenticeship Opportunities” that covers information about the region. The purpose of the research is to bring forth information and identify barriers to apprenticeship opportunities for workers in both the province and the region.

This paper will concentrate on the changes to the apprenticeship training system, including the changes already made and the proposed massive, destructive changes currently put forth by the BC Liberal government. In the conclusions, are a series of recommendations.

Here is a link to the first part of the research, Unlearning The Trades

Here is a link to the second part, Apprenticeship Opportunities