The privatization of services in the Yorkton area has caused anger among some citizens. A rally, held on the doorstep of Yorkton MLA Greg Ottenbreit’s office, protested some of the changes that have happened in the community, including the contracting out of laundry services for the health region. Unifor, the Saskatchewan Government Employees Union, Saskatchewan Federation of Labour and Saskatchewan Aboriginal Women’s Circle Corporation were represented at the event.
Bob Bymoen, president of SGEU, says that they want to spread the message that the government is failing to give people good jobs within the communities, and objects to outside consultants and private corporations doing services that were previously handled by crown corporations
“We hope that it’s creating a discussion, and we hope people in this province engage in a discussion about P3s, and what that really means, why would we hire someone else to own our public infrastructure and rent it back, be at the whims of that privateer that we don’t even know... Why would we hire a consultant instead of hiring people within our community where the jobs are stable, and provide much needed employment in the community and good jobs?”
The rally was also used as a platform to promote the Own It campaign, which is running until the next provincial election in April. Kent Peterson with the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour’s Own It campaign says that they want to get people talking about public services.
“It’s about having a hundred thousand conversations with people and voters about saying yes to the benefits of crowns and public services, asking them to sign on and help keep those crowns in Saskatchewan as opposed to selling them off to out of province corporations.”
Peterson says that lots of people are concerned about keeping good jobs within the community, and he says that as a rural area, this region has the most to lose.
“Rural Saskatchewan really gets hit hard when it comes to privatization, because those jobs provide an anchor for folks whether they work for SaskTel or the government directly.”
There was nobody actually at Ottenbreit’s constituency office during the rally itself, as the MLA himself was in Regina and his staff were on their lunch break. He does say that he does not believe that the unions and the government are far off in their goals, and says he wishes they would have come when he would have been present to hear what they have to say.
“It’s unfortunate we weren’t able to be here to hear what they had to say... When it comes to having good jobs in the province, we couldn’t agree more, we have worked hard as a government and a party to create an environment for a strong economy because we know business and the community is the ones that drive the economy. But it’s a government’s responsibility to create an environment that encourages that growth.”
Acknowledging that changes to laundry in the health region is one of the issues that has caused labour to come into focus in the region, Ottenbreit says it was a matter of infrastructure. He estimates that the upgrades necessary to the province’s laundry services would have cost $30 million.
“We feel that investment is better served as infrastructure for health care rather than laundry services... We’re looking at saving $10 million a year over the next ten years as a result of this K-Bro contract, that’s going to be centered out of Regina. Though we are losing a few jobs within the region, specifically when it comes to laundry services, those jobs are still going to be in the province, in a facility that’s based out of Regina.”
In terms of local staff, Ottenbreit says some have transitioned to other services, some have received severance and others chosen early retirement, and claims the local impact has been minimized, though is still present. He also says that this has been something looked at by the previous NDP government.
