Stephen Rees's blog

The Canadian Press report found on the CBC web page says that the issue includes retirement benefit cuts

The workers, members of Local 378, say the employer is demanding contract concessions and wants to cut retirement benefits.

Local vice-president Heather Lee calls company demands mean spirited and unfair.

There follows a reference to Medical Services Premiums, and probably does not include the increase announced in today’s budget. The MSP revenue has increased 60% since 2001.

As a retiree from the BC Public Service I saw my retirement benefits cut in 2012. Up until then MSP was paid by the employer. Of course since this was applied to people who had already retired, no-one threatened strike action no matter how mean spirited and unfair this was. At the same time Blue Cross increased the rates it levied for extended health care. And as for “Fair Pharmacare” I have never seen a red cent from them. I do dutifully tot up all the receipts on my income tax return, of course.

And of course there was no coverage of this at that time in any of the mainstream media – though retirees got an insulting letter from the powers that be reassuring us that the value of our pension had been preserved. The fact that we saw an increase in our expenses with no other choice but to pay was not mentioned.

I do not know if CMBC staff are covered by the same pension plan as Translink staff. And it may be that my situation is different having joined BC Transit from the civil service.

I also expect the usual right wing nonsense that pubic servants deserve much worse pensions since the private sector has been stealing pensions from their employees for years (to pad corporate profits and executive bonuses) and getting away with it.