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'What the government needs to consider is how to create jobs and real investment in Tignish and rural Prince Edward Island.' - Shelley Ward.
Charlottetown (26 Feb. 2010) - The P.E.I. Union of Public Sector Employees (PEIUPSE/NUPGE) is urging Premier Robert Ghiz to revisit a plan that will move some government employees from Charlottetown to Tignish.
Union president Shelley Ward says the benefits of the plan are outweighed by the disruption that will be caused personally to the workers and to their employer, the department of transportation and infrastructure renewal.
"These people are well established in their communities and some have young families," Ward notes.
"They are now faced with selling their homes and moving to Tignish, or commuting for almost four hours every day. This is an unrealistic job expectation to foist on employees with little or no reason."
Ward points out that the premier is "selling job relocation" as part of a Rural Action Plan to help individual communities.
"However, what we really have here is one group of Islanders being picked on to help another group of Islanders," she adds.
"And if helping one community depends on hurting another, then the premier should re-examine his Rural Development strategy.
"You also have to consider that the province has expressed an interest in retiring employees from the public service as of late, and that this job relocation move may end up forcing gainfully employed people out of their jobs," she adds.
"Further, we know that in the current environment government will continue to create casual work as opposed to maintaining permanent full-time positions when employees retire.”
Ward says Tignish "has rightly expressed an interest" in being part of the government's rural economic development initiatives.
"What the government needs to consider is how to create jobs and real investment in Tignish and rural Prince Edward Island," she says.
"The current approach is just a costly shuffle of people, programs and services already in place. Instead, why not give Tignish a boost in gainful employment by creating secure, permanent, full time jobs for the many local public service employees who have been kept in casual positions?"
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