It was a strategy used to keep govt employees employed rather than face layoffs. The trade off was that they would work fewer days and get paid for days worked. Everyone was up in arms over these “Rae days” off for the government. The alternative being a lot of people would have just straight up lost their jobs. This kept people working and kept things running. But when you talk to people about the NDP the argument always comes back to “ do you want to go through Rae days again? “ the answer is yes if it lets people keep their jobs.
Thanks for the transcript link too! Interesting read, I can completely understand the betrayal there. It’s really unfortunate that Rae would cow-tow to the corporations like that and refuse to increase taxes, while hurting the unions and increasing the publics taxes. Kinda goes against the whole point of their party. An unfortunate symptom of a poor leader, but it shouldn’t haunt the party to this day.
I’m surprised that is your conclusion. Ontario’s outcomes were among the best. We might have rather different compromises were made, but compromises had to be made, no one was going to be happy, and he righted the boat.
I don’t. What’s Rae Days?
It was a strategy used to keep govt employees employed rather than face layoffs. The trade off was that they would work fewer days and get paid for days worked. Everyone was up in arms over these “Rae days” off for the government. The alternative being a lot of people would have just straight up lost their jobs. This kept people working and kept things running. But when you talk to people about the NDP the argument always comes back to “ do you want to go through Rae days again? “ the answer is yes if it lets people keep their jobs.
I think the deeper and more founded grievance is that Rae sacrificed private sector unions so he could save the public sector unions.
I’ve honestly never heard this. Would you care to elaborate?
Probably everything I know comes from Steve Paiken interviews. This is a good episode. Steve interviews Rae and others on the very subject.
Transcript
Thanks for the transcript link too! Interesting read, I can completely understand the betrayal there. It’s really unfortunate that Rae would cow-tow to the corporations like that and refuse to increase taxes, while hurting the unions and increasing the publics taxes. Kinda goes against the whole point of their party. An unfortunate symptom of a poor leader, but it shouldn’t haunt the party to this day.
I’m surprised that is your conclusion. Ontario’s outcomes were among the best. We might have rather different compromises were made, but compromises had to be made, no one was going to be happy, and he righted the boat.