We've already heard enough about the so-called cooperative gains mandate to last a lifetime, but we're going to hear a lot more of that phrase.
Somewhere, tucked into an office in the Legislature or in a BC Liberal back room, is the architect of that phrase. This person is one of the masters of Orwellian doublethink. Cooperative gains is what the government calls its policy of giving public sector workers raises, without actually giving them any more money.
How does that work, you ask? Email your answer with, "We're not sure." Apparently, the Liberals believe contracts like the ones they just signed with the CUPE school support staff will be magically filled thanks to the pots of leprechaun gold that school districts have hidden under their foundations.
In reality, it will mean finding money by cutting something else in the short term, and in the long term, likely by reducing the number of people on the support staff payroll. Which will, of course, have no impact on schools being cleaned, blocked pipes being cleared, or bad wiring being fixed.
This seems to be part of the belief by many governments, not just the provincial folks, that there is always waste, and that cutting of this waste can and must go on indefinitely.
Now, either this is true, and the government will eventually be two guys, one of whom will fire the other, or it isn't. If it isn't, then eventually everything that's not vitally necessary will have been cut already.
Considering the Liberals have been in power for more than 12 years, you'd think they'd have finished this process by now.
So to sum up: cooperative gains involve no cooperation, and no one gains any extra resources from Victoria. But someone had fun coming up with the name.
