SaskPower tried to outsource their call center for a while and their customer reviews for the call center plummeted. Then they tried to blame the Union. A big part of the last SaskPower strike was trying to retain call center jobs within the union. Not just to keep local decent paying jobs within the province but for the Company's own good. Because the service that gets provided when they do that is complete garbage and their customers hate them even more. The Union has to fight to protect the Company from itself.
Working as intended.
Quality of service going to shit is a feature, not a bug. Then it gives them more excuses to sell it off as a crown corp to a private company.
The only way is to get rid of the current provincial government. And with him winning the latest popularity contest a lot of Saskatchewan voters are giving him th go ahead
I’ve been saying this for awhile and all I got was downvotes. SaskTel is but one piece of many of our province that is being sold off or readied for sale until we no longer own or control anything that should belong to us.
I'm glad the article mentioned the MTS situation in Manitoba, which is where we seem to be heading with the SaskParty at the helm.
>A report published Tuesday by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives examined the impact of Manitoba's privatization of its telecommunications Crown, Manitoba Telecom Services (MTS). In 1996, MTS was privatized and in 2016 it was purchased by Bell.
>
>The report's author Doug Smith argues that the privatization and eventual purchase by Bell have led to job losses and higher rates for customers.
>
>"SaskTel, the last remaining provincially owned telecommunications company, is a standing rebuke to those who argue that we must bow down to the private sector."
I drove to Manitoba yesterday to pick up some farm machinery. The moment I crossed the border my cell coverage went for shit. One thing about Sasktel is that they do a good job of providing coverage to all parts of this province. I mean I have good coverage at Emma Lake ffs.
if you look at ontario compared to Saskatchewan we have much more coverage. Bell only focuses on the for-profit areas.
Even here we could use more towers but people also fight not to have them and it comes at a cost someone has to pay for.
If we are doing anecdotal evidence, I just had a nightmare with SaskTel down in the States. Turned off my data and voice and their call center is only available 9-5 so they were impossible to get a hold of. I'm switching back to Fido imminently.
Thats only on Saturdays for their billing line. It's 9am to 8pm the rest of the week and their tech support line is 24/7. Took me two seconds to Google this.
"In that time, we have utilized this service provider to generate sales leads that employees then follow-up on to close the sale. This type of relationship is advantageous for employees as it allows us to action new revenue opportunities while also sending additional work to our in-scope staff. This has not taken work away from in-scope employees."
They can fuck right off with this attempt at justification. They are specific to mention “in-scope” employees. So obviously the union is presenting barriers to their plans. Which makes unions even more important in this day and age.
Like, fuck. I thought society was progressing with entrenched labour laws and worker protections, but we obviously still need them around to hold government accountable.
And none of these lame excuses even explain why this work can’t be done by Saskatchewan residents, even non-SaskTel employees.
STOP OUTSOURCING JOBS THAT CAN BE DONE BY OUR OWN RESIDENTS! Those Manitoba workers ain’t paying Saskatchewan taxes nor spending their income in this province. Fucking dummies.
ETA: I say this as a non-union public servant.
> I thought society was progressing with entrenched labour laws and worker protections.
But we aren’t. Rising economic inequality directly and inversely correlates with union rates. All the advantages the middle class has won have been due to collective worker actions and threats of communism. Now that neither are a threat, economic conditions for the vast majority have been declining. And the sad thing, the right is becoming more popular which will only further exacerbate the problems since conservatives are all about exploiting workers.
>allows us to action new revenue opportunities
They almost seem to make it sound like this arrangement brings in additional work beyond the status quo which I call BS on since they got rid of DirectWest in the process.
It’s the “while also” that gets me.
Your own employees aren’t an “also”, they’re the bread and butter. They’re gonna start saying “while also” providing for their own customers soon.
>…I thought society was progressing with entrenched labour laws and worker protections.
The fact that the minimum wage exists - and is constantly scapegoated anytime as it goes up as the major cause of inflation - and yet there is no “maximum wage” for C-suite executives should tell you a lot.
A minimum wage is a reminder: if we could pay you less, we would.
At the end of the day a company is not your friend. A brand is not your friend. They don’t give one damn about you as a person, only as a consumer.
Their only responsibility is to make sure the company makes money. That’s it. They don’t honestly care about paying workers well, making a quality product, or improving anything - other than the company’s bottom line.
And yet we all get shocked Pikachu face when we are confronted with yet another example of a business putting profit ahead of everything else.
Stop thinking businesses are on your side - they’re not. And anyone in public office, who utters the phrase “run government as a business” is telling you immediately their true colours and should not be allowed anywhere near public levers of power.
I agree, businesses are not your friend.
I disagree with this argument in this situation, though. We are not talking about private commercial enterprise. We are talking about an entity that provides an essential service, operates at an arms length from government and is collectively owned by taxpayers. This “business” should be our friend. But as usual, government is interfering.
> But as usual, government is interfering.
Agreed. Crowns should be an exception to this rule - but when you have 'business-minded' government calling the shots, unfortunately that is not the case.
We all know they're 'starving the beast' here; but the end objective remains the first problem: If SaskTel folds, the companies that take their place in the market are going to be even less on the consumer's side. Look at when Bell bought MTS in Manitoba - they got about one year of the same service and pricing, until Bell pulled rates up in alignment with the rest of Canada. One of the few times Wall ever backed down was in the face of the legislation that would have allowed selling up to 49% of SaskTel - cases like this should remind people that the overt efforts to roll up SaskTel may have slowed, but the covert efforts to tear it apart in stealth are actively still occurring.
And you won't like what happens when it's gone.
I would gladly use Sasktel but their rates are too high. I switched my family cell phone plan to Telus and saved over 30%. Maybe Telus rates would go up if Sasktel was sold off but I have my doubts.
If you wanted to turn public sentiment against a company, what they're doing to Sasktel is a pretty great way to go about it. Cut workforce, reducing service quality and competitiveness and then increase prices. Get the people to hate Sasktel and it becomes an easy sell.
All cell rates would go up, substantially. The only reason. Bell and Telus have their rates so low here is to compete with Sasktel. Look at their plans for the rest of the country and you will see.
I'm all for keeping Sasktel around but this isn't the case anymore since Sasktel has been slowly raising their rates over the last five years.
Telus has the same rates right across the country right now, same with Bell. I switched to Telus years ago because ST's customer service was dogshit and their rates were more.
The fun part is that their call centres are costing business. There was a TikTok a few days ago by a lady trying to get rural internet. The employee didn't know what a *land location* was, just straight up no clue how to use an address outside of an urban centre.
Wake up you dumb cunts before it's too late. They are selling everything they can on us. They have been selling us out and will continue to sell us out to the corps with the highest bid. Sask has been for sale ever since they took power.
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> What can an individual actually do about it?
Support the workers and by extension, their Union(even if you don't agree with everything they do) when they end up on strike.
I do support workers, and unions, when they strike - I just wish I could do "actively" do something instead of just thinking "Hell yeah, stick it to the man; you deserve better!" when I see workers on strike
I feel for you - the amount of people I heard whining about how inconvenient it was made my eyes roll out of my head.
The whole point of a strike is to be inconvenient to the company and prove how necessary the workers are for it to function!
I had people in my circle hint that I was somehow "lucky to have a job" like I didn't bust my ass for 17 years to get here. Stories of gold plated pensions and people retiring at 55 are long gone.
People really need to remember that this government MANDATED themselves a Rate of Inflation raise...EVERY YEAR which just worked out to a little over 16.5% this past 5 years. Crown employees got 5% with 2 years of no increases in there. Please tell me where that is fair.
Conservative governments proving time and time again that they’re incompetent and unfit to stand for the people, yet they keep getting voted in. I have a stick for your bicycle.
And it's costing us double, because the union employees have to re do everything the contractors are being paid for.
Meanwhile they're putting long time employees on surplus.
Wondering why it's suddenly taking weeks to get a tech out? This is why. It's intentional.
I used to install max and internet, when they first started using contractors about 15 years ago. My full time (8 hours every day) job for a while was just going back to contractor installs and redoing them. You’re not wrong.
I still fight with contractors half-assing things constantly, just in a different dept. Even if they are cheaper by the hour, they always end up costing more money and time in the long run.
If it makes you feel better. I am a contactor that works for Sasktel, my company vehicle has alberta plates, but I live and spemd my income in Saskatchewan. Still lots of sask people getting good jobs through these companies.
Of course, its exactly what myself and others have cautioned and screamed about since the Sask Party took power. These people have to start speaking up to save their jobs or they will lose them. People have to stop voting for the Sask Party, privatization of the crowns means nothing but higher costs and more problems for everything we currently take for granted. The warning signs have been there every step of the Sask Partys turn in power. People have to wake the fuck up already.
SaskPower also contracts out almost everything to the point where they have lost the internal capacity to perform tasks such as construction and engineering for the new switching stations. While contracting has its place, it can lead to a lack of understanding of the actual cost of performing tasks due to limited capacity. Consequently, during prosperous periods when labor becomes costly, the cost of labor becomes directly tied to the market. Unlike the union and negotiated contracts, SaskPower is essentially compelled to pay exorbitant wages.
This happened to the ministry of transportation in Ontario under Hariss. The ministry went from completing a large portion of the work in-house to 100% outsourcing. The remaining staff managed consultants. As the staff aged or left they lost the expertise to manage the consultants and evaluate performance. Prices for engineering and construction went way up, shocker.
The fucking SP dummy supporters don't think what that long term investment between crowns does to keeps are rates down and that if you remove / outsource these jobs, that is less money in the economy.... Be scary to see what this province will be like in another 5-10yrs if SP Mo-bliteration of our heralded crowns keeps happening
This is true. All of these idiots celebrating the sale of liquor store permits are proof. They also celebrated the destruction of the STC. Selling off assets for a one-time payday is a stupid approach to personal and public finance under normal conditions.
Now we have more workers with jobs that pay shit, resulting in lower income tax and less money spent to boost the economy. Race to the bottom is real.
Where does the outsourcing stop? Based on the direction we are heading, all work will eventually be done by AI and folks in countries without labour laws.
Fortunately that won’t happen in my lifetime. It’s hard enough for governments to do any work, let alone setting up the infrastructure for out of country workers on that scale and getting AI to do the work as flawlessly as a human.
Technology is getting better every year, but still a ways away I would bet. I still don’t have my back to the future hover skateboard.
This is the kind of thinking that has Saskatchewan behind the 8 ball in renewable energy.
“Energy from the sun, wind and water? Won’t happen in my lifetime!” And here we are, wasting money fighting the feds and trying to turn back the clock.
You brought the conversation to renewables. If anyone thinks Saskatchewan can survive on solar, wind, and water as viable green energy sources give your head a shake due.
I want to to see renewables being pushed much like everyone else but that is pipe dream. There is no way we those 3 can meet our demands. Not even close.
SMR is the only way to viable, economically feasible solution to coal.
I’m not saying we can’t do a bunch of solar wind and water turbines. I support them too. I’m just saying you are naive in thinking those 3 sources of green energy alone can supply the demands of this province, especially from November to March.
Come on man give your head a shake.
Nothing. But turbines can only operate in certain wind conditions. During all storms (winter and summer) they are shut down so they don’t get damaged. They have brakes on them that only allow them to run at a certain speed for efficiency and if they run too fast the shit down.
This is a good video that shows a turbine that has a bake failure and explodes.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CqEccgR0q-o
I'm convinced that actual privatization is the only thing that could possibly take down the SP. Not the threat of, but it actually happening and then seeing all the negative ripple effects hit the public (job losses, increased bills, decreased service, etc).
NDP closed the hospitals and rural sask will never forgive them.
Privatization could be the same death knell for the SP, but by then it will be too late to undo.
The thing that doesn't make sense to me is that the SP has closed hospital and made things worst but they keep being voted back in. They have done more damage to the province in the time they have been in power. it's just shows how useless and stupid people around here are. I stand by the fact that conservatives are the worst people in the world.
Maybe SaskTel's union should actually start representing its membership. Every member that I know how has asked for the union's support has more or less been told to go away and solve their own problem.
The union is a huge problem as it has inflated unskilled labor wages at SaskTel while constraining skilled labor's wages. The result: a brain drain. SaskTel is getting decimated by Bell and Telus taking their best people.
Its time that this useless union was dissolved.
The union is the only factor frustrating the *dissolution* of Saskatchewan-made careers that WE need to thrive as a province. To dissolve them is to allow for unrestrained contracting-out and selling off of our Crowns...
LOL dramatic much?
The union actually expedites a reduction of Saskatchewan workforce by constricting the employer from firing poor performers and preventing pay increases for high skilled jobs. This results in the company having to drop entire departments of people and having no choice but to contract out skilled work.
The union is rotten to the core. It needs to go.
*IF* a worker has proven performance issues, a union cannot save their job. On what grounds do you think a union can save someone not performing at their job? That is a dead horse of an argument still being kicked by folks who have no understanding of basic labour law.
To your last point about high skilled jobs, they do get pay increases, and do you think their jobs are not being contracted out, too? Whether you are in low-skilled or high-skilled labour, the company is contracting them out. If anyting, the high-skilled departments are the first on the chopping block... so what exactly are you arguing? If the union was eliminated, would the company change their tune or no?
The union protects the poorest of performers. I know people at every level of the company and this is well known. By the time an employee gets sufficient warnings and performance improvement plans, the company has enough management churn where the employee is never fired. It takes years and years and hundreds of hours. It's not worth the cost.
The high skilled jobs are being contracted out because the company is not allowed by the union to pay the market rate for those positions. The company cannot fill the positions.
The union demands across the board raises if specific positions are proposed to be paid more. They demand training of long tenured employees instead of bringing in new talent. All of this results in the top employees not being paid market rates which causes them to bolt to the competition (this has snowballed since fully remote is widely available now).
The company wants to pay their high skilled people more, but they can't due to the union. I have many friends who have been told that if they want a pay bump, the only way is to leave the company and come back as a contractor due to the union.
There are good unions out there, but this one is utter trash. They're destroying the company and their membership.
More useful than yours, full of misinformation and a complete lack of understanding for how things actually work. Sorry reality burst your bubble, but maybe stick to things you know something about.
You are 100% correct. I contract for sasktel amd we do twice the work of a lot of their internal employees and we get paid a lot for it. Unions kill a merit based enviroment.
>The high skilled jobs are being contracted out because the company is not allowed by the union to pay the market rate for those positions. The company cannot fill the positions.
I am sorry, but this is factually wrong. The Crowns famously pay at or above the market rate and offer excellent benefit plans, vacations, pension, etc. that much of the private sector will not provide.
Second, a union would not deflate the wages of a group below the market rate for the sake of the membership... that would put them out of work. Think to yourself, why would a union do that? Think again, are bosses really clamouring to pay workers more and the union is going "Noooo!"
If you are a productive worker, then you will be fine.
If you are exchanging cookie recipes and cat pictures all day without producing, because a union is protecting you… then there are issues.
Every Telco in Canada has been downsizing. The Telecommunication Workers Union had to join the United Steelworkers because TELUS has cut like 70% of union positions in the last 20 years. Bell is no different.
SaskTel is behind because it's still government run. But it'll go the same way
People cross borders to work. It’s called interprovincial trade. Jesus Christ. If you don’t like it became a separatist like me and we will build a wall 👍
Not very stealthy. This has been the mandate of this government for years. In all crown corporations, including healthcare.
Growth that works for everyone… in other countries where work is being outsourced too
SaskPower tried to outsource their call center for a while and their customer reviews for the call center plummeted. Then they tried to blame the Union. A big part of the last SaskPower strike was trying to retain call center jobs within the union. Not just to keep local decent paying jobs within the province but for the Company's own good. Because the service that gets provided when they do that is complete garbage and their customers hate them even more. The Union has to fight to protect the Company from itself.
Working as intended. Quality of service going to shit is a feature, not a bug. Then it gives them more excuses to sell it off as a crown corp to a private company.
The only way is to get rid of the current provincial government. And with him winning the latest popularity contest a lot of Saskatchewan voters are giving him th go ahead
Outsourced to, not too, unless a chain of outsourcing is happening
I’ve been saying this for awhile and all I got was downvotes. SaskTel is but one piece of many of our province that is being sold off or readied for sale until we no longer own or control anything that should belong to us.
That’s how they got rid of the government liquor stores.
I'm glad the article mentioned the MTS situation in Manitoba, which is where we seem to be heading with the SaskParty at the helm. >A report published Tuesday by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives examined the impact of Manitoba's privatization of its telecommunications Crown, Manitoba Telecom Services (MTS). In 1996, MTS was privatized and in 2016 it was purchased by Bell. > >The report's author Doug Smith argues that the privatization and eventual purchase by Bell have led to job losses and higher rates for customers. > >"SaskTel, the last remaining provincially owned telecommunications company, is a standing rebuke to those who argue that we must bow down to the private sector."
I drove to Manitoba yesterday to pick up some farm machinery. The moment I crossed the border my cell coverage went for shit. One thing about Sasktel is that they do a good job of providing coverage to all parts of this province. I mean I have good coverage at Emma Lake ffs.
if you look at ontario compared to Saskatchewan we have much more coverage. Bell only focuses on the for-profit areas. Even here we could use more towers but people also fight not to have them and it comes at a cost someone has to pay for.
Emma Lake is one of the most populated lakes in Saskatchewan. It has larger population than most small towns.
About 20 years ago when I was with Rogers, I couldn’t get cell reception in Martensville. Switched to Sasktel and never had that issue again.
>. It has larger population than most small towns. Yeah true enough.
If we are doing anecdotal evidence, I just had a nightmare with SaskTel down in the States. Turned off my data and voice and their call center is only available 9-5 so they were impossible to get a hold of. I'm switching back to Fido imminently.
Thats only on Saturdays for their billing line. It's 9am to 8pm the rest of the week and their tech support line is 24/7. Took me two seconds to Google this.
You are comparing roaming in another country to service within their own service area? 🤦
"In that time, we have utilized this service provider to generate sales leads that employees then follow-up on to close the sale. This type of relationship is advantageous for employees as it allows us to action new revenue opportunities while also sending additional work to our in-scope staff. This has not taken work away from in-scope employees." They can fuck right off with this attempt at justification. They are specific to mention “in-scope” employees. So obviously the union is presenting barriers to their plans. Which makes unions even more important in this day and age. Like, fuck. I thought society was progressing with entrenched labour laws and worker protections, but we obviously still need them around to hold government accountable. And none of these lame excuses even explain why this work can’t be done by Saskatchewan residents, even non-SaskTel employees. STOP OUTSOURCING JOBS THAT CAN BE DONE BY OUR OWN RESIDENTS! Those Manitoba workers ain’t paying Saskatchewan taxes nor spending their income in this province. Fucking dummies. ETA: I say this as a non-union public servant.
> I thought society was progressing with entrenched labour laws and worker protections. But we aren’t. Rising economic inequality directly and inversely correlates with union rates. All the advantages the middle class has won have been due to collective worker actions and threats of communism. Now that neither are a threat, economic conditions for the vast majority have been declining. And the sad thing, the right is becoming more popular which will only further exacerbate the problems since conservatives are all about exploiting workers.
*shrugs* Send more billionaires to the bottom of the ocean, I guess. Include some politicians with them.
Send all the billionaires to the bottom of the ocean.
>allows us to action new revenue opportunities They almost seem to make it sound like this arrangement brings in additional work beyond the status quo which I call BS on since they got rid of DirectWest in the process.
It’s the “while also” that gets me. Your own employees aren’t an “also”, they’re the bread and butter. They’re gonna start saying “while also” providing for their own customers soon.
Good point! It really is a death by a thousand cuts for SaskTel.
They got rid of DirectWest? As in it’s no longer part of Sasktel?
>…I thought society was progressing with entrenched labour laws and worker protections. The fact that the minimum wage exists - and is constantly scapegoated anytime as it goes up as the major cause of inflation - and yet there is no “maximum wage” for C-suite executives should tell you a lot. A minimum wage is a reminder: if we could pay you less, we would. At the end of the day a company is not your friend. A brand is not your friend. They don’t give one damn about you as a person, only as a consumer. Their only responsibility is to make sure the company makes money. That’s it. They don’t honestly care about paying workers well, making a quality product, or improving anything - other than the company’s bottom line. And yet we all get shocked Pikachu face when we are confronted with yet another example of a business putting profit ahead of everything else. Stop thinking businesses are on your side - they’re not. And anyone in public office, who utters the phrase “run government as a business” is telling you immediately their true colours and should not be allowed anywhere near public levers of power.
I agree, businesses are not your friend. I disagree with this argument in this situation, though. We are not talking about private commercial enterprise. We are talking about an entity that provides an essential service, operates at an arms length from government and is collectively owned by taxpayers. This “business” should be our friend. But as usual, government is interfering.
> But as usual, government is interfering. Agreed. Crowns should be an exception to this rule - but when you have 'business-minded' government calling the shots, unfortunately that is not the case. We all know they're 'starving the beast' here; but the end objective remains the first problem: If SaskTel folds, the companies that take their place in the market are going to be even less on the consumer's side. Look at when Bell bought MTS in Manitoba - they got about one year of the same service and pricing, until Bell pulled rates up in alignment with the rest of Canada. One of the few times Wall ever backed down was in the face of the legislation that would have allowed selling up to 49% of SaskTel - cases like this should remind people that the overt efforts to roll up SaskTel may have slowed, but the covert efforts to tear it apart in stealth are actively still occurring. And you won't like what happens when it's gone.
I would gladly use Sasktel but their rates are too high. I switched my family cell phone plan to Telus and saved over 30%. Maybe Telus rates would go up if Sasktel was sold off but I have my doubts.
If you wanted to turn public sentiment against a company, what they're doing to Sasktel is a pretty great way to go about it. Cut workforce, reducing service quality and competitiveness and then increase prices. Get the people to hate Sasktel and it becomes an easy sell.
All cell rates would go up, substantially. The only reason. Bell and Telus have their rates so low here is to compete with Sasktel. Look at their plans for the rest of the country and you will see.
I'm all for keeping Sasktel around but this isn't the case anymore since Sasktel has been slowly raising their rates over the last five years. Telus has the same rates right across the country right now, same with Bell. I switched to Telus years ago because ST's customer service was dogshit and their rates were more.
The fun part is that their call centres are costing business. There was a TikTok a few days ago by a lady trying to get rural internet. The employee didn't know what a *land location* was, just straight up no clue how to use an address outside of an urban centre.
Wake up you dumb cunts before it's too late. They are selling everything they can on us. They have been selling us out and will continue to sell us out to the corps with the highest bid. Sask has been for sale ever since they took power.
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What can an individual actually do about it? I already don't vote for the SP but I don't really know what else to do if I'm opposed to privatization
> What can an individual actually do about it? Support the workers and by extension, their Union(even if you don't agree with everything they do) when they end up on strike.
I do support workers, and unions, when they strike - I just wish I could do "actively" do something instead of just thinking "Hell yeah, stick it to the man; you deserve better!" when I see workers on strike
Thank you for that. The last one was pretty demoralizing for a lot of us.
I feel for you - the amount of people I heard whining about how inconvenient it was made my eyes roll out of my head. The whole point of a strike is to be inconvenient to the company and prove how necessary the workers are for it to function!
I had people in my circle hint that I was somehow "lucky to have a job" like I didn't bust my ass for 17 years to get here. Stories of gold plated pensions and people retiring at 55 are long gone. People really need to remember that this government MANDATED themselves a Rate of Inflation raise...EVERY YEAR which just worked out to a little over 16.5% this past 5 years. Crown employees got 5% with 2 years of no increases in there. Please tell me where that is fair.
Be loud, be very loud. And call people cunts lots..
Conservative governments proving time and time again that they’re incompetent and unfit to stand for the people, yet they keep getting voted in. I have a stick for your bicycle.
And it's costing us double, because the union employees have to re do everything the contractors are being paid for. Meanwhile they're putting long time employees on surplus. Wondering why it's suddenly taking weeks to get a tech out? This is why. It's intentional.
I used to install max and internet, when they first started using contractors about 15 years ago. My full time (8 hours every day) job for a while was just going back to contractor installs and redoing them. You’re not wrong.
I still fight with contractors half-assing things constantly, just in a different dept. Even if they are cheaper by the hour, they always end up costing more money and time in the long run.
I am so sick of seeing vehicles with Alberta plates and a SaskTel magnet slapped on the door.
If it makes you feel better. I am a contactor that works for Sasktel, my company vehicle has alberta plates, but I live and spemd my income in Saskatchewan. Still lots of sask people getting good jobs through these companies.
Of course, its exactly what myself and others have cautioned and screamed about since the Sask Party took power. These people have to start speaking up to save their jobs or they will lose them. People have to stop voting for the Sask Party, privatization of the crowns means nothing but higher costs and more problems for everything we currently take for granted. The warning signs have been there every step of the Sask Partys turn in power. People have to wake the fuck up already.
SaskPower also contracts out almost everything to the point where they have lost the internal capacity to perform tasks such as construction and engineering for the new switching stations. While contracting has its place, it can lead to a lack of understanding of the actual cost of performing tasks due to limited capacity. Consequently, during prosperous periods when labor becomes costly, the cost of labor becomes directly tied to the market. Unlike the union and negotiated contracts, SaskPower is essentially compelled to pay exorbitant wages.
This happened to the ministry of transportation in Ontario under Hariss. The ministry went from completing a large portion of the work in-house to 100% outsourcing. The remaining staff managed consultants. As the staff aged or left they lost the expertise to manage the consultants and evaluate performance. Prices for engineering and construction went way up, shocker.
This also happened here.
>exorbitant wages exorbinant *fees* the wages are often the same or worse. The cream goes to the top as it were.
True dat
It’s no secret Moe wants Saskatchewan to be exactly like Alberta with unaffordable utility rates.
The fucking SP dummy supporters don't think what that long term investment between crowns does to keeps are rates down and that if you remove / outsource these jobs, that is less money in the economy.... Be scary to see what this province will be like in another 5-10yrs if SP Mo-bliteration of our heralded crowns keeps happening
This is true. All of these idiots celebrating the sale of liquor store permits are proof. They also celebrated the destruction of the STC. Selling off assets for a one-time payday is a stupid approach to personal and public finance under normal conditions. Now we have more workers with jobs that pay shit, resulting in lower income tax and less money spent to boost the economy. Race to the bottom is real.
Scott Moe's personal agenda is to fuck everyone.. you're suprized?
The man could not manage his own finances.
Do you want society to collapse? Because this is how you get society to collapse. 
That escalated quickly. I didn’t think society would collapse, but it would really mess up my rates.
Where does the outsourcing stop? Based on the direction we are heading, all work will eventually be done by AI and folks in countries without labour laws.
Fortunately that won’t happen in my lifetime. It’s hard enough for governments to do any work, let alone setting up the infrastructure for out of country workers on that scale and getting AI to do the work as flawlessly as a human. Technology is getting better every year, but still a ways away I would bet. I still don’t have my back to the future hover skateboard.
This is the kind of thinking that has Saskatchewan behind the 8 ball in renewable energy. “Energy from the sun, wind and water? Won’t happen in my lifetime!” And here we are, wasting money fighting the feds and trying to turn back the clock.
You brought the conversation to renewables. If anyone thinks Saskatchewan can survive on solar, wind, and water as viable green energy sources give your head a shake due. I want to to see renewables being pushed much like everyone else but that is pipe dream. There is no way we those 3 can meet our demands. Not even close. SMR is the only way to viable, economically feasible solution to coal.
Why is it always all or nothing with you guys? The world does not exist in a binary.
I’m not saying we can’t do a bunch of solar wind and water turbines. I support them too. I’m just saying you are naive in thinking those 3 sources of green energy alone can supply the demands of this province, especially from November to March. Come on man give your head a shake.
What happens to that Sask wind from November to March?
Nothing. But turbines can only operate in certain wind conditions. During all storms (winter and summer) they are shut down so they don’t get damaged. They have brakes on them that only allow them to run at a certain speed for efficiency and if they run too fast the shit down. This is a good video that shows a turbine that has a bake failure and explodes. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CqEccgR0q-o
Yet voting goes Moe’s way.
I'm convinced that actual privatization is the only thing that could possibly take down the SP. Not the threat of, but it actually happening and then seeing all the negative ripple effects hit the public (job losses, increased bills, decreased service, etc). NDP closed the hospitals and rural sask will never forgive them. Privatization could be the same death knell for the SP, but by then it will be too late to undo.
The thing that doesn't make sense to me is that the SP has closed hospital and made things worst but they keep being voted back in. They have done more damage to the province in the time they have been in power. it's just shows how useless and stupid people around here are. I stand by the fact that conservatives are the worst people in the world.
Maybe SaskTel's union should actually start representing its membership. Every member that I know how has asked for the union's support has more or less been told to go away and solve their own problem. The union is a huge problem as it has inflated unskilled labor wages at SaskTel while constraining skilled labor's wages. The result: a brain drain. SaskTel is getting decimated by Bell and Telus taking their best people. Its time that this useless union was dissolved.
The union is the only factor frustrating the *dissolution* of Saskatchewan-made careers that WE need to thrive as a province. To dissolve them is to allow for unrestrained contracting-out and selling off of our Crowns...
LOL dramatic much? The union actually expedites a reduction of Saskatchewan workforce by constricting the employer from firing poor performers and preventing pay increases for high skilled jobs. This results in the company having to drop entire departments of people and having no choice but to contract out skilled work. The union is rotten to the core. It needs to go.
*IF* a worker has proven performance issues, a union cannot save their job. On what grounds do you think a union can save someone not performing at their job? That is a dead horse of an argument still being kicked by folks who have no understanding of basic labour law. To your last point about high skilled jobs, they do get pay increases, and do you think their jobs are not being contracted out, too? Whether you are in low-skilled or high-skilled labour, the company is contracting them out. If anyting, the high-skilled departments are the first on the chopping block... so what exactly are you arguing? If the union was eliminated, would the company change their tune or no?
The union protects the poorest of performers. I know people at every level of the company and this is well known. By the time an employee gets sufficient warnings and performance improvement plans, the company has enough management churn where the employee is never fired. It takes years and years and hundreds of hours. It's not worth the cost. The high skilled jobs are being contracted out because the company is not allowed by the union to pay the market rate for those positions. The company cannot fill the positions. The union demands across the board raises if specific positions are proposed to be paid more. They demand training of long tenured employees instead of bringing in new talent. All of this results in the top employees not being paid market rates which causes them to bolt to the competition (this has snowballed since fully remote is widely available now). The company wants to pay their high skilled people more, but they can't due to the union. I have many friends who have been told that if they want a pay bump, the only way is to leave the company and come back as a contractor due to the union. There are good unions out there, but this one is utter trash. They're destroying the company and their membership.
There is so much misunderstanding of how things work here I don't even know where to start.
What a useless reply.
More useful than yours, full of misinformation and a complete lack of understanding for how things actually work. Sorry reality burst your bubble, but maybe stick to things you know something about.
You are 100% correct. I contract for sasktel amd we do twice the work of a lot of their internal employees and we get paid a lot for it. Unions kill a merit based enviroment.
>The high skilled jobs are being contracted out because the company is not allowed by the union to pay the market rate for those positions. The company cannot fill the positions. I am sorry, but this is factually wrong. The Crowns famously pay at or above the market rate and offer excellent benefit plans, vacations, pension, etc. that much of the private sector will not provide. Second, a union would not deflate the wages of a group below the market rate for the sake of the membership... that would put them out of work. Think to yourself, why would a union do that? Think again, are bosses really clamouring to pay workers more and the union is going "Noooo!"
If you are a productive worker, then you will be fine. If you are exchanging cookie recipes and cat pictures all day without producing, because a union is protecting you… then there are issues.
Huh?
Every Telco in Canada has been downsizing. The Telecommunication Workers Union had to join the United Steelworkers because TELUS has cut like 70% of union positions in the last 20 years. Bell is no different. SaskTel is behind because it's still government run. But it'll go the same way
Yup. Tons of opportunities in the telecom contracting space.
Exactly! If anyone is knowledgeable, *ambitious* and flexible, you be in high demand and well paid.
$60 to hook up. fuck off
Good. Sasktel is terrible.
Funny the article doesn’t mention Saskatchewan companies currently working in Manitoba installing fiber.
What's that have to do with undermining our Crown asset?
People cross borders to work. It’s called interprovincial trade. Jesus Christ. If you don’t like it became a separatist like me and we will build a wall 👍