MoveUP President tells Christy Clark’s Deputy: “Fix deeply flawed BC Hydro Report!”

August 15, 2011



BURNABY – David Black, President of the 14,000-member Canadian Office and Professional Employees Union Local 378, is demanding a significant re-write of the Review of BC Hydro, released last week by Premier Christy Clark’s BC Liberal government.

“I have asked John Dyble, Deputy Minister to Christy Clark and chief author of the deeply flawed BC Hydro review, to correct the faulty methodology and selective statistics that were used to launch a gratuitous and unwarranted attack on BC Hydro employees and their families,” Black said as he made public his letter to Dyble.

As many as 1,000 to 1,200 BC Hydro employees could lose their jobs if Clark’s BC Liberal government adopts recommendations in the Review of BC Hydro, written by Dyble, Peter Milburn (Deputy Minister of Finance) and Cheryl Wenezenki-Yolland (Acting Deputy Minister of Advanced Education).

“Three high-ranking deputy ministers in Christy Clark’s government arbitrarily chose 2006 as the base-year upon which to show uncontrolled growth in BC Hydro’s workforce,” explained Black.

“Of course, in 2006 the Crown corporation’s payroll was at its lowest level in more than a decade, because by then more than 1,800 workers had been transferred by Christy Clark, Gordon Campbell and the BC Liberals to the BC Transmission Corporation and Accenture.

“Those were failed experiments,” Black continued. “And already many of the employees previously sent to BCTC and Accenture are back working in BC Hydro.”

In his letter to Dyble, Black pointed out:

  • In 2001 BC Hydro’s workforce stood at 6,144. But in 2003 the government privatized approximately one-third of the workforce to Accenture and hived off the transmission department into the stand-alone BC Transmission Corporation.
  • In 2010, the BC Liberals passed legislation to abolish the BC Transmission Corporation and many BCTC employees have since been transferred back into BC Hydro.
  • In July 2011, BC Hydro advised Accenture that their IT (information technology) contract would be cancelled. The jobs of 400 to 450 workers in the Crown corporation’s data centre now are in jeopardy. The proposed layoffs in the report come on top of this already substantial number.
  • Only four of the 50-plus recommendations deal with the real cost drivers – misguided government policies such as Independent Power Provider contracts and Smart Meters.

“The last 10 years have seen Christy Clark and the BC Liberals launch a series of failed policies, and public-sector workers often have paid the price,” Black said.

“It’s outrageous to think that more than 1,000 BC Hydro employees could be forced to lose their jobs because three of Christy Clark’s deputy ministers used faulty methodology in their analysis of the jewel of B.C.’s Crown corporations.”

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Attached: letter from David Black to John Dyble