Recently, Doug Ford ordered a review of OMERS (Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System), and it’s raising a lot of concerns. While reviews for OMERS aren’t unheard of, given Doug Ford’s track record for micromanaging and meddling in school boards, workers and unions naturally have good reason to be concerned. This is undoubtedly an attempt by the Ford administration to make a similar claim of “mismanagement” to justify increasing control over OMERS.
Ford’s review is about control
OMERS is a highly respected pension plan, but there are potentially some valid reasons for ordering a review. OMERS executives earn millions of dollars annually. However, what Ford is doing is not in the interest of workers and unions, who are being left in the dark in this whole process under the guise of “confidentiality”
The review is being lead by Robert Poirier, who the Ontario government claims is a third party advisor, despite having a long history of supporting the Conservative Party. The review will look at the Sponsors Corporation, the body that CUPE and other unions are supposed to be represented in. The Sponsors Corporation was created in 2006 under the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System Act. This transferred control of the pension plan from the provincial government to its members as a bargaining body. This body sets the terms for the pension plan, including benefit levels, retirement rules, etc., which had previously been done by the provincial government. This came after decades of demands for unions to have more say in OMERS, but quickly devolved from its original purpose. Over the years the Sponsor Corporation has discreetly changed its policies to reduce the influence of its plan sponsors, (i.e. union members who pay into the pension plan), defeating its original purpose. Today unions don’t have real representation. Their interests only receive “due consideration” from the Sponsors Corporation.
Unions should have more control
Regardless, this focus on the Sponsors Corporation (the body that’s supposed to represent unions) is why it’s especially important that workers and unions have a say. Doug Ford’s governance review is between his government and OMERS executives. The people who actually use the service have no say in what’s going on.
CUPE has responded by sending a submission to Robert Poirier which has over 16,000 signatures from plan members bringing up these issues. CUPE Ontario represents 125,000 of 289,000 OMERS plan members – just under half of OMERS active membership. So it stands to reason that CUPE and other unions should have a say in what goes on. After all, OMERS is a service, and workers are its customers.
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