[news] Ferry Scandal Eclipses Strike (BC Ferries Privatized)

[ron]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 07:36:47 -0800
From: Gene McGuckin <emcg3 at shaw.ca>

Ferry Scandal Eclipses Strike
By Terry Glavin
Georgia Straight, Dec. 18, 2003

Everything is all just so cheery now.  Premier Gordon Campbell himself
says that the weeklong disruption we all suffered because of the ferry
strike is a thing we will never again have to endure. The talk-show hosts
are satisfied. CanWest's editorialists have calmed down. David Hahn, the
B.C. ferry company's new chief executive officer, is making all sorts of
cooing noises. Christmas is coming. All the unpleasantness has been packed
off to binding arbitration. Our problems are over.

Like hell.

Last March, the Crown-owned B.C. Ferry Corporation, along with $330
million in public assets, was handed over to a private company called
British Columbia Ferry Services Inc. Victoria didn't just hire a private
management firm. The government gave away the ferry corporation.

If you don't know about this, don't be too hard on yourself. According to
public-opinion polling done by the very company that got the fleet, most
British Columbians don't realize it's happened. Or maybe they do, now. The
polling was done back in October. Maybe most people figured out during the
ferry strike that something had gone terribly wrong. Maybe that's why
there was such astonishing support for the ferry workers, despite all the
mayhem and despite the impression created by so much of the news media.

But even now, how many British Columbians realize that within five years,
the "subsidized" ferry routes will be expected to pay their own way? How
many people realize that 24 of the ferry system's 26 routes are
subsidized?

This isn't just about the Southern Gulf routes, which I rely on to get to
and from my home on Mayne Island. It's about Powell River, Comox, Campbell
River, Cortes Island, Denman and Hornby, Sointula and Port McNeill. And
that's just a small part of the picture, on the south coast. Will these
communities even have ferry service five years from now?

Don't count on B.C. Ferry Services Inc. to level with you about any of
this. They can't even tell a straight story about that public-opinion poll
last October. When the poll results were released, Hahn--the
$300,000-a-year ferry boss, a New Yorker here on a work visa--said they
backed his view that "our company and our customers cannot afford the
current contract." In fact, the poll results clearly showed that only 11
percent of respondents viewed the contract as favouring the union.

Don't count on the politicians in Victoria to level with you about any of
this either. In the sleight-of-hand transactions made possible by the new
Coastal Ferry Act, we all went from being citizens, passengers on our own
ferries, to being "customers" of a private company.

During that strange week of December 8, people's lives were disrupted,
true enough. Here's how my life on Mayne Island was disrupted. First, it
was not knowing whether the Queen of Cumberland was ever going to show up.
Then it was having no ferry at all. Then it was wondering when the ferries
would be running again.

But the very worst thing about the whole week was turning on the radio for
news only to hear some rich American tell me over and over again how much
he cared about me and how he was going to do all he could to protect me
and my family against the ferry workers, my own neighbours. My own
friends.

Here's a guy whose qualifications for the job of running our ferry fleet
appear to consist of the part he played in the dismemberment of a
multinational corporation that racked up $3.3 billion in debt before it
declared bankruptcy two years ago, leaving investors with $250 million in
losses and $45 million in unpaid taxes.

When Hahn was taken on as B.C. Ferries' chief executive officer last May,
B.C. Ferries mentioned nothing about this. Nothing was said about Covanta
Energy Corp., the company Hahn came from. B.C. Ferries said Hahn had spent
the past seven years running the U.S. and international operations of a
company called Ogden Aviation, a company with 25,000 employees worldwide.
The public was told nothing about the fact that Hahn had spent the last
four of those seven years as vice-president of Covanta, Ogden Aviation's
parent company, selling it off and winding it down.

The Troubled Company Reporter is an American newsletter that covers the
Byzantine world of corporate bankruptcies and company restructuring in the
United States. Last June, the newsletter reported that a major part of
Hahn's Covanta job--for which he was reportedly paid an annual salary,
including bonuses, totalling more than $500,000--was to expedite the
disposition of Covanta's aviation assets, its cargo-handling business, its
airport fuel-supply services, everything.

In other words, the relevant talents of the guy that Gordon Campbell's
appointees have hired to run B.C.'s ferry fleet appear to lie mainly in
breaking up and selling off a major transportation company's assets.

The Troubled Company Reporter article disclosed proceedings in a New York
courtroom that revealed Hahn's settlement deal with Covanta. The deal
allowed Hahn to stay on as a consultant with the company, drawing a
consultant's fee of $30,000 a month, starting April 28 (a week before he
began collecting his $300,000 annual salary from B.C. Ferries) and
continuing until at least October 27 of this year.

Hahn's Covanta settlement also included a $28,486 "vacation pay" package,
a lump-sum payment of $50,000, and a bonus of $150,000. This is the same
guy who has been busy inciting British Columbians against the ferry
workers over the "gravy train" their union contract provides.

During the week of December 8, we saw the worst disruption to B.C.'s ferry
system in a quarter of a century. Now the ferries are running again, but
arbitration of the union contract is not where the trouble will end. It's
just where it starts, and only idiots will blame the ferry workers' union
for any of this.

We're in this mess because of a scandal that should make us feel nostalgic
for relative misdemeanours like the NDP's fast-ferry fiasco.

Our ferries have been stolen from us. We should take them back.