Premier says Hydro layoffs won’t impact public By: Danielle Da Silva and Larry Kusch Posted: 12:04 PM CDT Tuesday, May. 12, 2020 Last Modified: 6:44 PM CDT Tuesday, May. 12, 2020 Updates

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/05/2020 (1593 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Premier Brian Pallister says he doubts customers will be affected by the temporary layoff of hundreds of workers at Manitoba Hydro.

At a news conference Tuesday, Pallister justified the job cuts, alleging there’s less work for the province’s largest Crown corporation due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“You have almost 100,000 Manitobans out of work. You have a number of small businesses that are operating at reduced capacity or not operating at all. And Hydro doesn’t need to provide as many services to the private sector right now as it normally does,” he said.

“The degree of work that is necessary right now is less than it has been for a long time with Hydro,” the premier added.

In response to the province’s demands for cuts, Manitoba Hydro announced Monday it will issue four-month layoff notices to up to 700 employees. This is in addition to not filling vacant or seasonal positions and finding tens of millions of dollars in other cost reductions.

Asked for comment on the premier’s statements, Hydro spokesman Bruce Owen said it’s true that there’s been a “modest” impact on the corporation’s workload in certain areas due to the pandemic.

“However, most areas have not seen a slowdown, including those related to our day-to-day operations that maintain reliable electric and natural gas service and respond to customer requests for service,” he said in an email.

Owen said there are also projects, such as the Bell MTS Internet upgrade in Winnipeg announced earlier this year, that corporation staff will be required to support.

Manitoba Hydro has not seen a material drop in revenue due to the pandemic to this point, he said.

The looming layoffs will temporarily reduce Hydro’s workforce by between 11 and 13 per cent, according to union estimates.

Hydro said a year ago, after greatly reducing its staff, that further job cuts would jeopardize worker safety and customer service.

Asked Tuesday if he thought there would be an impact on Hydro’s services, the premier responded: “I think the honest answer is, I doubt it.”

Manitoba has asked that Crown corporations and other government business enterprises find $82 million in operating budget savings plus $95 million in workforce spending reductions.

Manitoba Public Insurance has come up with a proposed dollar figure for potential cost savings, and it has submitted that to the province, CEO Ben Graham told the Free Press Tuesday.

He wouldn’t say how much the corporation has to trim.

“A large percentage of our services and offerings to customers continue. So when it comes to those savings, we’re hopeful of achieving them but at the same time we still have to meet our customer needs,” Graham said.

“We’ll continue to monitor the situation but at this point in time we have not issued any layoff notices to our staff,” he said.

Graham noted that dozens of MPI staff have been redeployed to Shared Health. The corporation has also applied for a work-sharing program offered through Employment Insurance, he said.

Graham wouldn’t speculate about how many positions could be impacted if layoffs were to occur at MPI.

Pallister repeatedly noted Tuesday that public sector workers are only being asked to bear a small share of the economic pain caused by the pandemic.

Planned workforce expenditure reductions for the entire public sector — including provincial civil servants — are expected to total $193.5 million or 2.2 per cent of the total costs.

“I think this is little more than Mr. Pallister trying to rationalize a cut after he’s already handed it down.” – NDP leader Wab Kinew

Meanwhile, Opposition politicians weren’t buying Pallister’s argument that there’d be few repercussions from layoffs at Manitoba Hydro.

“I think this is little more than Mr. Pallister trying to rationalize a cut after he’s already handed it down,” said NDP leader Wab Kinew.

“Hydro is a profitable organization. These are essential workers and every job in a pandemic should be considered essential,” said Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont. “We should be doing everything we can to keep every single job that we can.”

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca