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This chapter examines the effect of the austerity policies implemented by the Manitoba provincial government on work and workers in the province’s Department of Agriculture and Department of Economic Development, Investment and Trade (EDIT). The relevant years extend from 2016 through to 2022, which are the years of Conservative Party rule.
The EDIT and Agriculture departments are in the broad middle tier of provincial departments in terms of budgetary appropriation and employment. Their mandates involve facilitating and strengthening economic growth. For Agriculture, the focus is directed towards a key provincial industry and its linkages to other industrial sectors, including the growing agri-business sector. The remit of EDIT involves elements of the larger, province-wide framework shaping economic development and growth. Practical concerns of direct producers resonate strongly within Agriculture. By contrast, the macro-oriented concerns of EDIT have favoured a more top-down approach which lends itself to the articulation and implementation of policies and programs that emerge as manifestations of abstract principles and a prevailing ideology. A new policy orientation was evident in EDIT’s 2016 mission statement, which emphasized partnerships with entrepreneurs and business leaders, in the formation of the Premier’s Enterprise Team, an advisory body composed of entrepreneurs, and in the 2018 Economic Growth Action Plan. Restructuring in Agriculture included transferring the Rural Development unit to EDIT, and pushing an initiative to consolidate rural service offices and shift ever more services to online portals. That initiative entailed the closure of 21 department offices in rural Manitoba and the elimination of in-person service in an additional nine rural communities.
In reviewing data on budgetary expenditures, jobs and employment in EDIT and Agriculture, a contrasting incidence of the austerity-inspired agenda is evident. For EDIT, tightening of the budgetary screws was a feature of the early years of the new Conservative administration, and was especially pronounced in 2017/18, but Tory-style fiscal probity was cast aside as expenditures escalated with the arrival of COVID-19. Employment positions in terms of FTEs tended to hold constant over the period (save for the special circumstances of 2017–2020 where the Skills and Employment Partnerships subunit was temporarily transferred to EDIT; FTEs for EDIT remain roughly constant when this subunit is netted out), but actual employee numbers declined. For Agriculture, the budgetary screws were loosened in the initial years of the new Conservative government, but fiscal tightening emerged after 2018 and remained in play, showing, at the aggregate level, no change in course consequent to the COVID crisis. A slight decrease in Agriculture FTEs occurred over the 2016–22 period, but, in sharp contrast to EDIT, employment levels held firm and ultimately registered a small increase.
The implementation of the austerity agenda, including the reorganizations and restructuring, was a top-down managerial-driven project. Workers reported that they were not consulted regarding the nature and timing of the reorganizations. The imposition of fiscal restraint, bolstered by the rhetoric of a need to eliminate wasteful government spending and a pledge to maintain frontline services, emanated from the Premier’s office and was directed down the line by senior management. In EDIT and Agriculture, the burden of reconciling these objectives on a day-to-day basis fell largely upon their public sector employees.
In the 2022 survey of EDIT and Agriculture workers, 91 percent of the respondents indicated that their work had been affected by the government’s austerity measures. A majority (60 percent) indicated that their own personal workloads had increased. Employees experienced pressure to intensify their work activity and do more tasks as part of their job. Not filling vacant positions in a timely manner resulted in pressure for the remaining workers to find ways to fill the gaps. In some instances, positions were eliminated entirely and remaining workers were left to cope with managing the load. Overall, 24 percent of respondents reported the existence of staff shortages in their unit.
In the workplace, the implementation was disruptive and chaotic, and costs of adjustment, both individually and organizationally, were high. Respondents in general expressed scepticism regarding putative cost savings, both realized and anticipated. Many pointedly remarked that staff turnover is costly, and that austerity has worked to raise turnover rates. 89 percent of the respondents believed that the measures impaired worker recruitment and retention, and 75 percent indicated that they themselves, as individuals, were driven to consider job opportunities elsewhere. Frontline services also suffered: 76 percent of respondents indicated that service quality had declined.
With respect to savings and value for money, 46 percent of respondents assessed long term outcomes as negative, as opposed to 7 percent with an overall positive forecast. Putative fiscal improvements to the budgetary bottom line in these departments look to be merely a short term phenomenon.
Grant: Community-Driven Solutions to Poverty: Challenges and Possibilities - 2020-2027
Category: Community Economic Development