The following was posted on Facebook by one of my friends. It refers to OMERS
“OMERS, the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, invests on behalf of more than 500,000 public servants, including police officers and firefighters. The fund manager’s largest customer is the Canadian Union of Public Employees. In an interview, CUPE Ontario president Fred Hahn said the union is calling for a review of OMERS investment decision-making processes after “an epic failure for workers.”“We understand that we are long-term investors, and should not focus on results from just one year. However, OMERS has consistently underperformed versus other, similar plans,” Mr. Hahn said.OMERS’s annual return of 8.2 per cent for the 10 years prior to 2020 trails the 9.8-per-cent performance in the same period at the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and the 11.4-per-cent return over the past decade at the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan.CUPE is in negotiations on retirement benefits for its members, and is pushing for increased employer contributions to pension plans.”
My reply:
Once again [a similar post was posted on the same day, to which I also replied], references to OMERS’ loss of profits by Mr. Hahn involves silence concerning the source of those profits. The source of those profits is–the exploitation of workers. However, nothing is said at all about that. The concern, rather, is with the loss of profits for the plan–and not at all about the exploitation of the workers who produce profits for employers.Hence, Mr. Hahn’s own statement can be turned against him. He claims:” In an interview, CUPE Ontario president Fred Hahn said the union is calling for a review of OMERS investment decision-making processes after “an epic failure for workers.”After Mr. Hahn’s epic failure in criticizing the exploitation of workers–the source for OMERS’ investment profits–we should review CUPE’s own silences concerning the exploitation of workers.To start with, CUPE’s own idealization of collective agreements as “fair contracts” (fair collective agreements) shows CUPE’s “epic failure for workers.” No collective agreement is fair because working for an employer is unfair–period.The silence of unions over such issues speaks mountains about “the epic failure for workers.”
I may add that CUPE is the largest union in Canada, and I have provided proof that it claims that collective agreements are somehow fair (see Fair Contracts (or Fair Collective Agreements): The Ideological Rhetoric of Canadian Unions, Part One).
I have also provided arguments and evidence to show that workers are exploited and oppressed (see The Money Circuit of Capital , The Rate of Exploitation of Workers at Magna International Inc., One of the Largest Private Employers in Toronto, Part One and The Rate of Exploitation of Magna International Inc., One of the Largest Private Employers in Toronto, Part Two, Or: Intensified Oppression and Exploitation ).
Of course, there was no reply to my criticisms. The union reps do not feel the need to justify their assertions–or perhaps they prefer to keep silent since they cannot justify their assertions.
The Abolitionary 