SELFISH VS SURVIVAL

I'm in Austin, Texas, visiting my daughter, her husband and their three boys. I'm sitting at the Sunday morning breakast table. My son-in-law, sitting opposite is reading the Statesman. "They're lay8ing off at AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) the scond largest` chip maker in the U.S. And those who stay are getting pay cuts."

It's the same all over of course and there is no point in my belabouring the obvious. In a recession people lose their jobs. The government steps in with Unemployment or as we call it in Canada, Employmnent Insurancre.

My son-in-law tends toward the political right, although, after` several years in th Texas hotbed of liberal thought, he has tempered his political bias. I suggest to him that instead of laying people off they reduce hours and create more of a job-sharing atmmosphere. He demurs, suggesting, as any good CEO would, that not all employees are equal and that if you let people go you try to keep the best.

We abandon the argument. I go back to reading Frank Rich's superb column on growing up in reacist Washington. He returns to the morning paper and the businees of letting the dogs out.

I ponder. I was never a Rae-baiter during the years when Bob Rae was trying to run Ontario and trying, as the Right would characterize, to spend the province out of a recession. That played well to people who knew nothing about econonomics and they kicked Rae out and ushered in the slash-and-burn Common Sense Revolution.

Looking back at one of Bobn Rse's most unpopular moves: Rae Days, I realize (as I did then) that it was a great idea. It exemplified the unselfishness that would spread the work around while each working person might take home a little less. Rae Days, if you remember, gave civil servants days off without pay. The unions were furious, which incidentally came up during my conversation with my son-in-law. The unions simply did not understand what he was trying to do. Yes, he was violating the collective agreement. He was, I believe, hoping the private business would pick up the idea and offer employees days off without pay nstead of a pink slip. In fact, one of the points I remember Bob making was that reducing hours was better than laying people off. He was right of course. The angry civil servants found that when Mike Harris came to power thousands of their members lost their jobs.

What is missing in the idea of job-sharing, is that the Federal Goverbnment should have been involved. Wouldn't be easier, instead of shelling out employment insurance benefits, to use that fund to "top up" the wages reduced by job sharing?

At the hjeart of the problem of course is the innate survival imperative that says my instict for self-surivival is greater than my instinct to reach out to my fellow man. Charity begins, not just "at home:" but in the hearts and souls of people who think of themselves as a community.