Payroll deduction: one campaign.

Where does it all stop? There is nothing to prevent groups, such as international charities, women's groups, arts and cultural groups, from becoming federated and attempting to access payroll deduction in the workplace.

But how many campaigns can one workplace tolerate?

Over the past year or so a new phenomena has developed which will jeopardize the number of charitable dollars the United Way receives. Healthpartners/Partenairesante, a federation of health charities, is trying to gain access to payroll deductions in the workplace, both in the public and private sectors. There are approximately 20 members of Healthpartners/ Partenairesante, the most prestigious being the Canadian Cancer Society, the Canadian Heart Foundation, and the Canadian Lung Association.

Healthpartners believes that it is in their best interest, as well as the best interest of the United Way, to run a separate federal employee campaign in the Spring.

Healthpartners/Partenairesante do not have a citizen review process. They do not have labour representation on their boards. They have done nothing in the past to work with organized labour to improve workplace health and safety conditions for workers.

Yet they want access to workers' dollars through payroll deduction.

Another contentious issue with labour, is the fact that most of the charitable dollars raised by health charities go toward medical research. Labour believes medical research is the responsibility of government, not of the voluntary sector.