In a report released Tuesday, the Fraser Institute said its number crunching of Statistic Canada’s Labour Force Survey data from April 2011 found that public sector workers from all three levels of government working in Alberta earn an average of 10 per cent more than private sector counterparts doing the same job.
“When you’re in a serious deficit problem like Alberta is, the fact that public sector workers are getting on average 10 per cent more in wages than their private sector equivalents, and they enjoy more generous benefits, means that certainly has to be part of the mix when we talk about how to solve the deficit problem,” said Jason Clemens, the Fraser Institute’s executive vice-president and one of the report’s authors.
The president of Alberta’s largest union, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, dismissed the report from the conservative research organization as “propaganda” aimed at discrediting unionized workers.
The Fraser Institute’s study comes as provincial government prepares to deliver its 2013-2014 budget on March 7. Since late December, Alberta’s premier and finance minister have warned Albertans to brace for “tough choices” ahead.
Finance Minister Doug Horner said Tuesday the government’s budget review will pay close attention to the $3 billion spent on public sector salaries each year.
“I’ve asked every ministry to be very aggressive in reigning in their spending, which means that requests for new types of spending are going to be very negatively received, I don’t know how I can put that any other way,” Horner said.
Asked whether public sector workers might be asked to take a pay cut, Horner said: “I don’t think that’s on the table at this point in time, but I’m not going to rule it out, either.”
Clemens said a gap between public and private sector workers is not unique to Alberta, or even Canada.
The Fraser Institute will release an analysis of British Columbia based on its calculations later this week and Ontario in early February. A report on the national picture will follow.
Alberta is already trying to reach new contracts with its doctors, as well as teachers, who have returned to bargaining at the local school board level.
AUPE president Guy Smith said government officials should not rely on the Fraser Institute’s report as the basis for contract negotiations in coming months, as a bargaining group of 21,000 front-line workers, which includes correctional officers, social workers, administrative support staff and others, heads to the table.
“There’s no mood on the front lines for any rollbacks or freezes,” Smith said. “We’ve been down that path before. The negotiation process has to take hold and has to play itself out.”
United Nurses of Alberta president Heather Smith said she believes the report is pointing to the wrong issue.
“The issue in this province is not a spending problem,” Smith said. “We’ve had the growth equivalent of a city in the last year and that means we should in fact be spending more on important public services, such as health, education, housing, poverty reduction.
“The question is do we have appropriate sources of income for the province to provide the quality of services that citizens of this province desire,” she said.
Wildrose finance critic Rob Anderson said he thinks it is fair to say that public sector wages are part of the reason why the budget is not balanced. The government has failed to keep those wages in line, he said.
But public sectors workers cannot be blamed for that, Anderson said. There needs to be a discussion about wages and compensation, he said. “That doesn’t necessarily mean cutting, but what it means is significantly slowing the rate of growth so we’re more in line with the private sector or the Canadian average,” he said.
NDP MLA Rachel Notley, the party’s human services critic, said it is unfair to talk about public sector pay when there are large inequities in private sector pay.
“If the government is looking for places to find revenue, what we would say is the government needs to be making wealthy Albertans pay their fair share of taxes,” Notley said. “That’s where we need to be starting the debate, along with looking at whether as owners of the resource we’re getting our fair share of revenue for the resource.”
Clemens said he hopes heightened interest in Alberta’s finances will lead to discussions about fair wages in the public versus private sectors.
“Hopefully, as Alberta has shown historically, Alberta will be one of the innovators, to not only fix this in the short term, but more importantly over the longer term,” Clemens said.
Original Article
Source: edmonton journal
Author: Sarah O’Donnell
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