‘Pause’ and reflect, Mr. Olfert

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/02/2010 (5950 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

By Peter Olfert’s reckoning, provincial public servants should be paid more in a tough economy. As if digging the province deeper into the red and foisting the cost on taxpayers is for their own good.

Mr. Olfert, leader of almost 14,000 public-sector workers in Manitoba, slammed the Selinger government’s announcement Tuesday that it would be seeking wage freezes at the bargaining tables this year as misguided. At a time when private-sector workers are getting less, economic stimulus dictates that the province ought to pay its workers more, he said.

It is a kind of logic reserved to those whose salaries are entirely disconnected from the dirty work of making a profit. That mentality has made public servants very well paid, relative to their private-sector counterparts, and very well compensated with benefits richer than those offered in the private sector. A Canadian Federation of Independent Business study, using Statistics Canada data, indicated in 2008 that provincial civil servants in Manitoba are paid 13 per cent more, on average, compared to counterparts in the private sector. When benefits are rolled into the comparison, the gap jumps to 27 per cent. The CFIB says Manitoba’s gap of 13 per cent is well above the national average.

Indeed, Premier Greg Selinger said as much in a media interview Tuesday, when he noted that public servants have done very, very well in the last decade in Manitoba. He and his deputy premier, Rosann Wowchuk, have called for a “pause” in wage enhancements for all those paid by public funds, not just those the government directly negotiates with — many teachers will see their collective agreements expire this year and the 11,000 nurses under the Manitoba Nurses’ Union are in negotiations now. The first unions to settle should set the bar for those to come next. Teachers are subject to binding arbitration, but they may have a hard time convincing an arbiter they are a special case if wage freezes become standard fare.

The provincial government, forecasting a deficit of $592 million, can easily show the effect of Mr. Olfert’s wonky economic theory. Health-care wages approach a third of the $10-billion core government expenditures, while civil servants account for $770 million. A one per cent increase would raise the combined tab by $38 million, at a time when revenues are shrinking.

Government departments have been told to hold the line. The Selinger government cannot defend nipping public services just to enlarge civil servants’ pay packets. But neither should it agree to enlarging already rich benefits — some nurses are asking for indexed pensions — such that staving off costs today simply loads extraordinary costs onto future generations.