York taxpayer group welcomes study showing inflated government wages

Yorkregion.com
Dec. 13, 2016
By Lisa Queen

A new report from a public policy think tank that highlights the gold-plated salaries and benefits government workers receive compared to their private-sector counterparts comes as no surprise to a York Region taxpayers’ group.

“They have formidable pension plans, they have excellent benefits, and for the most part, where most of us are putting in eight- to 12-hour days, they are putting in their seven-and-a-half-hour days. Not that I have a problem with that,” Teena Bogner, president of the Newmarket Taxpayers Advocacy Group said about the study released last week by the Fraser Institute.

“And I think the entire bureaucracy, whether it’s provincial, municipal or federal, is quite bloated.”

But residents should consider the wide range of services provided by skilled public sector employees before swallowing a report from a right-leaning organization, said Doug Sheppard, unit chair of Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 905, which represents about 5,000 municipal workers in the region.

“The Fraser Institute isn’t exactly a progressive group,” he said.

“In terms of our wages, I think our members are paid fairly for the work they do. In the public sector, we have workers that are highly skilled and educated. I think of our paramedics at the region. Highly skilled and you’re putting your life in their hands.”

Sheppard also questioned why the Fraser Institute didn’t include the astronomical salaries and bonuses taken home by some corporate CEOs.

The study, called "Comparing Government and Private Sector Compensation in Canada", found government workers earned salaries 10.6 per cent higher on average than comparable workers in 2015, the most recent year of data from Statistics Canada’s labour force survey.

The wage gap took into account differences of workers in the two sectors, such as their age, gender, education, tenure, type of work, industry and occupation, the report said.

Government workers also surpass private sector employees in other areas, the study said.

For example, 89.3 per cent of public sector workers were covered by a registered pension plan compared to only 23.8 per cent of private sector employees.

Government workers retired 2.3 years before their private sector counterparts.

Public sector workers took 12.7 personal leave days compared to 7.8 days for private sector employees.

Public sector workers were about seven times more likely to be laid off than public sector employees.

“With the federal government running a large deficit and provincial and municipal governments across the country looking to control spending, bringing public sector compensation in line with the private sector would reduce financial pressure,” study coauthor Charles Lammam, the institute’s director of fiscal studies, said in a statement.

“Of course, governments need to provide competitive compensation to attract qualified employees, but the fact is wages and benefits in the public sector are out of step with the private sector. Closing the compensation gap would not only help governments reduce spending without affecting services, it would also increase fairness for taxpayers.”

The institute promotes a “race to the bottom” mentality, encouraging the slashing of public sector wages and benefits rather than urging better compensation in the private sector, Sheppard said.