Alberta government employees get wage warning
Posted Mar 6, 2010 8:21 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Alberta employees are getting a warning from Finance Minister Ted Morton about wages.
The Calgary Herald reports, the Tory minister is telling provincial employees they should take their cues from budgets handed down this week in BC and Ottawa when it comes to wage restraint.
Over the next few months, government contracts with tens of thousands of government employees including nurses, corrections officers and social workers will be expiring.
Other union workers whose contracts are not due to expire any time soon fear the Stelmach government might re-open their deals and ignore wage increases.
Salaries for government employees from direct staff to doctors and teachers account for more than half of the province’s operating budget.
The BC government plans to reduce the civil service by 11 per cent and it doesn’t plan to offer a wage increase in current negotiations.
Federal employees will get a 1.5 per cent increase this year. That’s part of their current collective agreement, but there’s a catch: the increase has to come from the current operating budget and after that there will be a two-year wage freeze.
