Alberta finance minister hopes public sector unions help when contracts come up

Finance Minister Joe Ceci is off and running on his pre-budget consultations.

His next stops are in Grand Prairie and Fairview on Monday. He’ll be in Calgary next Friday.

Crafting the budget is a careful balancing act between revenues and expenses and one of the biggest costs is union contracts.

The finance minister says he is not interested in breaking contracts, because that would just cost more but in his words, the government will be looking for assistance.

“Renegotiating contracts that people come back to the table or when they’re open and they’re up for negotiations, making sure that we get appropriate levels of remuneration for those public sector employees,” he said.

Ceci notes the Alberta Medical Association came back to the table two years before they needed to and negotiated a deal which saved the province tens of millions of dollars.

Close to 100,000 heath care workers have their contracts end in March and contracts for more than 10,000 university and college employees come up in June.

There are also dozens of other deals which have already expired.

Top Stories

Top Stories

Most Watched Today