Province counting on public-sector pay freezes

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This article was published 31/03/2012 (5321 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE pay of members of the Manitoba legislature will be frozen for two more years as part of next month’s provincial budget.

The government will practise some tough love on MLAs as it gets set to negotiate new contracts with some 6,500 public sector workers in the coming months.

Freezing the salary of 57 government and opposition MLAs will do little to balance the books in a province awash in red ink. The deficit for the current fiscal year ending today is projected to exceed $1.1 billion.

But Finance Minister Stan Struthers said Friday it is an important symbolic act.

“I think we need to lead by example,” he said.

Manitoba MLAs have seen their pay frozen for the past two years as the province wrestles with the effects of the economic downturn. Legislation passed two years ago also rolls back cabinet ministers’ pay by 20 per cent until the government’s books are balanced.

Struthers has made no secret of the fact the government intends to negotiate pay freezes with public-sector employees who have so far escaped them. In the past, the NDP government has achieved two-year pay freezes in multi-year contracts with civil servants, nurses and even doctors.

Looming are contracts with Manitoba Public Insurance employees and thousands of health care support services workers.

“There’s no question it’s a tough economic environment out there these days,” Struthers said Friday. “We’re going to be asking a lot of people to do their part for us to come back into balance. And we felt it was important to send the signal that we here at 450 Broadway are doing the same.”

Some 1,700 MPI employees — members of the Manitoba Government and General Employees Union — are soon to begin negotiating a new collective agreement. Their current deal expires Sept. 22.

At the same time, the contract of some 4,800 hospital support workers (including health care aides, tradespeople, and laundry, housekeeping, dieticians and clerical staff) expires today. They are also represented by the MGEU. These workers are expected to begin bargaining later this spring.

Jeremy Peterson, an MGEU spokesman, said the government’s plan to extract wage freezes from more public servants isn’t a surprise. He said the union will resist any proposed freezes. “Our members have told us that is not something they’re willing to accept,” he said.

Struthers said the province will be “very firm” in the upcoming labour negotiations. It’s counting on holding the line on labour costs as it strives to balance the books by 2014-2015.

“We have a ways to go to get out of the woods and this is going to be part of our strategy,” he said.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca

Manitoba MLA pay

$85,564

Basic MLA salary

$55,944

Top up received by the premier

$36,745

Top up received by cabinet ministers

$45,931

Top up received by the Speaker of the legislature

$45,931

Top up received by the leader of the official Opposition

— Source: Manitoba Legislative Assembly website

Note: The premier and cabinet ministers have taken a 20 per cent pay cut until Manitoba balances its books. That cut is reflected in the numbers above.