Liberal budget eyes further wage freeze for public sector workers

TORONTO – The Ontario government is hoping to stave off increasing costs in the public sector by mandating a wage freeze for public sector workers for longer than the unions had agreed to.

Some public sector unions had previously agreed to a wage freeze until 2015 and the new budget seeks to continue that trend.

The new budget includes no funding for increased compensation in new collective agreements with Ontario’s public sector workers.

The provincial government, under former Premier Dalton McGuinty, forced wage freezes upon teachers through the use of Bill 115, which allowed the government to impose non-negotiated contracts.

Related:  NDP wants to hear from Ontarians before voting on budget.

Finance Minister Charles Sousa said Wednesday however that the government would seek negotiated contracts with the public sector.

“I think we’ve been clear that the best deals are those that are negotiated,” Sousa said. “We need to find ways to work collaboratively.”

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Collective agreements reached in the last few years with the Association of Management, Administrative and Professional Crown Employees of Ontario (AMAPCEO) and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) included two-year wage freezes.

The two agreements, according to the 2013 Ontario budget avoided upwards of $120 million over the length of the contracts.

“We’ve got too many Ontarians taking wage cuts while too many more are either unemployed or underemployed at part-time, temporary, insecure jobs,” said Ontario Public Service Employees Union president Warren Thomas in a press release.

“Meanwhile, profitable corporations are not only refusing to invest, they’re demanding the opportunity to extract a profit from public services Ontarians currently receive at cost,” he added.

PC leader Tim Hudak, while not lending his support to the Liberal government’s plan to freeze wages, said his party wants a mandatory, across the board wage freeze.

Hudak also floated a more frightening proposal for public sector workers than wage freezes though, adding he would aim to significantly reduce the size of the government.

While wage freezes are often touted as a straightforward way of reining in costs, economist Don Drummond warned against such methods in his Commission on the Reform of Ontario’s Public Services – commonly known as The Drummond Report.

In the report, Drummond warned that wage freezes “damage labour relations” and are “often followed by wage catch-ups.”

Instead he suggested in his report that government could achieve similar results by focusing on efficiency and budgets rather than “arbitrary rules.”

The 2013 Ontario Budget congratulated itself for implementing roughly 60 per cent of Drummond’s over 300 recommendations.