B.C. pay raises for senior bureaucrats leave workers behind

Top senior government employees get 35%; ordinary government workers 2%

Vancouver (12 Aug. 2008) - The Liberal government of Premier Gordon Campbell deserves poor marks for using the opening of the Olympic Games as cover to announce massive pay increases for senior government bureaucrats, especially since the raises took effect at the beginning of August, says the B.C. Government and Service Employees' Union (BCGEU/NUPGE).

"These increases of up to 35% – and the way they were announced – are quite troubling," says union president Darryl Walker. The BCGEU represents about 29,000 provincial employees. The announcement was made on Friday as opening Olympic ceremonies were being broadcast around the globe from Beijing.

Walker says the increases for senior bureaucrats far exceed the 2% raises won this year by front-line government staff – the people who provide government services directly to B.C. residents.

Walker also accused the government of using "highly selective" salary comparisons, recruitment figures and retention data to try to explain the increases.

Raises up to $77,000 a year

"Future recruitment challenges in the senior bureaucracy have been used to justify raises of as much as $77,000 a year," says Walker.

"We've been trying to negotiate recruitment and retention wage adjustments to solve staff shortages that we're facing right now in a number of key program areas. But Victoria has rebuffed all of our efforts."

Walker says addressing the current shortage of childcare workers, corrections officers and sheriffs, and community social service workers who care for people with developmental disabilities, is more of a priority for the public than granting big pay boosts for top bureaucrats.

A deputy minister will now make more than six times as much as the average government employee.

"If the government is sincere in its claim that it wants to attract and retain the skilled people needed to deliver services to British Columbians then it needs to do more than raise wages only for those at the top. It needs a comprehensive action plan to solve recruitment and retention problems right now," Walker says. NUPGE