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www.oakvillebeaver.com · OAKVILLE BEAVER Friday, December 18, 2009 · 12 Are raises for unionized regional employees too much? By Tim Foran OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF Some regional councillors are questioning whether raises for Halton's employees included in the municipality's 2010 budget are out of whack with those being given to workers in the private sector. The $1.1 billion budget, passed by council Wednesday, includes enough money to cover an overall 2.5 per cent increase to the base salaries for the Region's approximately 1,250 non-unionized employees, who receive raises based on a pay-for-performance system, and about 500 unionized employees whose contracts come up for renegotiation in 2010, including paramedics, public health nurses and water and sewage plant workers. That increase is slightly less than the average three per cent a year given to regional employees in previous years. Compensation for Halton's approximately 2,470 regional employees and 820 police personnel accounts for $260 million of the Region's $700 million operating budget. At Monday's budget committee, however, Burlington councillor John Taylor questioned why treasury staff only used public sector wage f Of De Her e Y! Rxpirets UR 1 c2 s Gift Certificates Available CUT AND SAVE Fall Kitchen Cupboard Door Special $50 OFF WITH THIS AD Choose any Benjamin Moore low VOC Aura paint colour Visit our Burlington Showroom at 1A - 1254 Plains Road East (Behind Fairview Longo's) Call us at 905-631-REDO (7336) or surf www.paintitlikenew.com Can be used toward $1350 Home Renovation Tax Credit Minimum order $250; Offer expires December 21, 2009 · Not to be used in combination with other discounts comparisons to determine what raises to give employees in 2010. "Why wouldn't you make comparisons with what is happening to the people who pay the taxes?" questioned Taylor. Halton's top bureaucrat, CAO Pat Moyle, responded that work done by municipal employees often doesn't have a private sector equivalent. Halton's non-unionized employees receive compensation below the median of what counterparts at other similar-sized municipalities are getting, Moyle added. For anecdotal evidence, Moyle said Halton recently a lost long-time employee, the acting director of business and technical services in the works department, to Peel Region, where she will take a lesser managerial position, but at "considerably more money." "We are still certainly falling behind our competitors, there's no doubt about that," he said. Oakville Councillor Tom Adams said he's seen studies that suggest municipalities overpay lower skilled workers, while managers and directors are underpaid compared to their private sector equivalents. "It's not equal across the payscales, we do need to differentiate amongst our employees," he said. Taylor's Burlington colleague, Jack Dennison, said the problem is Halton uses comparisons with other municipalities to set pay levels for unionized employees, and vice versa, leading to perpetual increases with each subsequent collective bargaining agreement. "It has nothing to do with the economy, it has nothing to do with supply and demand," he said. "So if we go up (raise salaries), then the next competitors going to do the same comparison and they're going to go up automatically. "The classic example is...firefighters," he continued, acknowledging fire services are actually the responsibility of local municipalities rather than Halton. "I mean, you advertise for four firefighters and get between three and five thousand applications. Doesn't that tell you supply and demand are out of sync?" The Region's director of human resources, John Phelan, noted the Conference Board of Canada's outlook for compensation in 2010 forecasts an average 3.2 per cent increase for public sector workers and 2.6 per cent for private sector employees. However, those are figures not seen since 2007 in Ontario, according to the Ministry of Labour's Collective Bargaining Information Services website, which collects and reports on all the province's work agreements. Contracts with the Region's 138 paramedics (OPSEU Local 207) and 167 public works employees (CUPE 2620) expire at the end of this month and a current one-year contract with the Region's public health nurses (ONA) finishes March 31. The Region is also headed to interest arbitration to get a settlement with ONA nurses at its three long-term care homes, who have been working without a contract since March 31, 2008. 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