Liberals adopt NDP plan for top public-sector salaries
September 20, 2012
Politics at Queen’s Park took another twist Thursday as the
governing Liberals announced they would cap executive salaries in the
provincial public sector at $418,000 a year, or twice the Premier’s salary.
The move could affect about 150 top managers, mostly
hospital CEOs, university presidents, and the heads of agencies like the
LCBO. The Liberals also plan to ban pay increases and bonuses for about
8,800 public sector managers. Both the pay cap and the bonus ban had been
proposed by NDP Leader Andrea Horwath earlier this year.
“Call me an optimist, but the ‘Education Premier’ may
actually have learned something from the recent by-election in
Kitchener-Waterloo,” said OPSEU President Warren (Smokey) Thomas. “His
party’s nasty attacks on frontline workers, especially teachers, resulted in
voters handing that riding to the only party that stood up for the workers.
“The fact that Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals would adopt two
NDP policies just two weeks after the by-election reflects, I think, his
realization that Ontario voters now know there is a progressive alternative
to the Liberals. He’s clearly worried about the negative backlash from his
attacks on workers.”
The latest
public opinion poll by Forum Research showed the NDP running
neck-and-neck with the opposition Tories and the governing Liberals trailing
behind in third place. The NDP’s Horwath is the most popular Ontario party
leader by far, according to pollsters.
“The NDP has consistently taken the position that, if the
province needs money, top managers and high-income earners are the first
place to go find it,” said the OPSEU President. “Unfortunately, I am not
convinced that the Liberals feel the same way. What was announced Thursday
has too many loopholes, in my view, to ensure that bosses’ pay really will
be capped or frozen.”
Executive pay is only part of the picture, Thomas said. “I
don’t begrudge a good salary to anybody who has the qualifications and takes
the responsibility that leadership demands, but to my mind there is a much
bigger issue here that the government has overlooked.
“For some time now I have been calling for a comprehensive
review of worker-to-management ratios right across the entire public
sector,” he said. “What my members report to me is that they have too many
managers, plain and simple. And every dollar that goes into management is a
dollar that’s not available for frontline services.”
“What’s interesting about the move today is that the
McGuinty Liberals are adopting a proposal put forward by the NDP last
spring,” said OPSEU President Warren (Smokey) Thomas. “‘The Education
Premier’ may actually have learned something from the recent by-election in
Kitchener-Waterloo.
