Bureaucrats' pay hikes no gold medal performance by Campbell gov't

The Campbell government deserves poor marks, says the union for front-line public servants, for waiting for the Friday opening of the Olympic Games to tell the public about massive pay increases for senior government bureaucrats that had actually been in effect at the beginning of the month.

"These increases of up to 35 per cent and the way they were announced are quite troubling," says Darryl Walker, president of the B.C. Government and Service Employees' Union, which represents about 29,000 provincial government employees.

Walker says the approved increases far exceeds the two per cent raise this year won by front-line staff. He accuses the Campbell government of having misplaced priorities and of being highly selective in its use of salary comparisons and recruitment and retention data.

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

With the increase, a deputy minister makes 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," says Walker. "It needs a comprehensive action plan to solve recruitment and retention problems right now."

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