Ottawa - "Recent reports of federal public sector wages exceeding those in the private sector by nine per cent are more than misleading - they’re an insult to those workers in the federal sector who have suffered through years of wage freezes and are still busy playing catch-up," says Public Service Alliance of Canada National Executive Vice-President, John Gordon, in response to today’s release of a discussion paper on pay differences between the public and private sectors. "The reality is that federal public sector workers have lost ground for the past ten years."

"New research in this area is always welcome, however, to see if there really is a wage premium, you have to compare similar jobs," notes Gordon. "Since the federal government closed the Pay Research Bureau in the early `90s, accurate job-to-job comparisons are next to impossible using, as this paper does, the Labour Force Survey and the National Census."

Gordon adds that the discussion paper, produced by the Canadian Policy Research Networks, finds that wage differences are particularly high when comparing service workers.

"The kinds of service workers being compared here include police officers and correctional officers from the public sector to security guards and alarm monitoring personnel in private firms," wonders Gordon. "We also question whether public sector workers like firefighters and parole officers are being compared with workers in the fast food industry."

Gordon adds that the so-called ‘wage gap’ between public sector and private sector workers is clearly out-of-line with reality. Company size, unionization rates, and the like have historically explained large wage differentials and this study is no exception.

"In each of the last ten years, major private sector wage settlements have far exceeded public sector settlements," underscores Gordon.

Gordon adds that when these private sector increases are compounded over time, average private sector base rates have grown by 30 per cent, a full nine percentage points ahead of all public sector salaries.

"As if that’s not bad enough, the real kicker is that federal government salaries lag even farther behind, at one-half the rate of those in the private sector," adds Gordon.

The PSAC National Executive Vice-President adds that the governments’ decision to abolish the Pay Research Bureau has contributed to a lack of meaningful comparative wage date - a gap that this study does little to correct.

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For information:
Lois Ross, Coordinator, Communications, PSAC (613) 560-4280
Pierre Lebel, communications officer, PSAC (613) 560-5482

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