Government workers earn thousands more, work less: report

Public sector employees work less and earn thousands of dollars more than their private sector counterparts, says a new report from the Canadian Federation ofIndependent Business.

The business group says public sector workers earn between three and 13 per cent more than people working for private businesses at comparable jobs, which equates to roughly $8,150 per year.

With benefits added to the mix, that gap grows to between 18 and 37 per cent, depending on the particular sector, Ted Mallett, chief economist and vice-president of the federation, tells Yahoo Canada News.

“When you take simply the occupations where there are direct occupational comparisons between public and private sector, there remain some pretty substantial gaps between wage levels,” he says. “And when you add things like the benefits side of the equation … the gap grows considerably larger.”

Based on the 2011 National Household Survey results, the federation looked at the wages, sick days, hours of work and benefits reported for 1.5 million Canadian households.

Government employees also work three to six fewer hours per week, once reported sick leave and vacation benefits are factored in, according to the report.

The Wage Watch report found the federal government had the largest disparity, at 13 per cent. Municipal governments had an 8.9 per cent salary gap and provincial governments ranged from 1.9 per cent in Manitoba to 16.8 per cent in Quebec.

More than 3.6 million Canadians are employed in the public sector – one if five jobs - in occupations ranging from custodians to school teachers to CEOs.

If they were paid by private sector standards, it would amount to a $20 billion reduction in government spending, Mallett says.

The federation makes several recommendations, including changes to the bargaining structure and arbitration rules for the public sector and capping wage increases for government workers to the rate of inflation.

“Let’s let private sector salaries catch up,” Mallett says.

Union refutes claims

The Canadian Union of Public Employees says the federation report is just wrong.

“It manipulates the numbers and it has some pretty gross mathematical errors,” Toby Sanger, a senior economist for the union, tells Yahoo Canada News.

Sanger says the report – the sixth such analysis by the federation – continues to look at medians, rather than averages, which skews the results.

But the most egregious error, Sanger says, is the federation does not factor in wage equity for women and minorities, which the public sector has gone much further to address.

“For women (salaries) are higher but that’s because there is a smaller pay gap for women in the public sector. There still is a pay gap but it’s smaller,” Sanger says.

The gap is also greater between public and private salaries for aboriginal workers and other minority groups, he says.

CUPE’s own wage report shows once pay equity is taken into account, the annual average pay in the public sector is $49,655, compared to $49,407 in the private sector for comparable occupations, which represents a difference of 0.5 per cent.

“The CFIB isn’t really concerned with the deficit,” Sanger says. “They want to bring down wages for workers.”

The dispute over private versus public wages and benefits is unlikely to go away.

With an election looming, a tough budget to balance and more than two dozen public sector agreements up for negotiation, Treasury Board President Tony Clement has said he wants to bring public sector wages and benefits closer to private sector offerings.

Among his stated priorities are abolishing accumulated sick-leave benefits and reforming the public sector disability program.