When govt’s raise your taxes or implement new programs etc, they always use comparisons from other cities.
This normal comparison will not be used in this case.

Prince Georges City employees deserve a fair offer, and what the Mayor and management have offered them so far is a joke. Quesnel is no more fiscally well off than PG, having just closed down it’s Canfor mill completly. Some folks forget that the PG workers have ALREADY gone 1 year at 0% as they have been without a contract for a year, now the city wants then to go 2 more years at 0%, thats not an offer, thats a disgrace and the City needs to start bargaining fairly!

If you want to compare Quesnel then give us a break down on what their members get paid versus CUPE members in Prince George.

Futhermore the Canfor Mill will not close down until next March. So lets not get carried away here.

If the City bargained fairly there would be no increases for Management and Union people for at least 5 years. It all comes down to what your meaning of fair is.

Is it fair for someone earning $40,000.00 per year to pay for increases to people who earn between 60, and 120 thousand per year.

Is it fair for people without benefits to be paying taxes to pay for top of the line benefits for Government workers??

Sorry Knowledge88, but you need to pick a new handle for this website because your comment is just plain stupid and shows your lack of knowledge!

Prince George City employees just came off of a 5 year contract at 3.00% per year, 16% cumulative! That was completely unreasonable for the taxpayers of Prince George! Now they want more! Give me a break!

Please tell us what Quesnel City employees received over the past 5 years!

Also, when our workers in PG finally do reach or accept a contract, it will be retroactive, so they would only have 1 more year at 0% and the last year was offered at 2.0%.

Exactly what position do you currently hold with the City and/or the Union??

Using the – ‘they got a good deal last time so now they should get nothing’ is asinine

Yes they got a good deal the last time but that should not preclude them from getting a reasonable deal now.

0% is a joke… what is even more of a joke is that mayor / council keep telling everyone that we are broke but they continue to have these ideas of grandeur and continue to nickel and dime the taxpayers with increased user fees and taxes. It would be hard to find a user fee that did not increase over the last year – just where is all that extra money going? one thing for sure is it’s not going to reduce our taxes……

Then they cry that they have no money put aside to fix aging infrastructure so they have to increase existing and introduce new taxes for that, well, why didn’t our Superintendent of Operations think about this many years ago? – maybe he was too busy counting his $40K pay raise over the last 5 years.

Hey look everyone, we are on Hart Gal’s favorite subject; how much part-time, irregular hour, city employees get paid. Oh… did I mention no benefits for all these part-time workers as well?

I have been watching this process and am not really shocked, but am clearly disappointed. During any respectful bargaining process, both the employer and the bargaining representatives for the workers typically promise to bargain in good faith, and mutually agree not to take their negotiation into the media.
Of recent, the City of Prince George has seen fit to involve the public in their negotiation with the respective unions and can been seen regularly making statements to the media as well as conducting telephone budget surveys to reinforce their position during this round of bargaining.
I have never seen an employer stoop to tactics this low on the ethical ladder.
Last week I watched in disgust as the spokesperson for the City lamented about the annual wage of a labourer position at the city, and cited that our city labourers are among the 3 highest paid labourer groups within 29 BC Municipalities. Easily said by someone who earns well over 150 thousand dollars per year. He seemed disappointed that a young man or woman who is raising their family on 49 thousand dollars per year was being overpaid and definitely did not deserve any raise in pay. Interesting fun with finance numbers were also cited. He stated that the employees had received a 16 percent cumulative increase over the 5 year life of the previous contract. Not too bad you think; however, the person making these comments has had a published wage increase of nearly $10,000 dollars between 2011 and 2012. That’s over 20% of the Labourers total wages in a single year. I say that if you want to have fun with finance that’s fine, but at least tell the truth. The truth is the across the board amount of take home pay.
Maybe the well healed spokesperson should try raising his family on 100 thousand per year less, and see how this works out for him.

Knowledge88

Keep an eye on this site for a suitable position if you would prefer to work for the Quesnel taxpayers.

http://www.quesnel.ca/Jobs.html

The local CUPE workers are more than adequately compensated and if they feel that wobbling the job will get them a better offer then vote accordingly upcoming ballot.

If they do go out they will get as much support in the community as what the city has offered in the first two years of the contract…a big goose egg.

So now you are the self proclaimed spokeswoman for all who live in the community?

and we have People#1 on here, using electricity on his second notebook, doing his/her part to contribute to Global Warming!

As I said in an earlier post, People#1, stop contributing to Global Warming!!

How much more are the taxpayers of PG willing to pay to keep City CUPE workers happy?

Note they are already well compensated with better wages and pensions than their private sector counterparts.

Public sector wages are not the highest on the scale, industrial ones are, but I don’t see anyone complaining about those, even though the work may be exactly the same. A mechanic is a mechanic and a welder is a welder.

Anyway, I’m getting a little tired of the “16%” figure being touted. Listen up. You don’t compound wage increases. Anyone who isn’t a fool should realize that. Wages aren’t an investment return. If you want to start compounding the effects of wage increases then you have to adjust wages for inflation to get at “real” not nominal wages.

So let’s do just that…

First, we need to establish a base wage rate. Let’s set it at $25/hr as earned on the last day of 2007, when the CPI closed out at 111.50. 5 years later in 2012, that $25/hr turned into $28.98/hr based on a 3% increase every year 5 years and the CPI index closed out at 121.70 that same year. Now to determine real wages, you apply the following formula:
Real Wages = (base wage X New CPI)/base CPI

therefore (25.00 X 121.70)/111.50 = $29.29

So, the inflation adjusted wage is actually $29.29/hr, which is a (29.29-25.00)/25.00 = 9.15% or 1.83% per year.

Still a pretty good increase over 5 years, but definitely not 16%.

Still hoping Mayor & Council lock the union workers out.

All the above too doesn’t even mention increases in taxes and fees the governments charge us. If one were to do a close analysis, I’d be betting that municipal worker disposable income actually went backwards over that contract period, as did the majority of average workers’ earnings, but maybe just less so than the average.

We’re all in the same leaky boat folks, but the workers aren’t to blame, we need to take a closer look at the people who are orchestrating the spending of our tax dollars. They’re getting a failing grade overall and we can’t go on like this.

Govt employees get wage increases, then ICBC takes it all back!

Industry generally pays more, example gas oil industry, so cities crown corporations always playing catchup to attract workers. Another example is Hydro paying their lineman quite well toattract and retain them as private line companies generally pays more.

sine nomine no one would notice the change in service other than our garbage containers wouldn’t get blew over every week.

*Correction to calculation*

Sorry, my bad the inflation adjusted wage is $27.29 not $29.29. Little keying error there. The actual percentage increase is right though.

Sine Nomine; “Public sector wages are not the highest on the scale, industrial ones are, but I don’t see anyone complaining about those, even though the work may be exactly the same. A mechanic is a mechanic and a welder is a welder.”
Fine except that industry is privately funded. Usually in industry both mechanics & welders have higher levels of certification than what the City requires, so you are comparing apples to oranges. I do agree though that someone needs to send the City managers back to school. These are people you would put in a room, ask them to make change for a dollar & come back an hour later & ask for a calculator. ;)

“Fine except that industry is privately funded”

You mean like the 120 million tax dollars handed over to Canfor to improve their emissions? Or what about the ……………. …………………………………………………………………………………………………

Dragon,almost every industry is subsidized in some manner by taxpayers. That’s what greases the wheels of business. Whether it’s a tax break or incentive, roads &/or sewage costs or in Canfor’s case(s) money for them to remain competitive after the American industry was given massive tax breaks. The wages & benefits do not come out of your pocket though.

No, privately funded is privately funded. receiving taxpayer welfare isn’t privately funded.

Taxpayer welfare? From what I’ve read Dragon, you are employed as a Heavy Duty Mechanic, yes? Does your shop or employer benefit directly or indirectly from Canfor’s presence in this city? Reread my post, I challenge you to name 10 industries in this city that have not recieved some form of tax payer based relief whether federal, provincial or municipal.

Knowledge88 wrote:

“Some folks forget that the PG workers have ALREADY gone 1 year at 0% as they have been without a contract for a year, now the city wants then to go 2 more years at 0%”

You need to gather a bit more knowledge ….. the contract will deal with the fact that there has not been an agreement for a year. The new agreement will be retroactive … they could actually get retroactive pay if the percentage is more than 0%.

I just looked up the last Quesnel CUPE agreement
June 2010 over previous … ????
June 2011 1.5% increase
June 2012 2% increase ……

So, as was implied, PG got 5 years of 3% and they are not happy…… why???

Why were they given that. I have not heard an explanation yet. I think we are all owed an explanation why that was the offer they received.

We are also owed an explanation of why they want to continue to get such extensive raises which are far beyond inflationary raises.

Since when was 0%, 0%, 2% considered EXTENSIVE or FAR beyond inflationary raises? Last time I checked the inflation rate for 2013 was definitely more than 0% and certainly will be more than 0% for 2014.
In the report that city managers put forward to compare the union labourer’s position,I noticed they used places like Kamloops, Kelowna, Vernon, etc. etc.
I’d challenge any one to work a midnight shift in our weather. That’s being a mechanic going to a job site because the city’s Huge street snow blower died and he has to climb under or onto it to find out what’s wrong. Or the grader or loader at minus 20 with the wind blowing and has a flat, but the mechanic still has to show up and fix it. Or a water line breaks at 2:00am and someone from the utility div. gets called out of their sleep and has to take care of it. A bank of lights or traffic signal lights go out, but the electricians have to go out there regardless of the temperature or the weather, snowing, hail, rain…. unlike those other towns listed.
Each and every single city owned facility is hand shoveled by parks staff. That’s the steps to the library, the CN center’s EVERY entrance…. civic center, city hall, the mayor’s parking spot, community policing, Studio 2880…. the list goes on. I’d really like some of you to put on your winter gear and head out and work side by side with some of these workers.
And the ones that get accused of ‘standing around’ while somebody digs a hole with the excavator. Well I don’t know about you, but I’m certainly NOT going to climb down a hole while a huge excavator is digging. I would stand there too, just like you all accuse the city staff of doing. It’s called ‘safety first’ and you can’t climb into a hole where machinery is working. These are just so few of the examples …. I am not suggesting for one minute that the workers in other towns work any harder…. but they certainly don’t have the weather conditions that PG does!!
Wages have ALWAYS been based on what’s called isolation pay. The farther a worker is north, the more $$ they receive. It’s a fact. Check it out.

City spending has gone up 21% in the past 10 years despite no growth in population. The bulk of City spending goes to worker wages and benefits, while maintenance and infrastructure suffers.

0,0, and 2 is fair considering the last agreement.

Hello? wrote: “Since when was 0%, 0%, 2% considered EXTENSIVE or FAR beyond inflationary raises?”

Who wrote that it was?????

What people are writing about is the last agreement which had 3%+3%+3%+3%+3%.

Which other cities got those kind of increases? Unless someone can explain why they were not excessive, I look at those rates and say they were excessive.
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“The farther a worker is north, the more $$ they receive”.

Why?????

It is reasonable if they work in the Yukon, NWT, or Nunavut. THAT is isolation! AND, the cost of living is far higher than here or Vancouver. THAT is the main reason they get more pay. The money does not go as far as it does here!!

We have much less costly housing than the south. Just because of that it costs less to live here than in the south.

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As far as the rest goes, why don’t you go and work hand slashing trees in Alberta with a chainsaw when it is -30C or so. There is no Timmy’s close by. It is steady work in the bush with lunch over a fire.

Try commercial fishing in the winter … or even summer when a storm blows ….. The most dangerous job in the world.

If you do not like it, take another job!!

Gus wrote. “If you don’t like it take another job.”

That would be the same for the ones that are whining they make less than the city workers and have to pay for their increases. If you don’t make enough to cover your expenses find a job that pays more.

Hello?

There was an article in the paper this week that said the current inflation rate is under 1% and not expected to change any time soon.

Whoa…hand shovel steps and let me guess after shoveling for 15 or 20 minutes they have to sling their pick and shovel over their shoulder and trudge through the snow(uphill) for an hour to the next location? No? They have a nice warm truck for the 15 minute drive. Brutal!

Guy a few doors down works in the oil patch and while he might make more money than a city worker, partly because he works as much as possible while away, but it does come with a price. He is away from home half the time and misses out on quite a few things especially with his kids. The lure of the big bucks is starting to wear off and last I talked to him was going to start looking for something where he could be home every night….if you quit let him know as I’m sure he would grab the 7 1/2 hour work day with a good hourly wage sick pay,pension, etc, etc.

Wobble the job….dare ya….then you might see how much support you have with those who pay your wages. 0-0-2 Ms. James and not a penny more!

“I’d challenge any one to work a midnight shift in our weather. That’s being a mechanic going to a job site because the city’s Huge street snow blower died and he has to climb under or onto it to find out what’s wrong.”
Id challenge any one to find me an example of a city worker doing this too…