Anger over small raise as Crown CEOS’ pay surges A3

REGINA The Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation (STF) is raising concern over educators being asked to accept less money by the province when some senior Crown corporation executives continued to see remuneration increases.

“It seems while our education minister was asking teachers to accept pay cuts, Crown CEOS were getting raises of anywhere from 16 to 26 per cent,” STF president Pat Maze said, citing a Postmedia News report on how some CEOS saw their total remuneration go up, not down, over the period when they were supposedly taking a 3.5-per-cent wage reduction.

Earlier this month, an arbitrator settled on a new contract for teachers that will see educators getting no retroactive raise but a one-percent increase over the course of the contract.

Talks between the two parties broke down, largely because the province refused to change its mandate of seeking a 3.67-per-cent wage reduction (or equivalent savings) from teachers. The arbitrator noted the “demand” for such a salary reduction from teachers was “unprecedented, even during the near-bankruptcy of the 1990s and the global recession in 20082009.”

A 3.5-per-cent wage rollback was accepted by government MLAS, deputy ministers, other political staffers and Crown CEOS as a way to “show leadership” as the province was asking other public sector employees to take the same cut in order to help Saskatchewan climb out of a deficit.

But in a release sent out Thursday morning, Maze said teachers “were sold a bill of goods about how everyone was going to help out during tough times.”

“Meanwhile, top Crown corporation executives were laughing all the way to the bank.”

Thursday’s remarks from Maze marked the latest exchange in a continued war of words between the organization representing Saskatchewan teachers and the province.

The arbitrator noted in the decision

It seems while our education minister was asking teachers to accept pay cuts, Crown Ceos getting raises ...

how relations between the two parties were “badly in need of repair” but as of Thursday, any mending seemed far off.

Maze again challenged the suggestion from Education Minister Gord Wyant that the province had been willing to abandon its demand for rolling back teacher wages but was refused by the STF.

“Nothing could be further from the truth. That offer was never made because if it was, the government’s bargaining team would have changed its demands — and they didn’t,” Maze said in a statement, which concluded by saying “teachers have every right to be angry.”

It is clear the STF feels that anger should be directed toward the provincial government.

In response, Wyant said in his own statement he has “been working hard to renew our government’s relationship with the education sector by listening to and meeting with frontline teachers and other stakeholders.”

He noted there has been “debate surrounding the arbitration process” but maintained his “focus is on the work that is underway to rebuild these relationships.”

Wyant said he has met with local teacher associations and appreciates concerns raised by the sector.

His statement concluded by saying he is looking forward to meeting with the STF executive — which includes Maze — later this fall.