N.S. imposes wage package

Nova Scotia’s Liberal government finally moved on a contentious piece of labour legislation Tuesday, effectively imposing a wage package on the province’s 75,000 public sector employees and drawing a fiery response from the union representing the majority of them.

Premier Stephen McNeil said the proclamation of the Public Services Sustainability Act was being done in the “best interests of Nova Scotians,” but the union president called that insulting.

“It’s the arrogance of this government that just really cooks my goose,” said Jason MacLean, president of the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union (NSGEU).

The act was passed in December 2015 to ensure third party arbitrators could not bind the government to wage settlements. At the time, McNeil promised it would not be brought into force until it was needed.

The government’s move came two weeks after the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union (NSGEU) — the province’s largest — filed for arbitration on behalf of nearly 8,000 civil servants after lastditch conciliation talks broke down. Those workers included corrections, child welfare and court employees.

The new act would also cover thousands of other workers, including those in health care who are yet to reach new deals with the province.

“I’ve made it very clear that an unelected, unaccountable arbitrator will not determine the taxpayers’ ability to pay,” McNeil told reporters.

The act doesn’t end arbitration but does limit arbitrators from making awards that exceed the wage guidelines.

It sets a wage pattern of three per cent over four years that will allow increases of one per cent in the third year of the contract, followed by 1.5 per cent in the fourth year and 0.5 per cent on the final day of the package.

A retirement allowance is also frozen retroactive to April 1, 2015. The so-called public service award is a lump sum payment for retiring workers with at least 10 years of service.

New employees will no longer be eligible for the payment under the government’s change.

MacLean lashed out at the government’s move, even though he said he wasn’t surprised by it.

“You have Stephen McNeil who I believe is a snake, and then you have (labour relations minister) Mark Furey who is basically the dishonourable middle man. These guys are taking control of where labour goes,” MacLean said in an interview.

MacLean pointed out his union members are also taxpayers who will now have less money to spend as the province struggles with a sputtering economy.

“And now he (McNeil) took away their public service award which is adding insult to injury because it is something that was freely and collectively bargained,” he said.

McNeil said the act will be referred to the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal under the Constitutional Questions Act to obtain an opinion.