City managers’ pay boost panned
Union leader says $2.4 million in retroactive pay is just ‘wrong’
More than 400 managers at city hall are getting retroactive pay hikes that will cost Windsor taxpayers $2.4 million after a commissioned study found they were falling behind their counterparts in other Ontario cities.
But the significant bump in wages has angered unionized workers, who say they are being asked to do more with fewer people and for lower annual raises.
“We talk about sharing the burden and how taxpayers are spent and can’t make ends meet,” said Mark Vander Voort, president of CUPE Local 543, which represents 1,200 unionized inside municipal employees.
“Then they turn around and hand managers and supervisors increases based on more-affluent municipalities. That’s wrong and I think people should be upset over that.” Council during its budget meeting earlier this year quietly approved the one-time funding boost of $2.4 million to cover the retroactive salary payments to managers and non-union employees for the years 2015 and 2016.
The increased pay for non-union employees equates to 2.7 per cent and 3.1 per cent, respectively, for each of those years.
The city’s 1,400 unionized employees, in comparison, are in the middle of a four-year contract — expiring at the end of 2020 — that contains annual increases of 1.25 per cent.
The salary market comparison was undertaken at the city’s request by consultant Annetts & Associates for 2015 and 2016, which determined the city’s non-union employees on average were in the 37th percentile of comparable municipalities.
That means 63 per cent of municipal managers elsewhere in the province earned more than the Windsor managers.
The issue dates back to 2010 when Windsor’s non-union staff threatened under the banner of CANUE (Civic Association of Non-Union Employees) to form a bargaining unit.
To appease the group, city council signed an agreement that guaranteed its non-union employees were to remain at the 50th percentile of a dozen “comparable” municipalities. A biannual review of salaries was part of the deal. The municipalities included London, Chatham-Kent, Kitchener, Greater Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Brampton and Mississauga, and the regions of Halton, Niagara, Waterloo and Durham.
The consultant’s study submitted to council in January showed Windsor had fallen behind those counterparts on average for 201516 to the 37th percentile, a “significant decrease” from 2014. That led to the budget recommendation for retroactive pay hikes to meet the contractual obligation made with CANUE in 2010. Onorio Colucci, the city’s CAO, said the municipalities initially selected in 2010 were a good match for Windsor because they provided a comparable level of services. Unionized employees have a right to bargain, but non-unionized workers had no alternative, he said. “This was a way to make sure we were competitive in salaries,” Colucci said. “Whether you agree with a 50th percentile, you still need to have something.” Colucci said 40 per cent of the city’s employees are eligible to retire in five years, and they will need to be replaced.
“There is real premium for us in attracting employees because of the significant number to retire in the next five years,” Colucci said. “Many municipalities are facing the same thing with a tsunami of retirements. It’s going to be critical for us to retain and attract well-qualified people with the right skill set.” But Vander Voort said city hall jobs are highly coveted and it’s a bogus excuse to say wages need to be hiked to attract the best talent. “People will be stepping over their mother to get one of these jobs.” Mayor Drew Dilkens said council was obligated by contract to carry out the non-union salary review and was “taken aback” when he saw the numbers in the report. “We had no choice but to follow the contract the past council agreed to,” Dilkens said. “We had a signed obligation based on comparable municipalities.”
But the mayor believes council has now fulfilled its obligation under that 2010 deal. He thinks only cities outside of the GTA should be used for future comparisons. Pay rates in the GTA area for municipal managers continue to skyrocket because of a bidding war for well-qualified administrators, Dilkens said. In some cases, that has created annual pay hikes on average for non-union staff of up toninepercent.
“That should not be comparable to what we see in Windsor,” Dilkens said. “Moving forward we should not have any municipalities that skew the numbers.” Vander Voort said many of the jobs that were cited for these retroactive increases were actually declared redundant in another consultant’s report released years ago. In some cases, those jobs were eliminated, only to be “reintroduced.” Meanwhile, 200 union jobs were cut through outsourcing, Vander Voort said.
“On top of that, we saw in some years how up to 10 or 15 jobs were cut in a budget,” he said. “So, we continue to bleed on our side, there is contracting out, then they redistribute funds for salary increases to non-union employees.
“It’s the height of hypocrisy. The same people who do reports to eliminate our jobs and negotiate our contracts, then get these (pay) increases based on municipalities which are doing much better financially than the City of Windsor.”