CBC News is reporting on the “sham consultations” the Ford government held in an attempt to set the stage for possible legislation to cap the wages of OPSEU members and other unionized public sector workers.
“The consultations are a sham, said Smokey Thomas, president of the Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union (OPSEU),” writes reporter Mike Crawley.
“In my mind they’re just ticking off the boxes to fight off a Charter challenge if they interfere in collective bargaining in any way,” Thomas said in an interview Wednesday.
Crawley also points out that public sector wage increases have been lower than both inflation and private sector wage increases over the past five year.
“It’s far from clear that negotiated pay hikes with public sector unions are to blame for Ontario’s deficit,” Crawley writes. “As the government’s own statistics reveal, the average wage settlements in the public sector have actually been lower than those in the private sector for five years running.”