I have no doubt that the big Labor Leaders will soon be suggesting that ONE BILLION DOLLARS isn’t really a lot of money these days….

After Campbell's public support backfire with the teachers, it looks like he is arming himself with the public's feelings before starting this next war. Very shrewd.

Maybe Gordo and Co.is involved. He has no problems spending our tax dollars . He hates unions with a passion( unless they roll over and play dead for him) and spends lots of our money trying to privatize everything in sight. Usually manages to lose money there as well. wonder how much the guys brought into keep track of our medical records are being fined each month for not doing the job up to standards. Wonder how many ex HEU folks who ended up privatized are now are back in HEU. Wonder why wait lists for surguries have got longer not smaller as hospitals got shut down, and less staffing. Maybe a poll on some of that stuff. I wouldn't mind some of my tax dollars going that way.

No, Kevin, ONE BILLION DOLLARS isn't a lot of money these days. It can only buy you one lousy Winter Olympics.

There's every possibility that it's the unions doing the polling. No matter what they say, the government STILL isn't negotiating in good faith. They have thrown some money on the table for everyone to fight over.

Hey Kevin

The provincial budget is about, what, $35 billion a year? And wages and benefits for nurses, teachers, ambulance drivers, hospital workers, professional foresters, etc, etc. must be about 80% if not more?

So ... a billion is under 4% of a roughly $28 billion payroll? And the government, I think, has put that on the table to fund 3 to 4 year agreements (plus some other bonus money for those first to sign and people agreeing to five year contracts)

That sounds to me like about 1.2 per cent per annum compounded. I guess a billion isn't that much.

A billion dollars is above and beyond the 5.7 billion committed for wage increases. Currently the payroll for public sector employees is about 17.2 billion, or about 50% of BC's budget. Under this framework the budget available for public sector wages increases approximately 8% per year. If you include the bonus for those unions who decide on safeguarding a secure public sector work force for the Olympics over holding the public hostage for their personal gain. The per year increase would be about 10 % per year. Overall the total compensation increase in a mere 4 short years would be close to 40%. That seems pretty fair to me. But as we all know nothing is ever good enough for the people feeding out of the public trough.

One final note. DL, can you please direct me to the performance reviews regarding the handling of medical records pre-privativation. I would like to compare them to the current reviews.

There probably were no reviews because they weren't needed. Once the service is contracted, compliance measuring instruments, and the costs of those instruments, become part of the game you have committed yourself to.

Or Budd there was no accountability, which is very common in the public sector. One of the main goals of public sector unions is to skirt accountability at every level. How do we know the service is worse if there is no verifiable information to collaborate that. I'm sorry but my burden of proof goes beyond anecdotal evidence from people with a vested interest in seeing any type of innovation fail. Of course everything is great if there is no guidelines for performance.

the BCGEU allready recieved there pay increase with payed holidays not entering the books due to payroll comp problems in 2005,,,

nic

Fk - are you sure the province is only spending 50 per cent of the budget on wages and benefits -so about $17 billion a year is spent on stuff that isn't people???? that's a lot of road tar and MRI machiness ...

As a ordinary citizen I have no more access to performance reviews than Fkneh .
However if the government set a standard with the new guys, and the news guys accepted the standards, and each month they failt to reach that standard it must tell you something. It aint working.

Back in the bad old days of the previous government you walked into an office and spoke to a live person when you had a problem and it got handled. If you chose to phone in your request the phone didn't ring for half an hour or so. That's the sort of performance review I and so many recognize. That section of government got privatized, reduced in staff moved out of town a few miles, and golly gosh. It hasn't worked. But Gordo won't admit it but each time they fine those guys it is a sort of admission of failure. When you have a problem and can't get an answer to it, maybe you will finaly have it click in. Most people can focus their mind rather quickly when it's their item that's not being dealt with efficantly. For people trying to find out why they are getting dunning letters supposedly for non payment of monthy medicare fees, from some shadowy group out there somewhere it can be pretty flustrating.

Folks tend to decide about then that, Hey it ain't working. Best I can do for you Fkneh .
Just got a idea. why not contact your MLA or Minister and ask them to get you a performace review. If yours is Liberal , no doubt they would fall all over themselves to help you out. In your dreams

I believe that if there has been a drop in the %age of the budget spent on wages as Fk asserts it is because a greater %age now goes to contractors. And as we now know we will never know if we are getting value for money because the amounts of those contracts are secret. The public will never get the information it needs to decide whether contracting gov't services saves them money.

There are also inherent costs to contracting. You still have to pay people to tender, negotiate and, yes, ensure performance of, contracts.(Plus bushells of lawyers on both sides.) In the bad old days, as now, it was not up to the workers or the union to set performance standards and make sure they are adhered to, that is a function of management. Put the blame where it really lies.

And, Fkneh, if I don't get my 40%, I'm coming to get the difference directly from you!

I was actually kidding when I suggested ONE BILLION DOLLARS was not really that much money these days. Funny how many ‘dippers were quick to jump on that one. Not so funny how when it comes to Public Sector Unions where too much is never enough.

The only thing worse than those greedy, unaccountable public sector unions is those greedy, unaccountable fatcats getting rich off of untendered government contracts. The fibs promised to clean that up but they've made it a lot worse along with the whole executive severance thing. Some of these private contractors produce absolutely nothing at all, zilch nada. Some produce work of a quality far below what an employee could have done for far less. Some make a value-added contribution to government services. The one thing they have in common is big money. But at least these private sector castoffs don't have dental plans.

"Or Budd there was no accountability, which is very common in the public sector. One of the main goals of public sector unions is to skirt accountability at every level." says fkneh. Well, fkneh, you're making things up here, and then you grumble about anecdotal evidence.

I think I know what your little game is. If public sector unions complain that numerical measurement schemes are inadequate to reflect the full complexity of the situation, and could be misleading, then you claim that far from trying to offer their knowledge and expertise to assist in understanding how we can improve services, they are just goldbricking, trying to sweep everything under the rug, etc., etc.

It's the old Fraser Inst mantra from Michael Walker that falsely asserts that public sector agencies and employees are totally unproductive. That's just a complete fabrication fkneh, as you and Walker both know very well. This is all just a big game for people like you, and your colleague in public service and teacher bashing, Steve Hopkins.

Should there be numerical measurements in place whether a service is publicly or privately provided? Sure, if they're worthwhile and don't become an unduly expensive administrative cost in themselves. If there were no measurement techniques in place for the medical records administration prior to privitization, that's a gap that should have been fixed. You don't privatize just to say, hey, now we got some stats to play with. And let's be clear, if the government didn't have any performance figures prior to privitizing to a US company, they cannot be held to account if the performance has now deteriorated because there is no data from the pre-privitization period to compare to.

I was actually kidding when I suggested ONE BILLION DOLLARS was not really that much money these days. Funny how many ?dippers were quick to jump on that one. Not so funny how when it comes to Public Sector Unions where too much is never enough.

Posted by Kevin Larsen on January 18, 2006 11:33 PM

You know, Kevin, I find this kind of elementary school stuff to be a bit silly. Do you have anything intelligent to say?

By the way, years ago, before inflation, a well-known Canadian Liberal, C D Howe was said to have said "What's a million?" Diefenbaker jumped all over him for it, and it made for a good stump speech. But the truth is that numbers only have meaning in context, and one billion for pay increases across the entire provincial, health and education, and local government sector, over a period of several years, and coming off of roughly five years of near zero increases, may not provide for raises that are sufficient to keep or attract qualified staff.

Do you have a problem with that, with the idea that in a free country employees are entitled to competitive compensation, or else you and your government are going to find themselves facing critical shortages of skilled personnel as the Alberta Govt and American employers make them decent pay offers?

I guess all that's needed is anecdotal evidence to prove a point. I can prove anything now. This is easy.

Maybe the BC Government should stop the performancec reviews. That way everything would be great. No fines, no nothing. That's a perfect solution. Stop hold people accountable and the service will get better. I can't believe i didn't think of this earlier.

And Fanshaw what was that nonsense?