Public Finance economist demolishes outrageous pay allegations
EDMONTON – The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees released a report today that discredits the methodology recently used to allege front-line government employees are overpaid.
“When Ken Boessenkool claimed our members were making gold-plated salaries I smelled something rotten right away,” said AUPE President Guy Smith. “We know what our members earn because we have to fight for every penny at the bargaining table with arguments based on hard facts. His claims didn’t align with their reality.”
The report by Greg Flanagan, a public finance economist and retired assistant dean of the University of Lethbridge Faculty of Management, calls the methodology used by Boessenkool and Ben Eisen “misleading if not outright propagandistic.”
Flanagan’s analysis reveals that more than half ($1.2 billion) of the provincial government employee wage bill is consumed by 8,474 employees outside of the AUPE government services bargaining unit. Those employees, which include management, make an average annual salary of $146,661.
Furthermore Flanagan observed that when inflation, changes in population, GDP and Albertans’ average earnings are taken into account, spending on wages and salaries in Alberta range from the middle to the bottom of the rest of Canada.
“Boessenkool is a Harper government insider, former right-hand man of Stockwell Day, and graduate of right-wing think tanks. His opinions on our members’ earnings didn’t pass scrutiny when I first read them, and the evidence bears out just how flimsy they are,” Smith said.
The report can be downloaded at the link below.
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For more information, contact:
Guy Smith, President, AUPE
780-930-3301 or 780-265-2294 (cel)
Greg Flanagan, Public Finance economist
403-978-7245 (cel)
Mark Wells, Senior Communications Advisor, AUPE
780-930-3311 or 780-904-0688 (cel)