OSHAWA Oshawa city councillors should not give final approval to an exhorbitant pay raise for themselves without holding public hearings or they risk creating a negative labour relations environment for years to come, says Sid Ryan, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario.
Giving themselves a raise of more than 30% at the same time as they are settling with city workers in the range of 3% is absolutely outrageous, Ryan said. This will have a serious impact on relations with all city employees, including firefighters and police.
Whats good enough for the workers should be good enough for council.
He condemned the decision made without any advance notice or input from the public, noting that councillors were well aware of their salaries when running for office. No one ran on a platform of increasing their own pay, he said.
There should be no increase above and beyond what ordinary workers are getting without public hearings and real public input, Ryan said. And, if they decide to go ahead, any extraordinary increase should not come into effect until a new council is elected in 2006.
Ryan said the timing of the pay hike is strange, given the citys struggle to find resources for refurbishing the waterfront and downtown.
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For more information, please contact:
Sid Ryan, President, CUPE Ontario, 416-209-0066 (cell)
Pat Daley, CUPE Communications, 416-299-9739 ext 264