The elephant taking 70 percent of the government’s fiscal room is the $9.6 billion in pay and benefits for 123,000 civil servants and Crown funded agencies. Every one percent increase in public wages costs the Manitoba government $100 million.
The unions claim Bill 28 violates the charter by “forcing public servants to work under terms and conditions of employment that were coerced, dictated and imposed by the state.” Funny thing, that sounds a lot like the taxes that Manitobans pay to enable the government to pay public servants.
With Bill 28 an exception, it has always been easier for government to say “yes” to their unionized workers than to say “no” for the sake of taxpayers paying the bills. Imagine if it was not the government that union negotiators had to face, but a panel of taxpayers with their interests in mind. Imagine further that those negotiators had the power to declare no taxes would be paid until taxpayer demands were met. Workers with the right to strike would finally have their match.
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