{"id":68901,"date":"2016-01-14T03:15:43","date_gmt":"2016-01-14T08:15:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=68901"},"modified":"2016-01-14T03:15:43","modified_gmt":"2016-01-14T08:15:43","slug":"alberta-freezes-salaries-of-managers-non-union-public-service-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/01\/14\/alberta-freezes-salaries-of-managers-non-union-public-service-workers\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta freezes salaries of managers, non union public service workers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Untitled-design-2.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-65579\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-65579\" src=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Untitled-design-2.jpg\" alt=\"Untitled design-2\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Untitled-design-2.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Untitled-design-2-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>EDMONTON\u2014The Alberta government is freezing the salaries of managers and non-unionized public-sector workers for two years as it deals with nosediving oil and gas prices.<\/p>\n<p>Finance Minister Joe Ceci says the move affects 7,000 civil servants and will save $57 million.<\/p>\n<p>He says the government has moved to strengthen revenue sources as it wrestles with a multibillion-dollar budget deficit caused by plunging petroleum prices. But he says expenses also have to be looked at closely to stabilize costs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is not a decision we made lightly,\u201d Ceci said Wednesday at a news conference at the legislature. \u201cHowever, to maintain stability and protect jobs within the public service, we must deal with the economic realities we are facing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The government is heading into new rounds of bargaining with public-sector workers, including teachers and nurses, over the next two years.<\/p>\n<p>Ceci was asked if the salary freeze is to be seen as a heads up to the unions who will be representing those workers in contract talks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery Albertan knows that these are difficult times and I assume when collective bargaining occurs &#8230; the economy that we are in today will be part of those discussions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The government is honouring existing contracts, Ceci added.<\/p>\n<p>The province will pay out almost $25 billion this year in salaries\u2014equivalent to half the total amount of government revenue.<\/p>\n<p>The pay for cabinet ministers and legislature members has already been frozen until 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EDMONTON\u2014The Alberta government is freezing the salaries of managers and non-unionized public-sector workers for two years as it deals with &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":65579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-68901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","tag-original","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}