{"id":342030,"date":"2018-01-02T09:54:47","date_gmt":"2018-01-02T08:54:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/albertas-ndp-government-imposes-wage-and-hiring-freezes-on-public-sector\/"},"modified":"2018-01-02T09:54:47","modified_gmt":"2018-01-02T08:54:47","slug":"albertas-ndp-government-imposes-wage-and-hiring-freezes-on-public-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/albertas-ndp-government-imposes-wage-and-hiring-freezes-on-public-sector\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta\u2019s NDP government imposes wage and hiring freezes on public sector"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>Alberta\u2019s NDP government imposes wage and hiring freezes on public sector<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    Janet Browning and Roger Jordan<br \/>\n    <br \/>30 December 2017<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>Alberta\u2019s New Democratic Party (NDP) government is demanding that public sector workers accept a two-year pay freeze in current contract negotiations, coupled with a hiring freeze across all public services.<\/p>\n<p>Claiming that Alberta\u2019s economy is now well on the way to recovering from the 2014 oil-price collapse, provincial Finance Minister and Treasury Board President Joe Ceci declared in a November 28 address that now is the time to pull back purported economic stimulus measures and begin focusing on eliminating the provincial deficit.<\/p>\n<p>He then pointed to the cost-cutting wage agreements the NDP recently reached with the Alberta Teachers\u2019 Association as a down payment. \u201cThe Teachers\u2019 agreement,\u201d said Ceci, \u201cwas two years of zeros for job stability and investments to help services for kids in those schools. I think that is a wise way to go, and frankly I am hopeful that as we expand our negotiations to other kinds of contracts we will find similar supports there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ceci went on to threaten public sector workers with layoffs if they balk at the government\u2019s austerity demands. \u201cMy hope is,\u201d said the NDP Finance Minister, \u201cpeople will see the benefit of long-term job stability and that (despite their receiving) no raises, they would have their ongoing jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The NDP froze wages for non-union \u201cexcluded\u201d and management provincial staff shortly after it took power in May 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Reinforcing the NDP\u2019s pitch to big business as a fiscally \u201cresponsible\u201d party that can be relied upon to defend their profits and maintain an ultra-low tax regime while balancing the provincial budget, Ceci declared, \u201cWe will carefully find&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2017\/12\/30\/alta-d30.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Alberta\u2019s NDP government imposes wage and hiring freezes on public sector By Janet Browning and Roger Jordan 30 December 2017 Alberta\u2019s New Democratic Party (NDP) government is demanding that public sector workers accept a two-year pay freeze in current contract negotiations, coupled with a hiring freeze across all public services. Claiming that Alberta\u2019s economy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-342030","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342030\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}