In March 2016, Kevin Davediuk’s new job as chief government advisor on negotiations with Alberta’s public sector unions was described by media and Conservative politicians as a grave blunder by the NDP government.
“The optics of Davediuk’s hiring are terrible,” huffed the Calgary Herald in an editorial that showed a remarkable lack of understanding about how collective bargaining works.
Mr. Davediuk, you see, had been hired away from the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE), where he had negotiated contracts from the union side.
Hiring an AUPE negotiator to bargain for the government was “little better than hiring the fox to guard the henhouse,” grumped Derek Fildebrandt, then still the Wildrose Party’s finance critic.
From his perch at the Calgary Sun, political columnist Rick Bell expressed his offended wonderment: “A union guy in charge of negotiating with the unions. The optics cause heads to shake and folks to do a double-take. Say what?”
This was practically proof the NDP was in Big Labour’s pocket, the critics implied.
The anonymous brainiac the Herald’s editorial board chose to write the editorial continued: “Instead of acquiring Davediuk’s services, the government should impose a two-year wage freeze” on public employees.
Mr. Fildebrandt, a former operative for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, agreed: “Albertans won’t put up with sham bargaining,” he told Mr. Bell. “The NDP is flipping the coin here and both sides are tails for the taxpayers.”
Ah, those were the days!
This week, Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party (UCP) made Mr. Davediuk Alberta’s Public Pay Czar for all public sector salaries.
Who could have seen that coming?
I mean, who other than your blogger, who back in 2016 wrote: “If you ask me, the parties that ought to be most concerned by his appointment are those on the union side of the table.”
“In my experience,” I wrote, “union contract negotiators (and their employer counterparts) are … like professional hockey players and litigation lawyers: they play to win for whomever they represent.
“Some of the best ones (and in my estimation Mr. Davediuk is one of the best ones) from time to time move from one side of the table to the other,” I added.
Apparently Premier Smith and Finance Minister Nate Horner agree that from the government’s perspective, he’s worth every cent of his $200,000-plus yearly salary.
Either that or they’ve forgotten Mr. Davdiuk used to work for a union, as well as, before that, for private-sector employers.
As with his appointment by the NDP in 2016, the addition of non-union public employees’ pay to his duties was not directly mentioned in a government press release yesterday.
The government instead put out a release on its proposed Public Sector Employer Amendment Act saying it is bringing in a “new model” that will “harmonize government’s direction for non-union compensation across Alberta’s public sector, ensuring unionized and out-of-scope employees receive comparable pay for comparable work.”
This was the announcement by Mr. Horner that resulted in speculation the government might directly adopt the Free Alberta Strategy’s idea of creating an Office of the Alberta Public Sector Employer. It did not, at least not yesterday.
“The Public Sector Employer Amendment Act would ensure that strong government oversight continues, as employers would be required to provide their compensation plans for approval by the minister of Treasury Board and Finance,” the government’s news release said.
In it, Mr. Horner was quoted saying, “reducing barriers will help recruit and retain staff in the public sector.”
This slightly misstates the problem the government needs to rectify.
In the years when Jason Kenney was Alberta’s premier, the UCP struck a hand-picked “Blue-Ribbon Panel on Alberta’s Finances,” led by Janice MacKinnon, to issue pre-determined recommendations of legislated cuts to public sector salaries, massive cuts to public spending, and many public-sector layoffs, including the firing of hundreds of nurses. Dr. MacKinnon was a former NDP finance minister from Saskatchewan notorious for closing 52 rural hospitals in that province in the late 1990s.
In the event, many of the panel’s recommendations were never followed. It proved easier to freeze the pay of managers and excluded public-sector employees than of those of employees represented by unions, whose right to bargain collectively was protected by the courts and the Constitution.
Then the world turned. Mr. Kenney’s austerity applecart was upended by the pandemic and the resulting economic and health care crises it created.
At a practical level, Mr. Horner’s announcement means is that the government’s secret mandates in bargaining with public-sector unions will continue, at least until a court disposes of them, and the same process will now be expanded, also with Mr. Davediuk’s oversight, to non-union and excluded employees of the government and other public employers.
More positively, it also means that unlike the Kenney Government, the Smith Government has recognized the famously obvious connection between supply and demand and knows that if Alberta’s civil service and its health care system are to continue to operate, non-union and managerial employees are going to have to get raises.
Don’t expect a Conservative government press release ever to boast that managers at places like Alberta Health Services and Covenant Health, post-secondary institutions, the Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Commission, Alberta Innovates, Alberta Pension Services Corporation, Special Areas Board, Travel Alberta and the Workers’ Compensation Board are finally going to get meaningful pay increases.
But that’s what it means.
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