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As we flail managers in the public sector for their annual bonuses, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives reminds us who is hauling down the really big bucks at everyone’s else’s expense.

In 2011 Canada’s top 100 CEOs – all of them in the private sector – earned an average of $7,695,625 in compensation. By comparison, the average Canadian wage was $45,488, and if you are a woman, it would be $39,136. In our sector, the median salary for a hospital CEO in Ontario is $266,000.

The CCPA notes that Canada’s top 50 CEOs made 235 times more than the average Canadian in 2011. The staggering growth in inequality is reflected in this figure – in 1995 the top 50 CEOs made 85 times the average pay.

While we think of public sector compensation as being at our expense as tax paying citizens, clearly these staggering levels of compensation are reflected not only in the goods and services we buy as consumers, but also are reflected in costs directly borne by government. Consider 36 per cent of Ontario government spending is directly in the private sector for everything from construction costs to the gas in the vehicles of conservation officers.

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Provincial PC leader Tim Hudak’s war on unions is based on an overly simplistic theory that lowering workers’ wages and benefits will retain and attract new business to Ontario. This dramatic surge in new businesses will eventually lift the wages of all workers as demand for labour rises and the market economy takes over.

Of course, if he’s wrong, it could badly damage the standard of living for most workers in the province, drive up the deficit as lower paid workers pay less in taxes, and undermine critical infrastructure that really attracts companies to locate here (such as health and education). It would also surely drive up health care costs given the substantial evidence linking income levels to health status.

Given the high stakes, you’d think the Tories would take a close look at the evidence before taking such an extreme ideological hard-right position.

Unfortunately for Hudak, most impartial analysis suggests undermining unions and lowering wages has little effect on creating jobs or spurring economic growth. For some U.S. States that have gone down this road, it has actually led to a decline in jobs and industry locating there.

Let’s face it — if your goal is to make Ontario a low wage destination, you have a lot to compete with already, including 24 U.S. States that have preceded Ontario with such legislation. But even those low wage states are losing jobs to China and Mexico. Paul Monies, a Oklahoma business reporter, notes that “right-to-work laws are a welcome mat for companies who care most about low-wage, unskilled labour and who are committed to a region only until they are able to relocate someplace where the laws protecting workers are even weaker.”

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