Oh those fat cat public sector workers.
Last week we wrote about the ongoing campaign by right-wing organizations to portray the public sector as lazy, overpaid, and pampered.
The problem is, it isn’t really true.
The latest look at this issue is by the independent federal Parliamentary Budgetary Office in response to a request by the NDP’s Paul Dewar (MP – Ottawa Centre).
Let’s first go to the big raises our federal cousins have been hauling down. From 2001-02 to 2011-12 the net raise (after inflation) amounted to $130 million on a 10-year payroll of $354 billion. That’s NOT annual. That’s cumulative.
That means effectively federal wages were stagnant for much of the last decade, even though the first half saw decent economic growth.
If you break it down further, the last five years have seen a net loss in real wages relative to the consumer price index.
OPSEU Diablogue 