While I expected BCGEU president Darryl Walker to disagree with our piece on the government-private sector pay gap, I didn’t expect such an anaemic response from the union boss. Apparently, even he knows he doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on. Let’s dissect his letter to the Times Colonist today:

Walker: The poll commissioned by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation begins with a false and unsubstantiated premise that inevitably elicits the response this business-funded lobbying group sets out to find.

CTF: The poll speaks for itself. There is no false premise—think tank and academic studies confirm there is a premium for working for government. And the usual tripe about us being funded by business is laughable—he should do his homework, starting with this graphic. Remember: we don’t extort or demand dues—the 18,670 donors (99% of whom give less than $1,000) who voluntarily support the CTF do so because they value our work.

Walker: The B.C. Government and Service Employees' Union will never apologize for the fact that some lower-paid government workers earn more than the lowestpaid private sector workers.

CTF: Thank you for confirming our point.

Walker: However, many of the members I represent would be happy to be paid at private-sector wage rates. For example, when our Commercial Vehicle Safety and Enforcement workers moved to the Insurance Corp. of B.C. and the private-sector job-evaluation plan, they received wage increases in excess of 20 per cent.

CTF: Government employees can be paid at private sector rates any time they want. Just go to the private sector—but obviously the grass isn’t as green in the private sector as Walker claims. Further, ICBC is still a Crown Corporation. It’s not a private sector company.

Walker: When the B.C. Safety Authority was moved to the private sector, these members also received substantial increases.

CTF: The BC Safety Authority changed eight years ago (way to stay current). Further, the B.C. Safety Authority isn’t a pure private sector business—it has legislated authority and customers that must use it under provincial law (I’m sure every business would love to have the government legislate customers for them!).

Walker: If the taxpayers federation was truly interested in saving money, it would support our ideas to increase government revenues. At the very least, it should stop vilifying public service workers and belittling the important work they do in our province.

CTF: We know how unions like to raise revenues; BC Teachers Federation president Susan Lambert clued British Columbians into that spin—by cutting our pay through increased taxes. As for vilifying public sector workers, this article does nothing of the sort. We merely object to paying as much as 2.8 times more for liquor clerks in the government system. A job moving a bottle across a cash register scanner, or putting it on a shelf, is simply not worth paying  someone $28 per hour.