Wage increase can’t be justified, MLA Jason Stephan tells nurses
Today the United Nurses of Alberta (“Union”) held a protest at my MLA constituency office.
Protests should be honest; without disingenuous distortions of facts, or attacks on persons instead of policies where genuine differences of opinion may exist.
In the recent salary arbitration, the Union asked for a 3% increase. The independent arbitrator stated “no change in wage rates is justified … particularly given the prevailing general economic conditions in the Province.”
The arbitrator was right. Out of Government, Alberta businesses and families must limit spending to their incomes; in Government, public sector salaries should respect taxpayers and not impose structural billion-dollar debts and deficits upon our children. That is in the public interest.