Responding to staff about media speculation on public sector salaries

Media reports on public sector salaries may be stirring up concerns among staff at your FHT.  To help you respond, this e-mail gives you a brief summary of what’s being reported, and what AFHTO is doing about concerns over inequity in compensation. Headlines on the Toronto Star and National Post websites this evening (Jan. 24, 2012) leave the impression that public sector salaries are at risk in the upcoming budget.  This is following from Premier McGuinty’s speech today to the Canadian Club. Spurred by PC Leader Tim Hudak’s comments to the press last Thursday, on Friday, CBC radio and other on-line reports fuelled speculation that the current freeze could be extended. To date government has not committed one way or the other. FHT staff and managers are very concerned about inequities in compensation across health care. This fact emerged quite clearly in last fall’s survey of interprofessional primary care organizations (FHTs, Community Health Centres, Aboriginal Health Access Centres and Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinics), conducted jointly by their representative bodies – AFHTO, the Association of Ontario Health Centres and the Nurse Practitioners Association.  Over 85% of EDs of primary care organizations identified lower compensation as one of the 3 main reasons potential candidates turn down job offers, and about half report this as being one of the 3 main reasons for staff leaving the primary care organization. Our three associations have been raising this issue at various levels in the Ministry and the Minister’s Office.  We are scheduled for a joint meeting on February 9 to review the findings from our study with the ADMs of Negotiations and Accountability Management Division and Health Human Resources Strategy Division.  Once we have reviewed the findings with the ADMs, the three associations will share the report with our respective members. While media reports are raising a lot of speculation, the key message for FHT staff is that it is only speculation at this stage.  AFHTO continues to give priority to advocate for compensation funding to recruit and retain the staff needed to deliver interprofessional primary care. The current economic situation means that achieving equity in compensation will be an incremental process.