COMMENT: Government workers earn more than private sector workers

First the good news.

You, Joe Farmer, are among the hardest workers in this country. Take pride in your enviable work ethic and that hard-earned virtue of perseverance. Take a bow. I salute you, tip my hat and raise my glass.

Now the bad news.

You private sectors work the hardest but government employees get more pay, better benefits, work shorter hours and have better pensions or simply have pensions. And since government doesn’’t generate wealth, — government employees get paid mostly by the money generated from the private sector — it means government worker’ benefits come from your hard work.

The Vancouver-based think-tank, the Fraser Institute, reported last month that according to a 2013 Statistics Canada labour force survey, government workers in Ontario, including municipal, provincial and federal government workers “receive 11.5 per cent higher wages than comparable workers in the private sector.”

Here’s how well government workers are doing:

• 77.3 per cent of government workers in Ontario are covered by a registered pension plan compared to only 25.6 per cent in the private sector.

• Government workers retire 1.4 years earlier.

• Government workers are five times less likely to lose their job.

• Government workers miss 10 days of work on average per year for personal reasons, compared with seven days for private sector workers.

Before you pour yourself a pity-me drink, don’t forget the upside. You don’’t commute, you’’re not confined to a cubicle, you don’’t have to take sensitivity training, you don’’t pay union dues and you don’t have to exaggerate or explain when people ask you what you do for a living.

— — Patrick Meagher