(PHOTO BY SEAN McKIBBON)
July 21, 2000
SEAN McKIBBON
Nunatsiaq News
|
IQALUIT — The territorial government may have to hire new employees for almost all of the 72 positions to be decentralized to various communties this year, says the president of the Nunavut Employees Union, Doug Workman.
Aug. 8 is the date by which Nunavut government employees whose jobs are slated for decentralization must decide if they will move with their jobs. Workman says those decentralized employees are leaving the Nunavut government in droves.
He estimates that fewer than 10 of the 72 decentralized jobs would move out to the communities with workers in them.
"There are people who are upset, because they really enjoy their job, but given the current collective agreement they aren’t prepared to make the move to a smaller community," Workman said.
He said if there were vacation travel assistance or a better cost of living allowance, some of the employees might have been willing to make the move.
"Some of our staff they’re not waiting around for job action or collective agreements, they’re getting on a plane and leaving," he said.
Some of the positions were empty to begin with, Workman said, but he doubts that the government will have an easy time filling them.
"Some of these positions are really specialized, [and] need extensive training and experience," he said. "I think they’re going to be really hard-pressed to find anybody locally."
He said the large number of employees slated for decentralization are choosing to retire, quit or transfer to other positions within their departments. He says this could hurt the government’s ability to provide services and make it hard to attract new employees.
"If they’re having trouble recruiting and retaining staff now when they’re in Iqaluit, what is it going to be like when the positions are in the communities?" Workman said.
"Certainly the long-term goal would be to have more Inuit working in the government. But you need training and better benefits to make sure they’re not part of the group we call the working poor," he said.
Rather than jumping into decentralization in its second year, the Nunavut government should have waited until it was staffed at a level closer to 100 per cent capacity before decentralizing, and then decentralized gradually through attrition, Workman said.
He cited money available for ultimate removal to employees who have worked in the government eight years as a possible deterrent to transferring to a place like Iqaluit.
"I think it’s $10,000 is ultimate removal after eight years," said Workman. He said a person with a family of four or five children could easily use up the money just moving from Pond Inlet to Iqaluit.
He said there will be even more competition for workers when the federal government sets up shop in Nunavut.
"Our current salary and benefits package doesn’t allow for decentralization right now," he said.
The territorial government has been operating at around 55 per cent capacity since its inception he said. Only the 100 per cent staffing levels among teachers have buoyed the government’s staffing numbers said Workman.
Warning: include(/magma/users/u42/nunatsia/php/mainfooter.php) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/web/nunatsiaqonline/html/archives/nunavut000731/nvt20721_04.html on line 96
Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening '/magma/users/u42/nunatsia/php/mainfooter.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/share/pear:/home/web/nunatsiaqonline/html/pub/php') in /home/web/nunatsiaqonline/html/archives/nunavut000731/nvt20721_04.html on line 96