graders/snowplows

[cowman]

grader operators were guaranteed a certain amount each month in our county but they had to come in to the shop everyday for four hours and also had to work on brushing and sign crews when they weren't operating graders. It worked well and the older, experienced operators were retained in the system. Now some of them have retired but they are still back at an hourly rate in the summer to cover off vacations etc.

[cowman]

emerald: I find it pretty amazing that your municipality would give their employees a 19% raise? Are they unionized?
Red Deer county gives their employees a cost of living raise each year on Jan. 1st. This year it was 3.5%? Last year it was 3%? Councillors get the same raise every year.

[cowman]

I am disgusted with the raise given here, the outside staff are unionized the inside workers are not, and they get the same increase, as does council who is already being paid in the top rate of all municipal councillors across the province.
The CEO here has this new council bamboozled and he advised that if they didn't increase the salary by a significant amount they would lose all the staff to industry !!! The staff were in the upper end of municipal salaries as it was.

[cakadu]

3.5% is not too bad considering some don't see anywhere near that and as far as I know they aren't unionized. Don't forget that our councillors voted themselves a 47% raise just over 2 years ago now.

[cakadu]

The former council here voted themselves a huge raise on compensation, but to the credit of the current council they did review it and take a decrease after the last election.

[cowman]

Linda: Apparently county council went to this system of yearly cost of living raises so they wouldn't have a massive raise like the one you refer too? There was a lot of complaining when they did that?
Also my "inside man" informs me the staff got an additional across the board raise of 3% in the fall of 2005 after a labor consultant recommended they were being paid less than their counterparts in surrounding municipaities!