Todd:No wage cuts in pay equity proposal

IQALUIT – Civil servants whose jobs may be reclassified to a lower pay rate won’t have their salaries cut, Finance Minister John Todd told MLAs last week.

Todd is proposing to introduce a new job classification system to bring pay equity to GNWT employees.

A skeptical Jane Groenewegen, the MLA for Hay River, however, wanted to know if employees whose positions are reduced on the pay scale would have to take a salary cut.

“[I] think there is a government term. They say they ‘red circle,’ which means that if a person is in a job, while they are in that job, they remain at that pay level they are at,” Todd explained. “Should they leave and the job was readvertised, it would be readvertised at a lower pay level.

“[T]hose whose jobs have been reclassified down should have nothing to fear because, as I said, and I am going to repeat it again, the pay level will remain the way it is while they are in that job.”

Todd presented the new job classification system to the Union of Northern Workers this Monday as negotiations for collective bargaining began.