AUPE president Guy Smith rejects wage talks with Alberta premier

Guy Smith, president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE), disputes statementsfrom Premier Jim Prentice that public sector workers are the highest paid in the country.

While he hasnt come right out and said it, Prentice appears to want wage concessions from unions such as AUPE to help ease Albertas financial woes.

This week, the premier saidteachers, nurses and government workers are the highest paid in the country, a situation he says is unsustainable in light of an expected $6 billion shortfall due to crashing oil prices.

Smith says the premier is wrong and is lumping highly paid bureaucrats with frontline staff.

Id like to deal with facts, not rhetoric, he said, adding that his disputes Prentice's claim that AUPE members are the highest paid civil servants in the country, "and in fact are not a drain on the Alberta government.

Prentice said he would like to talk to unions about what is possible but Smith said he isn't interested. The collective agreement is in place until 2017 and he doesn't want to reopentalks.

It took a lot of struggle to get that into place and I think Premier Prentice would even recognize that we were put through the wringer by the previous premier, Smith said, referring to the contentious labour bills Alison Redfords government tried to pass.

I dont think hes a man that wants to rip up contracts. I think he has integrity and were very much on the way to rebuilding a broken relationship and I hope we can maintain that.

In a conference call with reporters from Houston, Prentice refused to answer whether he was considering wage rollbacks or not.

All he would say is that discussions are underway about the government's financial troubles and the need for fiscal restraint.

Were all in this together" Prentice said. "There needs to be burden-sharing in terms of how we achieve expenditure reductions and revenue increases and that has to start with the employees of the Government of Alberta and weve begun those discussions.