Prison Guard Wage Arbitration Reveals Broken System

This column was published in in the National Post. The Ontario government's decision to send a wage dispute with its prison guard union to binding arbitration has resulted in guards getting a 4.4 per cent raise in 2017. It's part of a trend that has put upward pressure on public-sector wages, with police, firefighters and now doctors all getting hefty pay increases in recent years. In the January Memorandum of Settlement, the government traded the prison guard union's right to strike for the right to have wage disputes determined by a third-party arbitrator. By deciding to send future wage disputes to binding arbitration, the government has ceded control to third parties who have historically shown little deference to the government's ability to pay for wage hikes.