Table Mountains

Danny said " They’re special staff." I often hear the word "special" in my line of work. Home Support Workers in NL sometimes use it to describe their clients. I guess over the years most of us have heard the term used when describing the mentally challenged. The Premier describes himself as very demanding and i can describe a few of my clients as such. The Premier describes himself as a workaholic and i have worked with clients in a workplace who could be described the same! Your probably thinking after a few lines im comparing the premier to my clients but your wrong. You see the way i look at it Danny Williams will never be special in my books. The special people i know and work with can show love and compassion and on the end of a day think the Home Support worker who help them through life are a bit special. Were proud to be special like our clients, but i doubt if we'll see a pay raise in the annual range of 8.1 - 16.8 percent like Danny's special people.

Premier’s staffers get big pay hikes ROB ANTLE The Telegram he province’s wage-restraint program ends at the premier’s office this year. Six senior staffers received salary increases of between 8.1 and 16.8 per cent in 2007, according to details tabled with Thursday’s raft of budget documents. But Premier Danny Williams says the wage hikes were necessary to recognize both the amount, and quality, of their work. Another staffer in the premier’s office had previously been reclassified into a newly created, top-level job. “These are the kind of salaries I have to pay in order to keep these people,” Williams said Friday. The province’s unionized workers, in contrast, will get a three-per-cent wage hike this year. That follows two years of wage freezes in 2004 and 2005, and a three-per-cent hike in 2006. The Williams government legislated a four-year package on most public servants in 2004, ending a bitter month-long strike. The province’s nurses and teachers later accepted similar deals. Provincial government managers will also get the same three-per-cent raise this year, Williams said. He defended the additional cash for his senior staff, saying the bigger amounts reflect the actual responsibility of the positions. “I’m very demanding,” Williams said. “I’m not easy to work for, in the sense that I’m a workaholic. So you can’t pay people enough to work for me, I suppose, for want of a better term.” He noted that the staff are political appointments, with little job security. But the premier acknowledged that public servants — who got just a six-per-cent hike over four years — may not greet with enthusiasm the news that his key staff got up to 16.8 per cent raises in one year. “I know. And they can make that argument, then, if that’s the case. But these are political staffers. They’re special staff. They’re a staff that are my senior advisers, that are running a $5-billion corporation, from my perspective.” Most contracts between the province and its unionized workers elapse in 2008. Williams pledged that workers will get raises this time around. “You can quote me on that, and take that to the bank.” He acknowledged those raises would not be in the annual range of 8.1 to 16.8 per cent, however.