By Emily Maloney
The 2014 Ontario sunshine list, which documents public sector employees who make over $100,000 annually, was released Friday morning.
Ontario Power Generation CEO Tom Mitchell tops the list making $1.56 million in 2014.
“The people of Ontario have a right to know how their dollars are being spent. Ontario has the leanest government in Canada while still providing high-quality public services that people can rely on,” said Deb Matthews, President of the Treasury Board in a press release.
The list features 386 members of the Humber College faculty, with the highest salary going to the college’s President Chris Whitaker, who took home $425,282.23 last year, not including taxable benefits.
“The people of Ontario have a right to know how their dollars are being spent” – Matthews
But Robert Mills, Chief Stewart of Local 562, the union that represents Humber College faculty, was not impressed with how much top administrative staff were making.
thesunshinelist.com
“I don’t think any community college president is worth a half a million dollars, I don’t think any vice president (of a college) is worth $300,000,” said Mills.
Mills said there are so many on the list from Humber because a lot of the tendency of faculty to stay on with their departments for years.
“There are a lot of long-term employees here who have reached the maximum [pay scale], so that will automatically give them the minimum of $103,000 a year, which puts them into the sunshine list. There will be some who will reach up to about $107,000 a year. They’re coordinators who do extra work and they get an added benefit,” he said.
But many instructors at Humber are not full time employees and work instead on short term contracts. Contract staff includes part-time, sessional, and partial load employees.
These employees are paid by the hour and though partial load employees can be unionized the other two types are not and are poorly paid, said Mills.
“I don’t think any community college president is worth a half a million dollars” – Mills
“All contract faculty: sessional, part-time, partial load are paid only for their teaching contact hours…many of them have two or three jobs because they are only paid for the six or eight or 12 hours that they’re in here,” said Mills.
Contract employees must also pay for benefits if they want them, he said.
Part-time Humber College staff declined to comment, citing “contract renewal” as their main issue for staying silent.
Mills said he isn’t surprised because “there is a real climate of fear amongst contract employees about what they can say and how active they can be on their own behalf.”
Check out the full Humber College Sunshine list here:
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