EPCOR Executive pay keeps pace with EPCOR bills!

Edmonton is showing us exactly what is wrong with the privatization of essential services. First the city privatized EPCOR and over the years it has slowly been adding services that they once provided to their portfolio. Everybody understands that the difference between a public service and a private service is that one is required to make a profit while the other one is required not to. There is no place where this is better illustrated than EPCOR.

Every working family knows that the cost of their bills are skyrocketing, but what they may not know is that those rates and unexplainable fees are going towards paying salaries that are widely out of pace with not only the public sector but also private sector comparators. All the while the same old song is playing for working families that “there is no money for a raise” and that “ever increasing rates are just a cost of doing business”. The fact is, it doesn’t have to be.

The extremely high and ever increasing pay rate of EPCOR executive and board members doesn’t need to be and it doesn’t need to be paid for by the working families of Edmonton. City Council can reverese the direction of requiring working Edmontonians to create a profit for the endless desires of millionairs and bring more services back in house to ensure that service NOT profit is the motive. There is absolutely no reason why EPCOR’s Executive salaries be six times larger than their public sector equivalents and part time board members making salaries well past the six figure range.

We call on the City as the sole shareholder of EPCOR to rein in their excessive compensation and ensure that Edmontonians get the services they deserve at a price that is reasonable.