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Federal News Radio
No buyout? Move
to Buyoutland, Canada
By Mike Causey
May 6, 2016
Want to hang out with movie and TV stars like Whoopi Goldberg, Rosie
O’Donnell and other A-listers? Or at least remain as close to them as
you are now? If so, consider moving to Canada. They — and many other
celebs — have threatened to leave the U.S. of A., forever if
Republican-heir apparent Donald Trump becomes president. Or join Alec
Baldwin who moved there (or said he was going to) when George W. Bush
was elected. Other stars have opted for other places (Samuel L.
Jackson, South Africa). But for most it’s Canada. Whatever, the point
is they are outta here if you know what happens.
So what about you? Are you chopped liver?
Make a plan. Take a stand. It doesn’t have to be political. Make it
about money. Your future.
What if you are an underpaid, disappointed, not-getting-any-younger
American civil servant? You’re sick of working, not thrilled by your
Generation X coworkers and fed up with furloughs, shutdowns and being
bad mouthed by politicians. Seriously, isn’t it time you too draw a
line in the sand? Issue a my-way-or-the-highway demand to politicians
and the public. What if you are too threatened to move to Canada if
your federal agency doesn’t give you a buyout by, say, January at the
latest? That is not as silly as it sounds.
The buyout package for Canadian civil servants is much more generous.
How does $70K to 90K (Canadian) sound to you? Eh!
In the U.S., the maximum buyout a federal worker can get now is
$25,000. And that’s before those nasty deductions for things like
federal and state taxes, FICA and whatever. The Defense Department has
asked Congress to sweeten the buyout deal by raising the maximum
payment (again before taxes) to $40,000. Defense wants to trim its
civilian (and military) workforce, and thinks a buyout would be the
least painful way to do it. If it has to RIF (fire) employees, the
last-hired people will be the first fired. The $40K proposal has a
long, long way to go. But IF it happens, IF being the operative word,
it would likely be extended to other agencies. Meantime, back to Canada.
In 2012, the government decided it needed to eliminate 10,000 civil
service jobs a year, for a three-year period. Being Canada, it didn’t
want to fire people. Instead, the government proposed giving many civil
servants (the word bureaucrat is probably illegal there) up to six
months’ salary as a severance or buyout package. The Canadian
Broadcasting Company at the time reported that for some long-time
senior feds the package would be equal to between 66 and 82 weeks of
pay. The so-called “golden handshake” would also give departing civil
servants up to $11,000 that would pay for school or retraining.
Workers whose jobs were to be abolished who declined the buyouts would
have 365 days to find another government job and those who took lower
paying jobs would continued to be paid at their old (abolished job)
salary.
Oh, Canada!
Although many Americans think of Canadians as our cousins with better
manners, there was some backlash then, even up there. One hothead with
the Canadian Taxpayers Federation said the sweet buyout proposal for
Canadian civil servants proved the government was part of the problem,
not the solution. Sounding like a lot of Americans, he said that “lots
of people in the private sector have been through difficult times” but
didn’t get the golden handshake proposed for government workers.
Like the U.S. government, the Canadian civil service had its own
downsizing buyout program in 1995. The good news, as reported by the
CBC, is that 44,000 civil servants left after being offered even more
generous buyout packages. The not-so-good news after the buyouts came
from the Auditor General, the equivalent of our Comptroller General. He
said that many employees left their jobs, cashed their severance
cheques (remember, this is Canada where they speak real English) and
came back, into government, as consultants.
Read this and other articles at Federal News Radio
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