Federal workers' buy-outs could reach $2B

By Greg Weston, CBC News  Posted:Mar 12, 2012 9:03 PM ET

The Harper government's plan to slash an estimated 30,000 public service jobs over the next three years includes hefty golden handshakes that could leave some federal workers laughing all the way to the bank.  For instance, CBC News has learned that a public servant laid off after only one year in the government will be entitled to a severance package of almost six months' pay, plus up to $11,000 to go back to school for a couple of years. The Canadian Taxpayers' Federation isn’t impressed. "Public service severance packages are far out of line with anything in the private sector," the federation's Derek Fildebrandt said. "It's far out of line with Canadians' reasonable expectations." Private-sector employers commonly offer laid-off workers a couple weeks of severance for every year they have been with the company, Fildebrandt said. But federal public servants whose jobs are declared no longer needed will be offered special buy-out packages of up to 82 weeks of pay, depending on length of service, plus an array of other benefits.
For instance:

• Workers with 15 years of service and an annual salary of $70,000 will be entitled to a severance cheque equal to 66 weeks of pay, or almost $90,000.
• Workers with 29 years of service will be entitled to the maximum severance of 82 weeks.
• Workers over age 55 will be able to take early retirement without the usual pension penalties, a break that could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to some retirees.
• Government retirees will also receive full severance cheques.

The entire program of buy-outs is expected to cost Canadian taxpayers more than $2 billion. (more)