Approaches to Comparability of Total Compensation

The committee also examined methods of costing fringe benefits and expressed a preference for the simulated cost method which allows taking into consideration the composition of employment in terms of age, sex and turn-over in order to make more meaningful comparisons of fringe benefits costs between the public and private sectors.

They gave some attention to the definition of the private sector and came to conclusions which suggest that links be established to sub-components of the private sector according to the category of employees for which comparisons are made. They examined at length the way of setting up samples to obtain data on private sector salaries for public comparison and recommended that establishment of scientific samples be explored as a way to get away from some of the implications for negotiating and biases involved in the actual negotiated samples, a practice followed in both Ottawa and Québec.

The authors also pointed out the fact that the data base actually utilized was up-ward biased in its observation on private sector salaries because it did not standardize for establishment size. It also suggested a new approach to setting salaries in the public sector which would be to pay comparable workers comparable wages, whatever the sector they work in and not attempt to match like-job classifications, which is the actual approach. That calls for standardization of many characteristics of people in their occupation and opens the way for further research and possibly new approaches on total remuneration in the public sector.

During the summer and autumn of 1978, the Treasury Board in Québec set up an inter-departmental committee to examine the data bank available to the Bureau de recherche sur la Remunération of the Conseil du Trésor to determine its adequacy for the forthcoming (now terminated) round of negotiations with the civil servants.

The full report of the committee of which this is a brief summary, with a few Personal comments by its President, examined a number of questions. It focused on the problems involved in estimating total costs of employment in global terms, including fringe benefits. The authors in this document suggest including payments for over-time and other payments which the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics includes in its costs in the BRR data bank unlike the actual practice.