Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Let me say from the out set, what we have tried to do in this latest run of advertising questions in the House and interviews we have had is: one, provide some clarity to the issue; two, provide some facts and give some factual, chronological overview of where we are and why we are where we are at today. I hope I can reassure the employees. I understand that the union is out there suggesting our position is meaningless. I have said consistently we have to stop the rhetoric and get down to the bargaining table. We are judged based on what we do, not what we say. I am telling this House and our employees, those employees under the job evaluation system whose job may be reclassified down, will be red-circled. There will be no loss in pay. As a matter of fact, most of the female gender, pay will increase. We will put more money into the hands of our female employees, which they rightly deserve.
--Applause
If somebody who moves from a job that has been reclassified into another which has been reclassified downward, then they will get that pay level... let us say an employee is classified at pay level 25 and it gets reclassified to pay level 22, they will be red-circled at 25, which means they will continue to get their salary at pay level 25.
However, if they move to another job which is at pay level 22, they will move to pay level 22. This is my understanding of it. As far as I am concerned, this government has dealt with pay equity in a fair and reasonable way. I want to say again for the record, I want to say this to the employees directly, nobody, absolutely nobody who is in the system right now will lose money in their current job. In fact, most of them will gain more money. We have to get beyond this kind of rhetoric that we have consistently seen and get on to a meaningful dialogue and negotiate. This side of the bargaining table has not used rhetoric. This side of the bargaining table has said we want to negotiate a reasonable settlement. This side of the bargaining table has put what we think we can afford and the reasons why the job evaluation was done. We want to get on with resolving this issue in a reasonable and fair way and get to the negotiating table and bargain to put more money into the hands of our employees, both on the retroactive side and on the ongoing side.
I sincerely hope that our UNW colleagues, who I see as our partners in this process, will agree with that and get on with negotiating. Thank you.