Vancouver 2010 employees got a new year's surprise this week.
A memo from VANOC workforce executive vice-president Donna Wilson announced a pay raise "for the final months of this project, starting Jan. 1."
"As many of you know, the current economic times have challenged our creative thinking as an (organizing committee)," said the memo, obtained by 24 hours. "Notwithstanding the times we're in, at the end of 2009, the VANOC board of directors approved a 1.5 per cent salary increase for all VANOC employees."
Wilson encouraged the workers to "cherish these last few precious moments. Be big, be bold."
Wilson told 24 hours that the increase covers only VANOC's permanent workforce.
"It's just a small token of the value and support we want to show those employees that have been here quite some time," Wilson said.
The pay raise last year was two per cent. VANOC employees who work through the Games are already eligible for shares of a $30 million severance fund intended to prevent premature departures. Olympics minister Mary McNeil "will not have a comment on this issue," said B.C. Winter Games Secretariat communications manager Greg Dickson.
"There's no restraint when it comes to VANOC," said Maureen Bader of the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation.
Bob Mackin reports for Vancouver's 24 hours.
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Ramona777
2 years ago
Who's Paying For the Raise?
I can't believe it. Why a raise? Aren't they getting bonuses too?
When BC - with one of Canada's highest costs of living - sits at the bottom of the minimum wage scale and these over-indulged, self-congratulating VANOCers give themselves a raise, it's another slap in the face to the rest of us working stiffs.
How do you fight this selfish, mean-spirited government and its puppets?
rebkay
2 years ago
setting the record straight on bagels
I know your feedback function was cut off for features, but this is too much: claiming that the modern bagel was invented in America? please!...My parents were both Holocaust survivors from Poland, and 'frische baygalach' were common street food in the Yiddish world of Eastern Europe before it was destroyed 1939-45. I know N. Americans with pre-WWII roots in the new world like to take credit for everything, and think the Yiddish world was like Fiddler on the Roof (perhaps it was, sometime in the 19th century; by the 1930s it was sophisticated, vibrant, cultured, literary, politicised -- there were more Yiddish dailies in Warsaw in the 1930s than there were English dailies in New York at the same time).
So yes, eat bagels, bake them, enjoy -- as a former Montrealer I say go for it! -- but don't appropriate and then forget the destroyed culture and world out of which they came.
Curt
2 years ago
A memo from VANOC workforce
A memo from VANOC workforce executive vice-president Donna Wilson announced a pay raise
I have to wonder what the executives received? Did they also receive 1.5 the 'workforce' received, or is their's different?
realisticman
2 years ago
What's next?
We'll get some goyisch wiseacre hawking ham and cheese on a bagel and calling it a 'Typical Montréal Deli' sandwich. Oy vey!
freebear
2 years ago
F&%$K VANOC!
Just Premier Campbell's cronies sucking on the taxpayer's 'golden' teats!
realisticman
2 years ago
Who is VANOC
The Vancouver 2010 Board of Directors is made up of 20 members nominated by: the Canadian Olympic Committee (seven); the Government of Canada (three); the Province of British Columbia (three); the City of Vancouver (two); the Resort Municipality of Whistler (two); the Canadian Paralympic Committee (one); a joint appointment by the Band Councils of the Lil'wat and Squamish Nations (one); and one member nominated by the other 19 members.
DPL
2 years ago
Who really cares who is on
Who really cares who is on the board, they all all at the trough. I rather doubt that the IOC actually selects the board members as they fly in first class of course every once in awhile
crankypants
2 years ago
Amazing
Maybe those that are making minimum wages in Metro Vancouver should approach their employers for a similar consideration, and if they are refused, then resign en masse. They are only going broke working for the lowest minimum wage in Canada anyway, so why prolong the inevitable.
Jeffrey J.
2 years ago
"Just a Small Token"
A telling comment from VANOC that a pay raise of 1.5% percent is just a token. I agree. It's meaningless. So how about a token 1.5% raise in minimum wage? It's merely a token, and would help us recognize all the people who work day in, day out, in poverty.
And what is the response from the BC Government about this token? Omigod. NEVER. It would wipe out all of BC's retail sector. Terminate BC's economy instantaneously. The end of the world as we know it.
So I guess pay raises aren't tokens after all.