The eight-year agreement giving provincial payroll rebates to IBM started on November 1, 2012, a week before premier Darrell Dexter made the deal public. The Coast acquired that agreement through Freedom of Information legislation.
But citing provisions in the legislation that protects “information that would reveal the substance of deliberations of the Executive Council or any of its committees,” the copy of the agreement given to The Coast is highly redacted. For instance, an entire introductory paragraph is omitted. (See the document here)
Still, we have learned new details. In order to earn any payroll rebates for the first year of the agreement, IBM must have its new office up and running by October 31, 2013. The total amount that could be rebated to the company is $14,240,000, representing eight percent of the salaries and benefits for the qualifying employees. And the only employees who will qualify are those hired from out of province, or those who have graduated from a Nova Scotian university within the previous year. In order to qualify for the rebates, IBM must pay those employees at least $50,000 annually.
The rebates will not apply to any of the 76 provincial SAP workers who accept job offers at IBM. Seventy-three of those employees had until last Thursday to accept or reject the jobs, but three were on maternity or other leave and were given until December 21 to make the decision, says Finance Department spokesperson Michelle Lucas. Until then, the department will not say how many took the offer. Under union rules, those who do not jump to IBM will have rights to maintain jobs with the province, and so will possibly bump government employees with less seniority out of their jobs.
And IBM is “still working through location details,” for its Halifax office, IBM spokesperson Carrie Bendzsa tells The Coast.
This article appears in Dec 20-26, 2012.
This is turning into quite the mess. I was onboard with it and am still on board with outsourcing, if done correctly. But this deal is horrible. Seems like there were a lot of back door deals done to get this done.
Sounds like a very reasonable deal. What is “a real mess”?
And the only employees who will qualify are those hired from out of province, or those who have graduated from a Nova Scotian university within the previous year. In order to qualify for the rebates
This is the mess part They should be getting rebates for hiring from in province not from out of province
This is the mess part They should be getting rebates for hiring from in province not from out of province. This my friend is the real” government greed” in action. Post your place of residence as Nova Scotia on your tax return no matter where you worked before and all of the with held income tax money is paid to the province of Nova Scotia . That will go to pay for fat assed Corbetts T bone steaks and weekly trips to Cape Breton via Air Canada so that he can diddle the missus. That is if someone else has not beat him to the punch.
Now that we have IBM active in the province we should ask them to look at another issue. They could introduce a system where Doctors and Pharmacies have to enter prescriptions electronically, this will track who is over prescribing, patients who are doctor shopping and maybe put a dent in the abuse of our taxpayer funded system.
The rebates will not apply to any of the 76 provincial SAP workers who accept job offers at IBM. Seventy-three of those employees had until last Thursday to accept or reject the jobs, but three were on maternity or other leave and were given until December 21 to make the decision, says Finance Department spokesperson Michelle Lucas. Until then, the department will not say how many took the offer. Under union rules, those who do not jump to IBM will have rights to maintain jobs with the province, and so will possibly bump government employees with less seniority out of their jobs. It would be easier to part the waves in the harbor than to have any snivil servant leave their cushy jobs and have to actually produce. Sort of reminds me of a tribe of Indians, just sit on their asses all day after all the pay cheques are on automatic deposit.