'If you work for an MP who won by 200 votes' in 2006, you're nervous: staffers
The Hill Times, October 13th, 2008
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Hundreds of staffers across the country will be watching the election results nervously. When their bosses get the boot from federal public office, they lose their jobs too.
By Abbas Rana
Hundreds of political staffers in Ottawa and across the country, who have invested emotionally in the election campaign, will be watching Tuesday's election results anxiously because if their bosses are defeated, they lose their jobs.
"All staffers are nervous unless you're working for some guy who won by 70 per cent, you're always nervous. If you work for an MP who won by 200 votes, you have to be nervous. For ministerial staffers, you are thinking whether your guy is going to win and whether he's going to be back in Cabinet. Is he going to be in the same position in Cabinet? So there's all kinds of uncertainty," said one senior Cabinet staffer last week.
"You're sitting there wondering if you're going to have a job the next day. You've invested a lot of emotional capital into the campaign. You've probably invested time and effort, money into the campaign either by giving up part of your job or giving up your job for a certain amount of time during the campaign, or by giving money to candidates or the party. If the race is close, you're nervous, you're down, you're emotionally invested in the outcome."
Some 33 incumbent MPs are not seeking re-election in this campaign. Generally, each MP has four full-time staffers, including two in the Hill office and two in the riding office under the MPs' office budgets, which run between about $280,500 to $339,360 depending on the riding's population and landmass. Automatically, an estimated 132 Hill and ridings office staffers are expected to lose their jobs on Tuesday.
But political staffers who lose their jobs will also likely be rehired by other and new MPs too.
"It's like anywhere else, if you're good at your job, you won't be unemployed for long. A political party is a family and, like all families, they spend an inordinate amount of time talking about one another. So everybody knows who is moving, who is going where. We have our own internal Hill Climbers and 'Hill Tumblers,' so we know who is moving where."
As well, there are also about 380 Cabinet ministerial and secretary of state staffers and an estimated 90 PMO staffers.
Other Hill staffers told Hill Climbers that experienced Hill staffers will be snatched up by new MPs because they "know their way around" the Hill and the legislative process.
"Newly-elected MPs tend to hire experienced staffers. It's important because new MPs don't know their way around on the Hill but experienced staffers know how the legislative process works and who specifically to call if the MP needs any help. New MPs usually need help in putting together their [SO-31] statements, speeches, communication material and committee work," said one Liberal staffer who requested anonymity.
If the staffers are not hired back, they also have good job prospects in the private sector too.
Before the Tories won the last federal election in January 2006, former Cabinet staffers were allowed to work as lobbyists or were given preferential treatment in the federal bureaucracy, but with the Federal Accountability Act (FAA), Cabinet staffers can't work as registered lobbyists for five years, and no political staffer has any preferential treatment to join the public service.
Exempt political staffers work at the pleasure of Cabinet ministers and due to the inherent uncertainty in the nature of their jobs, staffers are entitled to separation and severance pay if they lose their jobs. According to Treasury Board guidelines, Cabinet ministers set how much separation pay a staffer gets and it could be "a maximum of up to four months' separation pay." Severance pay, according to Treasury Board guidelines, "is calculated at the rate of two weeks' pay (based on salary at termination) for each year of service."
Staffers who work for MPs are also entitled to separation and severance pay. According to the Commons Board of Internal Economy guidelines, if an MP loses an election, the staff are entitled to 60 days of separation pay. They are entitled to two weeks of severance pay "for the first completed year of continuous employment and one week's pay for each succeeding complete year of continuous employment to a maximum of 28 weeks upon termination."
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