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Hundreds of Saskatchewan government workers are expected to rally in front the Legislative Building on Wednesday, a day after Premier Brad Wall asked them to reduce their compensation costs by 3.5 per cent.

Facing a $1.2-billion deficit, Wall has stated for about three months he wants to reduce the cost of the public sector, which employs 64,426 people, in the 2017-18 fiscal year, which starts April 1.

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Now he is giving a target of how much he wants that reduction to be.

“We’re not negotiating the target. We’ve set it. We want to achieve 3.5 per cent worth of savings, and now we want to allow the collective bargaining process to work its way through to achieving that target,” he said Tuesday.

Twenty-five of the province’s 40 public-sector unions already are, or will be, negotiating contracts this year.

More than half — 36,877 — of public sector workers belong to one of those 25 unions.

That, for Wall, is an alignment of the stars: He needs to find money to combat the budget and, conveniently, has several contracts up for negotiation.