Alberta cabinet minister Thomas Lukaszuk says the launch of the new sunshine list is a complicating factor in government negotiations with public sector unions, though he believes the tensions between the two sides has eased.

The Tory government and the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees are embroiled in a bitter dispute over a new contract, that has included the government legislating a two-year wage freeze on the AUPE.

The sunshine list, which details the compensation of government employees who make over $100,000, drew attention when it was released last Friday for the hefty salaries and benefit packages of senior civil servants and political staffers within Premier Alison Redford’s office.

“Is it making the discussion more difficult? It makes it more awkward, there’s no doubt about it. But we’re dealing with different job descriptions with different roles,” Lukaszuk, the chair of cabinet’s public sector bargaining committee, told reporters Thursday.

The union has noted that only 88 of 22,000 AUPE members made the list of 3,100 civil servants earning more than $100,000 in 2013.

Lukaszuk said it’s only natural for union members to look at the sunshine list, which contained revelations such as the $342,630 earned by executive council deputy minister Peter Watson and $357,706 taken in by Redford’s chief of staff, Farouk Adatia.

“We’re all human beings, I don’t know if you did but I had a propensity to get on that site for five minutes and see who makes what,” he said.

But while public servants need to be compensated fairly, the proper comparison is with similar positions in other jurisdictions and in the private sector, said Lukaszuk.

The furor over the sunshine list has been accompanied by public anger over the $45,000 cost of Premier Alison Redford’s trip to South Africa for Nelson Mandela’s funeral.

Redford said Wednesday she was surprised by the cost and would not have gone if she had known.

Lukaszuk said “the noise” around such issues isn’t helpful in contract negotiations but did not think there is a broader political impact.

“We have shown fiscal prudence in the last budget,” he said.

“These situations, the premier has already spoken to it, they are not reflective of what the cabinet’s position is on moving forward with finances. We know we have to live within our means.”

The Tory government recently pushed the deadline for a negotiated settlement with AUPE from Jan. 31 to March 31 and appoint a new bargaining team in a move that represented an olive branch to union members.

A Court of Queen’s Bench judge had last week moved the deadline to Feb. 14 while he considered the request for a longer delay to enable the union to challenge the constitutionality of Bill 46, the Public Service Salary Restraint Act, which would have imposed one per cent raises in each of the last two years of the contract.

Lukaszuk said that “a better option” remains on the table.

“I am glad that some of that visceral language that was thrown around at Christmas and the outright refusal to come to the negotiating table has changed.”

jwood@calgaryherald.com