Author Archives: Pierre St-Jacques

Statement on the Death of Fellow Border Service Officer at Work

It is with heavy hearts that we announce that on the evening of September 23, 2016, we lost a fellow Border Service Officer. Our Union Brother was found deceased at work, in the CBSA employee area in Terminal 3 of the Toronto Pearson Airport.

The death of a member is difficult for all, and CIU offers its deepest sympathies and most sincere condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of the deceased. CIU recognizes the impact of this sad event on our community, and we encourage all who are affected to seek the support they need in this difficult time. Should you or any other member you know require Employee Assistance (EAP), please call 1.800.663.1142 (TTY for the hearing or speech impaired: 1.888.384.1152).

PSAC National President Continues to Work Toward Fair and Complete Phoenix Compensation

For months, we’ve been hearing from many of our members about the difficulties they’ve faced as a result of ongoing problems with the federal government’s pay system. Our members who were not paid accurately or on-time have faced penalties, interest charges and exceptional fees.

Compensation: The committee tasked to deal with Phoenix-related compensation, co-chaired by PSAC National President Robyn Benson and the Secretary of the Treasury Board, meets today to further discuss optimizing the compensation process, and the right to grieve inaccurate and/or untimely pay if necessary.

PSAC continues to advocate to make the compensation process as fair as possible. The Treasury Board’s offer to compensate public service workers for Phoenix-related losses came in the wake of PSAC demands and a court application filed by PSAC and several other public service unions.

Following today’s meeting, we will provide a comprehensive update on the compensation system for our members. The claim form for compensation can be found here.

Minister Foote faces heated questioning: The Minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada appeared before a Parliamentary Committee yesterday, where she faced pointed questions about her handling of the Phoenix debacle. Watch her testimony, and that of other witnesses, here.

This article was originally published on the PSAC website.

Treasury Board Bargaining: Liberal Government Still Using Conservative Agenda at Bargaining Table

When PSAC returned to the bargaining table with Treasury Board on Tuesday, we expected to hear the Liberal agenda. Instead, this government continued to push the Conservative agenda in negotiations.

“Under the Liberals, Treasury Board has had five meetings with us, and almost a year, to improve their offer to reflect Prime Minister Trudeau’s promise to show respect for the public service,” said Robyn Benson, National President of PSAC. “We are frustrated and disappointed that we did not see the movement we expected this week. We are close to the end of the road.”

Despite their commitment to “sunny ways,” the government continues to send all the wrong signals at the bargaining table, and in regard to the flawed Phoenix pay system. This week, at the Unfair Labour Practice hearing, a government witness laid blame for the Phoenix pay system debacle on the impacted employees themselves, rather than taking responsibility.

No future bargaining dates are planned at this time and we will be preparing our next steps. PSAC remains open to negotiations, but only if the employer will make substantive changes to their offer. “After 26 months of negotiations, we want a collective agreement,” said Benson. “But our members deserve better than what we continue to see from the Liberals.”

For more information on the issues raised at individual Treasury Board tables, visit the pages for EB, FB, PA, SV and TC bargaining.

PA Bargaining: No Movement from the Employer

The PA bargaining team has done everything possible to try and negotiate an agreement with Treasury Board. But the employer came to the bargaining table once again without a mandate to negotiate with us on any of our major issues. It was the 11th bargaining session in this round, spanning 26 months since the parties first exchanged bargaining demands in July 2014.

Our bargaining team represents approximately 70,000 members – the single largest bargaining unit in Canada. We have tried repeatedly to involve our Treasury Board counterpart in serious discussions about high priority items identified by our membership, including updating the antiquated classification standards, minimum standards of work for call centres, work-life balance, and appropriate compensation, among other issues.

Two years, no contract: The employer told us last week that they could not respond to our general economic proposals, saying they have not completed their “comparative pay study,” despite the fact that members have been working without a contract for more than two years.

In the one move of any significance last week, Treasury Board did provide a counter-proposal on the Memorandum of Understanding on Occupational Group Structure and classification reform tabled by the union in July 2014. We are reviewing that document.

In addition, Treasury Board did formally withdraw its intention to limit retroactive pay to one year. Our bargaining team reviewed outstanding issues and tabled language to renew the Joint Learning Program.

Liberal government, Conservative agenda: Despite their commitment to “sunny ways,” the government continues to send all the wrong signals at the bargaining table, and in regard to the flawed Phoenix pay system.

Given that our employer is unwilling to make any significant movement on our demands, we have unfortunately reached the end of the road. We cannot set any further bargaining dates when Treasury Board is not taking members’ priorities seriously.

See the PSAC website for information regarding bargaining proposals.

FB Bargaining Update: Wages and Hours of Work Dominate Discussions

Our FB Bargaining Team spent this past week in negotiations with Treasury Board/CBSA.

Wages: In bargaining we re-iterated our position with respect to compensation. CBSA is a law enforcement agency and employees should be compensated accordingly.

Astonishingly, the government asked about whether there are recruitment and retention problems at CBSA. With CBSA at the table on management’s side, we pointed out that recruitment and retention problems are such that CBSA has created YouTube recruitment videos and are asking officers to handout recruitment pamphlets to the public at POE’s and visit colleges to promote CBSA.

We made it clear that CBSA should be advocating for appropriate wages and working conditions for its staff, and that we have no interest in a settlement that doesn’t address the lack of parity between CBSA workers and those at other federal law enforcement agencies. We expect a response when we meet next.

Hours of Work – Shift Work and Compressed Work Weeks: This past week, we discussed our proposals to enhance rights and protections for shift workers, including the elimination of potential ‘6 and 2’ schedules being implemented by management. We are also raised our demand for fairer rules with respect to employees having the opportunity to relocate to different ports. With respect to day workers, we again reiterated our proposals to introduce protections against management unilaterally revoking compressed work weeks.

Sick Leave: Our position on the employer’s Short Term Disability Plan remains unchanged but we continue to seek either a renewal or improvements to the current sick leave regime.

We indicated to management that we are ready to meet again and are expecting answers from them on key issues that we’ve raised in this round of bargaining, including our proposals on telework and enhancement of protections for front-line officers in the context of firearm recertification and control defence tactics training.

For more information concerning FB negotiations and our next scheduled bargaining dates, be sure visit the FB Group bargaining section on the PSAC website.

Download the PDF version of this update (bilingual document).