Author Archives: Pierre St-Jacques

FB Team Spends 7 Days in Contract Talks

Starting Friday June 17, our FB Bargaining Team spent 7 days in negotiations with our employer. Here’s a summary of issues that were discussed during that period:

Pension Commitment: At the outset the Treasury Board indicated its position that collective bargaining is not an appropriate venue for pension reform discussions and that the concerns raised by PSAC and CIU with respect to an early retirement plan should happen elsewhere. Our Team made our union’s position clear – we seek a written commitment from both Treasury Board and the CBSA supporting the introduction of a retirement plan that is consistent with what is in place at other law enforcement agencies.

Wages: We proposed a market adjustment to take effect the first day of our contract that would peg the FB wage scale to that of an RCMP Constable 1st Class. We have also tabled a paid meal period, consistent with standards common in the broader law enforcement community.

Hours of Work – Shift Work and Compressed Work Weeks: This past week, we made 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 seeking fairer rules with respect to employees having the opportunity to relocate to different ports. With respect to day workers, we have proposed protections against management unilaterally revoking compressed work weeks.

Increased Protections: We tabled proposals to enhance protections in our collective agreement for front-line officers in the context of firearm recertification and control defence tactics training. We also re-iterated the importance of new protections against CBSA management in the context of discipline.

Workforce Adjustment: We discussed the questions raised by the employer on our proposed changes to the Workforce Adjustment Appendix and continue to strive to make improvements. We reiterated our position against the contracting out of work. Many unions have identified this issue as a major concern in this round of bargaining.

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 expecting answers from them on key issues that we’ve raised in this round of bargaining. 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).

Take Part in the June 8 National Day of Action!

With major issues still on the bargaining table and seemingly little interest from the Employer in reaching a fair agreement, the five PSAC bargaining teams ‎(FB, PA, TC, SV, and EB) have agreed to hold a National Day of Action on June 8, 2016 in the form of coast-to-coast lunch hour pickets. The CFIA bargaining team, CFIA members, and National Joint Council Unions will also be participating.

Our goal is to show visible support for the bargaining teams and make sure that the government, Treasury Board and all Employers, including CBSA, know that members are mobilized and expect more from them on issues such as 25 & Out, Sick leave, and Protection in the context of discipline.

CIU/PSAC encourages everyone to participate but recognizes the challenges associated with a lunch hour picket for shift working members. If it is not possible for you to attend a lunch time event being held at your work location, we invite you to wear your orange badge and be creative in showing support for your bargaining teams. No workplace is too big or too small to participate! Please contact your Branch President for more information regarding the Day of Action.

Push continues for ’25 and Out’ Retirement Plan: Campaign for pension reform underway on several fronts

Last month, the Public Service Pension Advisory Committee (PSPAC) met to discuss retirement-related issues in the public service. The PSPAC is the body that provides input concerning the managing of public service pension funds. It includes several unions and Treasury Board representatives.

In the meeting the PSAC successfully pushed to have early retirement reform for Border Services employees and Department of Defence Firefighters (also PSAC members) prioritized to be addressed by the committee. Dates for follow-up meetings have not yet been set.

In a recent meeting with Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, CIU National President Jean-Pierre Fortin raised the need for there to be pension reform for CIU-PSAC members working at CBSA. The same message was communicated in a recent meeting with newly-named CBSA President Linda Lizotte-MacPherson.

PSAC National President Robyn Benson and Jean-Pierre Fortin also spoke recently with Treasury Board President Scott Brison to impress upon the government the importance of this issue to our union and membership.

At the bargaining table, our FB Bargaining Team continues to push for a commitment from CBSA and Treasury Board in support of an early retirement regime for CBSA employees. In light of the work that we do, and the employer’s legal duty to accommodate, we believe that such a retirement arrangement is not only in the interest of employees of the FB group, but also the Agency.

We call on CBSA and the Treasury Board to support the amending of our pension plan so that we might have access to the same retirement benefit as other federal workers who are required to maintain similar physical standards. It’s in the best interests of everyone involved – union members, the government and CBSA.

We’ll be sure to provide update as things progress. For more information, contact your Branch President or go to ciu-sdi.ca or psacunion.ca/employer/fb-group.

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

PA Bargaining: “PA Bargaining Team Tackles Many Fronts”

Child care: In negotiations this week with Treasury Board, our PA bargaining team called for the employer to join PSAC in a national joint committee to tackle the issue of affordable and accessible child care for all federal public service workers.

Public Works has been slowly ending subsidies for day care centres operating in several federal government buildings across the country, in some cases for more than two decades.

As an example, the Tupper Tots daycare in Ottawa closed its doors in 2014 after its rental subsidy was pulled. Today, the daycare at the Guy Favreau building in Montreal, and several others, are in jeopardy of closing, leaving potentially hundreds of parents who are federal government workers without childcare.

With a proposal that is common to all PSAC Treasury Board bargaining units, our bargaining team called on the employer to come together with the union over the life of the new agreement to examine options for providing appropriate day care facilities.

Definition of family: In a related vein, the bargaining team also reviewed with Treasury Board our proposal to expand the definition of family. We also proposed to remove language in the definition prohibiting an employee from accessing bereavement leave or family-related leave for any other relative for whom the employee has a duty of care unless that relative resides in the same household. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has found such language to be discriminatory, although Treasury Board is appealing that decision. We pointed out that the NJC Relocation Directive has already been amended to remove this discriminatory language.

Professional development: The PA team also proposed a Memorandum of Understanding for professional development of Parole and Program Officers at the Correctional Service of Canada. We explained the need for these members to have appropriate opportunities for professional training and development.

Leave: We also pressed for a Compensatory Leave provision as per the provision signed off at the TC table a full year ago, allowing employees up to 18 months to use compensatory leave before it is cashed out.

We also offered a Memorandum of Understanding requiring the employer to disclose what the operational needs are, should it refuse leave requests due to “operational requirements.

Whistleblowing: We also discussed the need for whistleblowing language to be enshrined in the Collective Agreement to protect employees who report wrongdoing.

Sick leave: Our position is that we continue to seek either a renewal or improvements to the current sick leave regime.

General economic increases: All PSAC tables proposed a general economic increase of 3% per year this week. This is in addition to the allowances and market adjustments that our team has or will be making in subsequent bargaining sessions.

Workforce adjustment: We discussed our proposed changes to the Workforce Adjustment Appendix. The employer’s bargaining team had a significant number of questions about our proposals that we will respond to in our next meeting. We reiterated our position against the contracting out of work. Many unions have identified this issue as a major concern in this round of bargaining.

See the PSAC website for information regarding bargaining proposals.

FB Bargaining: “We Expect More from CBSA”

FB Team takes CBSA and Treasury Board to task over heavy-handedness of CBSA management.

Our PSAC/CIU Bargaining Team met with CBSA and Treasury Board in Ottawa this week to continue contract talks.

At the outset our Team raised with the employer that, in light of the ongoing disrespect shown by CBSA management towards PSAC/CIU members at CBSA – from rampant, frivolous disciplines to denied vacation leave requests to issues concerning hours of work at the local level – there will have to be new protections for union members in our next contract. We deserve respect for the work that we do.

Management rejected our proposal to beef up the legal indemnification policy and put it in the collective agreement. We told management that we are holding to our position, and that CBSA cannot be trusted to act in the interests of officers that may be subject to the legal indemnification policy.

The government’s proposal concerning our sick leave is fundamentally unchanged. Our position regarding sick leave is that we have no interest in agreeing to any concessions.

All PSAC tables proposed a general economic increase of 9.27% over a 3 year contract (3% per year) this week. This is in addition to the allowances that our team has proposed, and in addition to the market adjustment and other economic proposals that we’ll be making in subsequent bargaining sessions. Our objective is to achieve parity with the broader law enforcement community.

We discussed our proposed changes to the Workforce Adjustment Appendix. The Employer’s bargaining team had a significant number of questions about the Union’s proposals to which we will be responding at our next meeting. We reiterated our position against the contracting out of work. The Employer acknowledged that concerns about contracting out have been expressed by many unions in this round of bargaining.

We have a week of bargaining scheduled in June and are pushing for additional dates. We’ll be sure to update as things progress. For more information and to see our proposals and those of the government, please see the following page on the PSAC website.

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