Tag Archives: bargaining

FB Members Rally in Front of Morneau’s Office

Picture of demo in front of Morneau's office in Toronto stating "We keep Canada's borders safe. We deserve to be treated fairly"

On November 23, 2017, CIU and PSAC members rallied in front of federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s office, in Toronto, to tell the government that FB members deserve to be treated fairly. Among the members present were CIU 1st VP Mark Weber, Toronto Branch President Frances Baroutoglou, and PSAC Ontario Regional Exec VP Sharon DeSousa.

The FB Group is composed of more than 8,000 members working for the Canadian Border Services. These members, who have been without a contract since June 2014, protect Canada’s borders. They are law enforcement, and they deserve a fair contract!

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CBSA Continues to Push for Concessions: Union Says No

FB Bargaining: PIC Update

This week, our PSAC/CIU bargaining team for the FB group will participate in the final hearing date of the Public Interest Commission (PIC) process at the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations Employment Board (FPSLREB). In negotiations and in our PIC hearing last week, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) continued to push for concessions.

Some of these include:

  • CBSA wants to make Leave Without Pay for Care of the Family “subject to operational requirements”. Also CBSA is proposing to increase the minimum leave period from 3 to 12 weeks.
  • Our contract states that management must provide 7 days’ notice of shift change, otherwise the employee receives time and a half for the first shift worked. CBSA is looking to reduce the notice from 7 days to 48 hours.
  • CBSA wants the prerogative to take VSSA bargaining away from local decision-making and give CBSA National (in Ottawa) the ability to take control of VSSA negotiations.
  • CBSA has made proposals to bypass the National Joint Council Travel Directive so that some employees would not receive additional compensation when “temporarily” assigned to a port other than their home port.

Our union and our bargaining team have made it clear that we are not interested in concessions. Our position with CBSA and Treasury Board is that we are looking for improvements, not steps backwards. PSAC has successfully defended our sick leave. Our team has every intention of defending our other hard-fought contract rights.

We’ll be sure to provide updates as things progress. If you have questions be sure to follow up with your CIU Branch President.

A version of this article was first published on the PSAC website.

FB Bargaining Team Makes Its Case Before the PIC

FB Bargaining: PIC Update

As per the Public Service Labour Relations Act, our FB bargaining team filed for conciliation earlier this year when it became clear that the employer was not prepared to seriously address our issues, including parity with other federal enforcement agencies. With the Public Interest Commision (PIC) mediation attempt having failed in October, we proceeded to hearing on November 2 and 6 at the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations Employment Board (FPSLREB).

Over the course of these two days, our bargaining team made our case for compensation parity with other law enforcement agencies across Canada, including other federal agencies under the Ministry of Public Safety.  We also made the case – repeatedly – that there are serious problems at the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and that in light of these, we seek new rights for employees particularly as they pertain to discipline, hours of work and arming. CBSA management is not to be trusted. We need new protections.

On the afternoon of November 6, the employer began presenting Treasury Board/CBSA’s case. The employer responded to our wage position by stating that it is inappropriate to compare members of the FB bargaining unit – including Inland Enforcement, Investigations, Intelligence and Border Services Officers – with other large law enforcement organizations such as municipal, provincial and federal police forces. The employer also indicated that there are no recruitment or retention issues at CBSA.

We do not agree. From CBSA YouTube recruitment videos to skeleton staffing at ports of entry to officers being asked to handout recruitment flyers to the public at certain ports, clearly there are recruitment and retention problems at CBSA. As for comparator groups, our position is that a majority of PSAC/CIU members at CBSA are armed law enforcement personnel with police powers, and that compensation needs to reflect this reality.

A final hearing date is scheduled for November 23. We wish to thank the officers from the Ottawa area who came and joined our team at the recent hearings. We’ll be sure to provide updates as things progress. If you have any questions, please contact a member of our bargaining team, or go to psacunion.ca/employer/fb-group.

A version of this article was first published on the PSAC website.

FB Mediation Talks Break Down

FB Bargaining

Our PSAC/CIU bargaining team for the FB group filed for a Public Interest Commission (PIC) earlier this year when we reached impasse in negotiations with Treasury Board/CBSA.

At the end of May the Public Service Labour Relations and Employment Board (PSLREB) appointed a Chair of the PIC. Subsequently the Chair set dates for the PIC process – October 17th and 18th, November 2nd, 6th and 23rd.

Once the dates were set our bargaining team and the Treasury Board agreed, with the support of the Chair, to use the first two dates (October 17th and 18th) to engage in mediation in order to make progress on the issues outstanding. It is common during PIC or arbitration processes for there to be mediation at the outset.

Unfortunately we made no progress in mediation, with Treasury Board and the CBSA demonstrating no movement on the issues raised by our team in bargaining, including critical matters related to wages, hours of work, discipline, leave and protections for our jobs.

As a result, mediation talks have broken down and our team is now preparing to go to hearing at the Labour Board in two weeks.

Our union and our bargaining team remain committed to achieving a fair contract for PSAC/CIU members in the FB bargaining unit, one that addresses the issues we’ve raised with respect to achieving parity with other law enforcement agencies.

We’ll be sure to provide updates as things progress. If you have questions be sure to follow up with your CIU Branch President.

A version of this article was published on the PSAC website. You can also download the PDF version (bilingual document).