Public Service Alliance of Canada BC

Ottawa – The Public Service Alliance of Canada is encouraging opposition members to remove legislation from the budget bill that would prevent women in the federal public sector from demanding equal pay for work of equal value.

The 166,000-member union is concerned that the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act will remove women’s ability to file pay equity complaints, making the process even more difficult than the current complaints-based system.

The “pay equity” bill is part of the omnibus Budget Implementation Act (Bill C-10), which was tabled on February 7, 2009. PSAC refutes the notion that this legislation is “proactive,” given that it ignores the recommendations made in the well-respected 2004 report from the federal Task Force on Pay Equity. The union contends that the new scheme would make a bad system much worse, removing pay equity’s status as a human right and opening it up to market forces.

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Vancouver International Airport union demands independent inquiry into snow removal problems at YVR after learning new details concerning a jet crash in an early January snowstorm and damaged caused by plowed snow, while landing on runway that should have been closed; union releases crash photos

Vancouver – A union representing hundreds of workers at Vancouver International Airport is demanding an independent inquiry into snow removal problems at YVR after learning new details of a jet crash during a snowstorm in early January.

A Mexican-registered Cessna Citation 650 business jet with five people on board crashed off Runway 12 after landing in a snowstorm at Vancouver at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday January 4, collapsing its nose gear when it went through 18 inch deep plowed snow alongside the runway edge lights, according to a report from Transport Canada’s Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Reporting System (CADORS).

But original YVR reports to the media said the nose gear “collapsed after landing” and did not mention that the nose gear was broken by the heavy, ploughed snow, says Stephen Dunsmore, Regional Vice-President Pacific of the Union of Canadian Transportation Employees – a component union of the Public Service Alliance of Canada. The union is also releasing photos of the jet crash on the PSAC BC website at www.psacbc.com.

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Union will challenge wage roll backs and the destruction of pay equity

On Friday, February 7, the Conservative government introduced an omnibus bill to implement the provisions of the federal budget that contains two “poison pills”: legislated wage rates for federal public sector workers and a problematic overhaul of federal pay equity legislation.

PSAC is committed to fighting wage legislation that would affect any of our members – especially if it threatens free collective bargaining. We also oppose changes to legislation that would undermine pay equity as a human right and make it much harder for women to demand equal pay for work of equal value.

Wage roll-backs

Bill C-10, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on January 27, 2009 and related fiscal measures, legislates national rates of pay of 2.3%, 1.5%, 1.5% and 1.5% from 2006-2011, for employees of Treasury Board and all other government-affiliated agencies.

The bill explicitly states that it will roll back any wage increases that differ from this formula, stating that they “are of no effect and are deemed never to have had effect.” (19 b)

This would directly affect PSAC’s members at the Canada Revenue Agency, who negotiated wage increases of 2.5% for 2007, 2008 and 2009. Bill C-10 would effectively break their collective agreement and override the 2009 wage increases that they freely and fairly negotiated with the federal government.

PSAC is convinced that Bill C-10 violates a 2007 Supreme Court of Canada decision that found free collective bargaining to be encompassed and protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The union will challenge Bill C-10 and its impact on workers at the CRA and elsewhere.

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OTTAWA – The Public Service Alliance of Canada is challenging the federal government’s definition of employee, claiming it denies certain federal public service workers the freedom of association guaranteed under section 2(d) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The definition of employee in the Public Service Labour Relations Act (PSLRA), excludes student, casual, and short-term workers from access to collective bargaining under the Act. This provision prevents these workers from becoming union members and denies them access to the collective bargaining process contrary to the freedom of association guarantee in the Charter. PSAC, the largest federal public service union in Canada, has filed its case at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

“It is time for the Federal Government to accept that the Charter is for all members of Canadian society including federal public service workers,” PSAC National President John Gordon says. “For the Federal Government to deny any worker a fundamental freedom guaranteed by the Charter sends the message that the Federal Government believes the Charter can be ignored. We do not agree and we intend to fight for the right of these workers to become union members and to bargain collectively with their co-workers.”

But PSAC commits to fighting federal wage legislation that would affect any of our members and threaten free collective bargaining

On January 27, the Harper government renewed its intention to introduce legislation to control the wage increases of federal public sector workers. This legislation – as alluded to in the federal budget — would cover the federal public administration, establishing wage increases of 2.3 per cent for 2007, and 1.5 per cent for 2008, 2009 and 2010. While the definition of ‘federal public administration’ has yet to be clarified, what is clear is that the federal government wants to clamp down on any spending which it can control.
PSAC can confirm that the recently ratified Treasury Board agreements for the PA, SV, FB and EB groups would not be subject to the legislation.

That’s because the economic increases contained in these agreements match those outlined in the federal budget: 2.3%, 1.5%, 1.5% and 1.5%. These agreements, as well as the many others negotiated in November 2008, all contain the government-mandated economic increases. More information on these negotiations can be found at the national website.

What we are concerned about is the possibility of wage roll-backs for any of our members who negotiated higher wage rates than the ones stipulated as “mandatory” in the federal budget. The November 27, 2008 Economic and Fiscal Update strongly indicated that negotiated collective agreements with a higher wage increase in 2009 and 2010 would be rolled back.

The January 27th budget is somewhat less clear. But the government’s recent announcement that it would roll back scheduled wage increases for the RCMP, combined with statements made in November by Treasury Board President Vic Toews, strongly suggest that the proposed legislation will roll back wage increases contained in previously signed collective agreements.

Any such action would violate a 2007 Supreme Court of Canada decision that found free collective bargaining to be encompassed and protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
PSAC will challenge any legislation that rolls back any of our agreements and we are working hard to find out which bargaining units will be impacted.

We will keep you up to date on this issue as more information becomes available. Members are encouraged to email their MP and the Prime Minister and tell them not to roll back fairly negotiated wage increases. Not only is this unfair – it violates Canadian law.

OTTAWA, Jan. 28  – The 166,000 member Public Service Alliance of Canada says the 2009 federal budget infringes on workers’ and women’s rights,  threatening public services at a time when Canadians need them the  most.

“This budget fails working people and threatens to undermine the public services that Canadians rely on during a financial crisis of this scale,” says John Gordon, PSAC National President. “Cutting taxes will do little to create jobs or help unemployed Canadians. Working people expected more of this budget – and we expect more of our federal government.”

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OTTAWA – The 2,100 members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) working at Canada Post have accepted the final offer tabled by their employer early morning on December 21, 2008.

PSAC members, who have been on strike since Nov. 17, had voted on December 13 and 14 to reject employer’s previous offer to replace employee sick leave and family-related leave with the employer’s poorly designed Short Term Disability Plan . This latest offer contains improvements to the short-term disability plan.

Highlights of the final offer made by Canada Post are: salary increases of 2.5% in 2008 and 2009 and 2.75% in 2010 and 2011 for a four-year contract and a $500 signing bonus.

The previous collective agreement between UPCE/PSAC and Canada Post expired on August 31, 2008, and negotiations began on June 4, 2008.

PSAC members at Canada Post provide customer service and perform administrative, financial, technical and professional duties.

OTTAWA – Canada Post is misleading employees and the public about a ratification vote on the corporation’s last offer, according to the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC). The union maintains that Canada Post made false allegations about the vote in a message posted to employees on the corporation’s website yesterday.

“Canada Post’s complaint is completely without merit and nothing but a shameful abuse of the taxpayer-funded processes of the Canada Industrial Relations Board,” says John Gordon, National President of PSAC, representing the 2,100 administrative and technical employees who have been on strike for 29 days. “More than two out of every three workers who voted rejected the employer’s last offer. Our members came out in droves to send their employer a message that they won’t back down until their sick leave and family-related leave is protected.”

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OTTAWA – Striking Canada Post workers overwhelmingly rejected their employer’s last offer in votes held across the country Saturday and Sunday.

More than two thirds voted against a Canada Post offer that would have replaced the workers’ sick leave and family-related leave with a new short-term disability system proposed by the corporation.

Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) National President, John Gordon, says the vote sends a clear message to Canada Post chief executive officer Moya Greene, her board and management team.

“In at least two letters to the Union and at the bargaining table, Canada Post management insisted that we present this offer to the members” Gordon said. “We did and the members have overwhelmingly rejected it as we knew they would.”

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OTTAWA – Contradictory messages from Canada Post make for difficult negotiations at the bargaining table, according to the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) the union representing more than 2,100 employees currently on strike against Canada Post.

“Canada Post says publicly that they don’t want to reduce the employees’ sick leave while they send emails rejoicing at the possibility of cutting sick leave in half,” said John Gordon, the PSAC National President.

Gordon was referring to a letter to the Ottawa Citizen signed by Mary Traversy, CPC Senior Vice-President Operations and Human Resources on November 26, 2008. In the letter she says:

“It (a newspaper article) wrongly declared that Canada Post wants to “roll back sick leave and eventually phase it out. The idea that we would seek to eliminate sick leave flies in the face of our history.”

This statement contradicts an email sent by Mary Traversy on November 28, 2008 to her senior management team at Canada Post. In the email, Traversy writes: “The change we are trying to make with psac (sic) could be the biggest driver of improvement we have ever seen at CPC. Imagine cutting sick leave in half!”

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The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) says the Conservatives’ plan to introduce new legislation covering pay equity for federal public sector employees flies in the face of the principles in the Canadian Human Rights Act, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well as international human rights law.

“The Harper government doesn’t want to modernize pay equity, it just wants to eliminate its responsibility for providing a workplace free of discrimination, including wage discrimination,” according to PSAC national president John Gordon.

Turning over pay equity to the bargaining table and making both the employer and the union accountable may seem like a reasonable thing to do until you consider the discrepancy between the two parties.

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OTTAWA – Finance Minister Flaherty and the Harper government would rather tinker with public sector wages than deal with the real problems facing Canada’s economy, according to the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC).

PSAC national president John Gordon reacted with anger today to Flaherty’s announcement that negotiated collective agreements and arbitral awards in the broader public sector will be rolled back and the right to strike on wages will be suspended through 2010-11.

“Negotiating with the government and agreeing to accept and recommend a wage increase as the PSAC has done over the past week is one thing, legislatively rolling back negotiated, ratified and signed collective agreements and taking away the right to strike is entirely another,” says Gordon.

“It’s wrong, pure and simple,” says Betty Bannon, president of the Union of Taxation Employees (a PSAC component), the largest group of PSAC members directly affected by the legislation. “The union negotiated in good faith, the Canada Revenue Agency negotiated in good faith, and now, a year later, the government steps in and cuts our members’ pay,” says Bannon.

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OTTAWA- Canada Post Corporation is misleading Canadians about the quality of mail delivery during the current strike by 2 000 members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC).

““We know that mail volumes are down and that there are delays as a result of this national strike,” said Lemelin. “That means people will be going elsewhere for postal services during the Christmas rush and Canada Post will be losing revenues.”

According to reports the union receives from strike locations in each province, CUPW truck drivers cross the picket lines very carefully and very deliberately and take the time to listen to information provided by the strikers.

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OTTAWA — Canada Post Corporation (CPC) is trying to use the government’s Employment Insurance program to reduce its own costs, according to the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) — the union that represents about 2,400 CPC employees.

In current contract negotiations with PSAC, CPC has been attempting to implement a new short-term disability system that would rely on EI as a major part of a new and minimal short-term disability plan. The new system would require employees to apply for EI benefits in the event of extended illness, even in cases where employees have accumulated sick leave in the “bank.”

Employment insurance is there to protect workers who are laid off, especially in hard economic times like these, says PSAC National President John Gordon. “It’s not meant to be used to bail out profitable corporations like Canada Post.”

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OTTAWA — Canada Post is resorting to unfair labour practices in its contract talks with the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) and the Union of Postal Communications Employees (UPCE), the union charges.

“Canada Post has issued misleading statements to its employees and is disregarding provisions of the Canada Labour Code,” says John Gordon, President of the Public Service Alliance of Canada. PSAC is the bargaining agent representing the members of the component UPCE.

The misleading statements identified by Gordon appear in internal communications issued by the employer about a new short-term disability system that the corporation is trying to impose on its employees in order to replace existing sick leave and family leave provisions in the collective agreement.

On its internal website, which is accessible to all Canada Post employees, the employer indicates that changes to the sick leave and family leave provisions in the collective agreement will come into effect on January 1, 2010. This statement ignores the fact that these changes have not yet been negotiated with the union.

Canada Post’s proposed changes are highly controversial. Union members provided their bargaining team with an 88% strike mandate, largely based on their opposition to these leave proposals.

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Ottawa—The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) is encouraged to hear that Finance Minister Flaherty recognizes that it would be “misguided” to avoid a deficit at any cost and encourages the federal government to focus its energy on providing assistance to the people hit hard by the current economic crisis.

PSAC represents 160,000 workers across Canada, including more than 130,000 federal public sector workers. In uncertain economic times, Canadians look to PSAC members, who are on the front lines, helping people access Employment Insurance, making sure that seniors receive their pension cheques and that laid off workers have access to retraining and adjustment assistance. They answer phone calls from people every day, who are concerned about whether their bank accounts and retirement income are secure and want to know what the federal government will do to alleviate the crisis that started in the banking and financial sector and quickly spread to the traditional economy.

“Now is the time to invest in public services and public infrastructure,” says John Gordon, PSAC National President. “Minister Flaherty’s assertion yesterday that the expenditure review process within government would be expanded to include Crown corporations and public sector compensation is alarming, especially at a time when the focus should be on how to help people and companies who are suffering from the economic fallout.”

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Ottawa—Canada Post management is bringing a group of its employees to the brink of a strike by trying to impose a new Short-term Disability System that was clearly rejected by almost 9 out of 10 of those employees. The workers are represented by the Union of Postal Communications Employees (UPCE), a component of the 160,000 member Public Service Alliance of Canada

“Canada Post recently signed collective agreements with other larger groups of employees and never imposed this ludicrous Short-term Disability System on them,” said John Gordon, PSAC National President. “Why is Canada Post trying to impose it on a smaller group of PSAC members? “He added.

UPCE-PSAC members recently voted 88% in favour of strike action against Canada Post. It was the strongest strike mandate in their union’s history. The national strike vote took place at membership meetings between October 1 and October 17, 2008.

Canada Post also tabled a meagre wage increase offer of 2.25% per year for each year of a four-year contract. The union maintains that 3% per year for a three-year contract is in line with other settlements that Canada Post has recently negotiated with other unions.

Gordon indicated that the negotiations have broken off, but that the union is ready to return to the bargaining table at any time if Canada Post decides to truly engage in meaningful bargaining.

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Employer concedes before court that contract workers are Parks employees

Halifax – Parks Canada Agency’s strategy of replacing its unionized employees with contract workers has taken three steps back.

After years of insisting that three contract workers are employees of the employment contractor, Parks Canada Agency has finally been forced to admit that the three are, in fact, Parks Canada employees. At the request of the three workers, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) provided support in taking one of their cases to the Tax Court as a test case after seeing an increase of members’ work being handed over to contract workers.

“The Tax Court, on the consent of Parks Canada Agency, determined that these workers are employees of the Agency,” said PSAC National President John Gordon. “This means that their working conditions and treatment at work should be the same as those of our union members working for Parks Canada.”

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Winnipeg – If elected, a federal Conservative government plans to stop delivering provincial meat inspection programs in Manitoba leaving local consumers exposed to the risk of unsafe meat.

The plan is revealed in a secret Treasury Board of Canada decision record, dated May 6, 2008, documenting the acceptance of a proposal concerning “Provincial Meat Slaughter Establishments (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, British Columbia)” which calls for the “elimination of federal delivery of provincial meat inspection programs.”

“Meat produced in provincially registered facilities in Manitoba would not be inspected by anyone under this plan,” says Bob Kingston, President of the Agriculture Union – Public Service Alliance of Canada, which has launched www.foodsafetyfirst.ca, a tool for voters to email their local candidates during the federal election to urge them to make a commitment to food safety. The campaign is being organized jointly with the the Professional Institute of the Public Service Canada.

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Toronto – Federal candidates across the country are being asked to make a Commitment to Food Safety as part of a national campaign launched in Toronto this morning.

“The outbreaks of listeriosis due to tainted food products have shaken the country’s confidence in our food protection system. The system is broken and needs fixing,” says Patty Ducharme, Executive Vice-President of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

The campaign features a website – www.foodsafetyfirst.ca – which allows visitors to send a message to ask local candidates to take make a Commitment to Food Safety, a four-point action plan to fix the system. Radio, print and online ads will be used during the federal election to spread the word about the campaign, as will events across the country.

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