Public Service Alliance of Canada BC

OTTAWA — The Union of Solicitor General Employees (USGE), a component union of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), is launching a campaign to stop the federal governments plan to close six farming operations run by Correctional Service Canada (CSC) over the next two years.

The Save Our Farms campaign launched a website (www.saveourfarms.ca) to provide information about the farm programs and to mobilize public opinion against shutting them down. Save Our Farms hosts an electronic petition and provides a conduit for sending protest e-mails directly to Prime Minister Harper.

Also, working closely with organizations such as the National Farmers Union, the campaign is organizing protest meetings and community support events in the communities that will be most affected by any closures. Save Our Farms also intends to pursue an Access to Information request to force the government to make public the rationale for the closures contained in the Strategic Review recently conducted by the department.

The goal is to mobilize public opinion to pressure the Conservative government to reverse an incomprehensible and short-sighted decision, says John Edmunds, USGE National President.

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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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OTTAWA – The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) doesn’t buy Treasury Board’s recent statement that they are committed to the bargaining process and achieving a fair settlement. Treasury Board has called on the union to respect bargaining dates that had been tentatively scheduled for June.

After a year at the bargaining table, PSAC is essentially in the same place as it was going into bargaining in 2007, according to PSAC’s National President John Gordon.

“In one year of bargaining, we’ve spent most of our time signing off articles in the collective agreement that are being renewed without change, or resisting Treasury Board’s attempts to reduce existing benefits,” says Gordon. “Many of the employer’s demands for take-aways are finally being withdrawn, but this only brings us back to the status quo.”

Gordon says the last straw was the unacceptable wage offer Treasury Board presented to our bargaining teams. At negotiation sessions that have been taking place over the last two weeks, PSAC members were offered increases of 1.5%. 1.5%, 1.2% and 1.2% over a four-year agreement; increases that will see the value of their salaries decrease as a result of inflation.

“Treasury Board has had ample opportunity in the last year to be more productive at the bargaining table and to negotiate towards a settlement,” says Gordon. “Given that their standard response so far has been to say no to most of our economic and non-monetary demands, another few days of meetings in June for each team wouldn’t make a difference.”

PSAC bargaining team members are now out across the country talking to members about the Treasury Board wage offer at workplace meetings, conferences and conventions, before the union returns to the bargaining table.

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OTTAWA – After a year of bargaining, negotiating teams for the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) are less than impressed with the Harper government’s wage offer tabled this week. The government has offered increases of 1.5%, 1.5%, 1.2% and 1.2% in a four year agreement retroactive to 2007.

“The government’s proposal is an insult and a joke,” says Patty Ducharme, PSAC’s national executive vice-president. “The wage offer is below current inflation and well below projected inflation rates. It doesn’t even allow our members to stand still.”

Gas prices alone have risen by over 25% over the past year and are projected to rise by another 15 to 20% before the summer is over. “A wage offer that reduces our members’ real income also has a ripple effect on sectors such as manufacturing and tourism that are already being hard hit by the high Canadian dollar and rising gas prices.”

“How does the government think it can recruit and retain workers with this kind of offer,” says Ducharme. “Wages may be moderating in the face of an economic downturn but both public and private sector wage settlements were much higher in 2007 than the 1.5% being offered by the Harper government.”

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