On November 7 the PSAC Prairie Region hosted a telephone town hall with thousands of PSAC members across Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
Thousands of PSAC members across the Prairies joined the live and interactive telephone town hall about the government's latest omnibus budget bill, Bill C-4, which proposes to radically change our rights as federal public service workers.
A mix between one big conference call and a radio talk show, this telephone town hall was intended to give you the information you need and help you understand how this new legislation will affect you. And just like a talk show, members on the call had the opportunity to ask questions live on air.
Bill C-4 is all about making it easier for the government and Treasury Board to come after us in the next round of bargaining and to strip away our long-standing negotiated rights.
Our guests on the call included PSAC Regional Executive Vice-President for the Prairie Region, Marianne Hladun; Edith Bramwell, PSAC Representation Coordinator; and Denis St-Jean, PSAC National Health and Safety Officer.
If you missed the call, you can listen to everything you missed right here. The audio from the call has been divided into three YouTube clips to help make it as easy to use as possible.
The three sections are:
- Introductions - Our guests are introduced and they each give a brief overview about their respective areas of expertise, including collective bargaining, health and safety and political action. Listen for an explaination about how this new legislation will affect you, your health and safety at work, and your bargaining rights in the next round of negotiations.
- Questions - We take questions live on the air from PSAC members across the Prairies. Listen to some of the questions and concerns from other PSAC members and how our guests respond.
- Polls - With the ability to ask the thousands of PSAC members on the call polling questions to help us better understand concerns, we asked callers about sick leave, health and safety issues, and political action. Listen to the discussion about the results.