Dear friends,
 
March is a critical month for Treasury Board Bargaining. I have recorded a video which you can see here detailing where we are at, but in a nutshell I can tell you:

• The government offered you a 2 year wage freeze and we said "hell no". 
•  We went back to the table the week of Feb 11th. This resulted in only minor improvements to their offer, so its time to send Treasury Board and the federal government a message.  
• On Feb. 28th - the third Anniversary of the Phoenix pay system disaster - PSAC members will be taking action in Ottawa.
•  MP’s will be home in their ridings for the first two weeks of March and we need to make sure every MP in the Prairies hears from you before we go back to the bargaining table the week of March 18th.  

Thank you to everyone who entered the PSAC - Prairie Region Member Contest!

On January 31st, three members (one each from Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba) were selected in a random draw from all entrants to the Member Contest.

PSAC - Prairie Region is pleased to congratulate Elaine Gariepy from Edmonton, Alberta; Bobbie-Jo Knorr from Warman, Saskatchewan; and Joanne Campbell from Shilo, Manitoba!

We are now in the process of delivering their selected prizes, up to a value of $500.

Once again, thank you to everyone who participated!

The 2018 Prairie Region Health & Safety Conference was held November 17-18, 2018 in Saskatoon.

Over the course of two days, members participated in three workshops, including;

• Duty to Accommodate; People with Mental Health Disabilities
• Psycho-social Hazards and Mental health Issues in the Workplace
• Mobilizing Workplaces Through Health and Safety Issues

On Saturday, the keynote speech was given by Chalaine Senger, a registered social worker who is employed as the

Workshop materials and plenary presentations are available at the link below.

Click here

Recording of Treasury Board Bargaining Webinar

Please see the recording of the January 10th Treasury Board Bargaining Update Webinar, hosted by Marianne Hladun. And thank you to Bargaining Team Members Nestor Galarnyk and Dawn Staruiala for your contributions! Plenty of excellent questions and good discussion as we get ready to move forward for a fair deal for our members.

Click here to see video . . . 

In January over 1,000 people joined the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour to Fight for $15!

The campaign to win a $15 per hour minimum wage in Saskatchewan got a lot bigger in January, as over 1,000 people joined the SFL Fight for 15.

“We worked with students on campuses in Saskatoon and Regina to help win the Fight for 15. I’m excited that nearly 1,000 students signed postcards to the provincial government, asking that Saskatchewan raise its minimum wage,” said Saskatchewan Federation of Labour (SFL) President Lori Johb, “the students, combined with dozens of online sign-ups, means the Fight for 15 gained over 1,000 members in January alone. This is in addition to hundreds of signatures that were collected on an earlier Fight for 15 petition. It’s clear Saskatchewan voters want a $15 per hour minimum wage,” she added.

Read more . . . 

2019 marks the 100th Anniversary of the Winnipeg General Strike, a crucially important event in the history of our labour movement and our country.

MFL President Kevin Rebeck has an article about the Winnipeg General Strike in the latest edition of Perspectives, published by the Canadian Teachers' Federation.

Click here . . . 

Last week (January 24, 2019), you announced a new pilot program to “enable smaller communities to enhance their economic, social and demographic vitality.”

If your government is a friend to rural Canada, it will come as a complete surprise to our members.

We would like to draw your attention to the fact that you presided over the closure of the Case Processing Centre (CPC) in Vegreville, which has devastated the local community and forced your employees to relocate to Edmonton or face a commute of over 100 kilometres each way. The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) urged your government to abandon this shortsighted decision for months and years – and yet you chose to remove a high-performing office from a rural community. The CPC had been a cornerstone of the community for over 20 years. With 250 workers — about five percent of the town’s population — it was one of the town’s largest employers.

Read more . . . 

Three years after the launch of the Phoenix Pay System, thousands of PSAC members continue to be plagued by pay problems: they are underpaid, overpaid or not paid at all.

On this third anniversary of Phoenix, PSAC members will come together to further increase pressure on the government for urgent action. On February 28, PSAC will hold a rally in the National Capital Region to kick off a series of escalated actions around the country in demand of: more concrete action to reduce Phoenix cases; a real timeline to end these pay nightmares; and damages to compensate the hundreds of thousands of public service workers who have been impacted.

Read more . . . 

The latest statistics, confirmed by over 160,000 employees who completed the survey, make it clear that the Government of Canada owes its workers compensation for the many hardships they have endured and will continue to endure for years to come.

Key findings:

• 68% (110,000) had their pay directly impacted – 18,000 to a “very large extent”
• 65% (70,500) of workers say pay problems have not been resolved
• 79% of respondents experienced stress because of Phoenix pay problems. Just over 29,000 people reported that they experienced a “very large extent” of stress as a result of Phoenix.
• 22% (35,500) workers delay advancing their careers because of Phoenix (e.g., deployment, promotion, secondment, assignment, acting assignment) because they were concerned about the pay problems that might ensue if they did
• 44% (50,000) said their departments did not help them enough to deal with Phoenix problems
• 63% (68,624) of workers are still unhappy with the response from the pay centre
• Tens of thousands of workers’ experience multiple pay problems

Following more than six months of frustrating talks and delays by the government, PSAC bargaining teams representing 90,000 members finally received some responses to the union’s proposals this past week. The government’s small movements were a noticeable change from previous meetings but they fell significantly short of the progress needed at the table.

Bargaining teams reaffirmed a range of proposals for improving working conditions while also discussing the government’s counterproposals around work-life balance—including compassionate care, bereavement and parental leave—as well as general economic increases.

“We’ve made it clear to the Trudeau government that we expect new Treasury Board President Jane Philpott to have a mandate to reach a fair deal with us,” said PSAC National President, Chris Aylward. “These recent talks were a small first step in that direction, but we expect far more progress at our next session.”

Read more . . . 

On 15 February 2019, an Arbitration Board issued its final, binding decision on outstanding issues pertaining to negotiations for the Regional Offices (RO) and Field Interviewers (FI) bargaining units of Statistical Survey Operations (SSO).

Two important gains were awarded by the Board:

1. New language in Article 2 (Definitions) requiring the employer to provide, in a letter to employees, an explanation for changes to an employee’s Average Work Week (AWW); and
2. In addition to the 1.25% annual economic increase for the four year collective agreement, there is now a 4% market adjustment applicable to all rates of pay, effective December 1, 2016, and applied prior to the 1.25% economic increase for that year.

The Board granted the employer 120 days—i.e., until June 16—to implement the retroactive pay and 4% market adjustment for all members of both bargaining units.

The arbitration award lists all items settled by the parties prior to the hearing under Annex A. The award states that "all items, whether agreed to by the parties or awarded by the board, are effective the date of the award unless specified otherwise." In other words, the terms of new collective agreement are in full effect as of February 15, 2019.

PSAC is now working with the employer to proofread all changes in the new agreement prior to signing and distributing it to members.

Read more . . . 

At the end of the last bargaining session with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) the PSAC/UTE bargaining team declared impasse and filed for the creation of a Public Interest Commission with the Public Service Labour Relations Board.

Bargaining commenced with the Agency in June of last year. At the outset of negotiations, and in every session since, the union made clear to the CRA the key priorities for this round of negotiations:

• Protections against excessive term employment, along with more permanent jobs and income security. 

• Protections against the expansion of shift work, as well as new rights for employees scheduled to work evenings. 

• Increased work-life balance, with an emphasis on improved access to leave. 

• Improved conditions for call centre workers, including scheduling rights and better protections. 

• Union rights in the workplace, consistent with what other federal employers have agreed to.  

The bargaining team reiterated these priorities again during the January 2019 bargaining session.

Read more . . .

For two years, almost 200,000 federal public service workers have been underpaid, overpaid or not paid at all under the Phoenix pay system. These are their stories.