Following a outright offensive email blast from Kelly Block, Conservative MP for Saskatoon - Rosetown - Biggar, announcing "federal public sector employee productivity to be tracked", PSAC member Jesse Todd, Agriculture Local 40022, took pen to paper to teach her what it means to be a civil servant. Read the original message below.
Good Morning Ms. Block,
I am writing to you to give you some perspective on what it means to be a civil servant in Canada these days. I am a federal civil servant and a member of the Public Service Alliance of Canada. There have been a number of attacks over recent months on the union that I am proud to be a member of. I can and will continue to fight those battles with my brothers and sisters. I am not writing to debate these issues with you at this time.
I have watched colleagues lose their jobs since the 2012 budget. I have seen the stress that comes when an individual is forced to compete for the job that they have been doing for the better part of their adult working life. I have seen the look on a persons face when they find out that they will no longer have a job in mere months. This has been the story over the last 14 months working as a civil servant.
The result has been that those of us that remain are now forced to do more work with less resources. We are forced to train industry in order to take over our jobs. We are expected to teach these people that are only in it for the money how to do a job that we have taken so much pride in doing for so many years. It is hard to be proud of the direction that the program is going. It is heading down a road where farmers are going to be taken advantage of in the name of the almighty dollar. It will no longer have anything to do with the quality of Canadian grain products and our reputation.
We have continued to struggle on with our reduced workforce and the burdens of the program changes that were made in 2012. Our work ethic and pride in what we do has kept us going. However, there have been a couple of events that have shaken that pride in the last couple of weeks. First, civil servants were called out by Tony Clement in the media and yourself in your newsletter as poor performers and that we had better shape up. We are being treated like thieves that are stealing from the public coffers on the coattails of some of the largest scandals in Ottawa that this country has seen for quite some time.
Second, we were able to kick off National Public Service Week with another announcement from Mr. Clement that accused us of abusing sick leave. For someone that has been fortunate enough to not need much sick leave over my career, I am very grateful that I have it in the event that I do get really sick one day. Taking this away from civil servants as if it is something that they stole is just another way to make them feel less worthy of the benefits that they have worked for.
With these couple of statements being made around National Public Service Week, civil servants are getting fed up with their employer. People that hardly complain have taken a stand and they are saying enough is enough. For someone that only won the last election by less than a 2% margin, you would do well to take into account how many civil servants are in your riding because your performance review is coming up in 2015.
Sincerely,
Jesse Todd
Saskatoon, SK