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Callout for Donations for the UNE Local 10206

As of Tuesday, June 25 at midnight, UNE workers from the National Battlefields Commission (NBC) based in Québec City have been on strike and are still on the picket line, while negotiating a new collective agreement.

Our members provide information, animation and general maintenance services at the Plains of Abraham and its museum.

The Union of National Employees (UNE) is 100% supporting this strike action and supportive of the bargaining demands. The members are now entering their 14th day on strike.

On behalf of the members of Local 10206, I am asking for your financial support and solidarity.

For UNE Locals, monetary donations can be made payable to the UNE National Office. Please specify by email the exact amount you wish to donate to:

  • Georges St-Jean
  • Robert Vanasse
  • This amount will be will be deducted from union dues paid to your Local by UNE.

Individual monetary donations can be made payable to “Section locale 10206” and mailed to:

Section locale 10206
AFPC-Québec
5050, boul. des Gradins, bureau 130
Québec (QC)
G2J 1P8

To learn more about the ongoing strike, please visit the J’appuie les employés des plaines d’Abraham and UNE Facebook pages.

Thank you for your support and solidarity,

Kevin A. King
UNE National President

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For a Healthy Workplace – Terrasses de la Chaudière

PSAC in the NCR, in partnership with UNE, GSU, UCTE, UJSE and AGR, are campaigning to address several urgent health and safety issues in Terrasses de la Chaudière. As part of the first phase of our campaign, we’ve notified all department management in the complex and have yet to hear a substantial response.

Sign up today and get involved!

We are organizing to address overcrowding, air quality, physical symptoms reported by workers (headaches, dizziness, increased fatigue and more) and new reports of legionella as recently as April 8, 2019 (French only article).

What we want:

  • A preliminary meeting with department deputy ministers and assistant deputy ministers in each department
  • A report from each department on how these issues and other related issues are being addressed, and will be resolved
  • A formal joint interdepartmental committee across the complex (representatives from each building) that would include relevant labour representatives to ensure that information sharing, actions and follow-ups are being addressed in a timely fashion.

Sign up today and get involved!

 

Let’s fight for adequate working spaces, clean air and healthy buildings at Terrasses de la Chaudière!

 

 

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One is too many: No one should die on the job

Who’s counting?

April 28 is the National Day of Mourning when we remember those who have lost their lives or suffered injury and illness because of their work.

Every day there are opportunities to prevent workplace injury and death, but we can’t do it without the data we need to drive our decision-making.

In Canada, we collect statistics on many things including the weather, but we fail to accurately record the number of individuals who have died as a result of their work. Because of this, we do not learn the lessons that would allow us to prevent future tragedies.

Apart from data compiled by Workers’ Compensation on workplace injuries and fatalities, no Canadian department or agency is actually counting occupational fatalities and injuries. The widely quoted 951 fatalities in the 2017 statistics (the most recent year available) from the Association of Workers’ Compensation Board of Canada (AWCBC) should not be used as the sole benchmark for work-related fatalities or injuries. The AWCBC figures only account for approved compensation claims, not the actual total of injuries and fatalities that occurred in any given year. Recent Canadian research demonstrates that work-related fatalities could be as much as 10 to 13 times higher than official data indicates.

This lack of reporting means thousands of injuries and deaths are missing from occupational health and safety statistics. These include workers exempt from coverage like the self-employed, banking employees, domestic workers, many farmers and agricultural workers, commuting fatalities, stress-induced suicides, unapproved occupational diseases, employees of private clubs, and temporary or undocumented workers.

In addition, in the federal sector, when a person dies due to a particular hazard, the compensation board does not provide the root cause analysis to employers. The Coroner does not give employers a notice of death, nor is the root cause of the injury or fatality necessarily considered in the required hazard prevention program – as though every fatality is “an accident.”

Let’s push to make 2019 the year that the government of Canada begins to accurately document and use evidence-based recording to prevent workplace injuries and save lives. One is too many – no one should die on the job.

Source: PSAC

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Ontario Health Care

Rally organized by the Ontario Health Coalition (OHC)

For more information: https://www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca/index.php/safeguard-health/

What is “Ford Nation” doing to the Public Health Care Services?

A massive bill, Bill 74, was recently tabled by the Ford Government to reorganize health care services in Ontario:

Not a Single New Service or Improvement to Care
We have excellent health care in that province. We just don’t have enough of it. Yet Doug Ford’s new health care omnibus bill does not open a single new health care service. Not a single surgery to help tackle wait lists. Not one new nursing home space. No more health professionals, vital support staff, nurses or doctors.

Ontario funds health care at the lowest rate in Canada. We have a long way to go even just to reach the average of the rest of the country. We are asking the Doug Ford government to refocus attention on actually expanding and improving access to care. No to privatization and mega-mergers.

New Powers to Force Mergers and Privatization

The new approach of this Conservative Government is to centralize 20 existing agencies into one big one called the “Super Agency”. It will create many problems because of the disparate mandates, histories, levels of effectiveness, and cultures of the existing ones that are well implemented in their communities.

Restructuring powers are defined in the legislation as not only service coordination but also mergers, amalgamations, transfers of all or part of a service, closures of a service, and entire closures of local health services. In other words, this bill is a gift to giant CEOs and large chain corporations to take over health services in Ontario.

New Bureaucracy but No Public Oversight

At the end of the years of mergers and takeovers and partnerships and so on, the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care envisions 30 – 50 giant health care conglomerates running virtually all services for up to 15 million Ontarians. Each conglomerate will need a new tier of administration to run the relationship between its various parts of the new health care structure. With this new governance approach, it will mean that overtime public oversight will disappear, and any decision made will be business driven, NOT made in the interest of the public.

No Public Consultation: Virtually All Community Control Taken Away

Virtually all the democratic protections that were won in previous legislations have been stripped in this bill. There are NO open board meetings. NO public right to access restructuring documents. NO appeals.

Upheaval for Care Workers

Another half decade or more of upheaval and takeovers will be devastating to a workforce that has stretched itself for decades to do ever more.
We urge the Ford government to hit “pause”, to engage in proper public consultation and to make a new priority of actually improving access to public health care services for Ontarians.

Source: https://www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca/index.php/briefing-note-doug-fords-omnibus-health-bill-bill-74/

 

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E-Petition to the Federal Government – Parks Canada and Historical and Cultural Artifacts

E-2048 (Canadian Heritage)

The Petition is open for signature until June 25, 2019, at 4:56 p.m. (EDT)

Whereas:

  • Parks Canada holds in stewardship a large collection of historical and cultural artifacts created by diverse communities across Canada;
  • Understanding these traditions is a key part of celebrating and continuing unique cultural, regional and ethnic identities, such as the Metis;
  • These collections have been maintained in regional centers (e.g. Winnipeg) so that they can be accessed by researchers, members of their originating communities, and local historic sites;
  • Plans to centralize all Parks Canada collections in Gatineau will prevent local scholars and community members from accessing, studying, or understanding their own past;
  • The removal of local history will irrevocably damage the diverse regional and cultural traditions that have created a multicultural Canada; and
  • The forcible removal of cultural property from the reach of Indigenous communities is an act of colonization which is wholly incompatible with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action.

We, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada and Kildonan-St Paul, call upon the Government of Canada to (a) commit to keeping all historical objects in their context so that they may be readily available to scholars, scientists, and the members of their originating communities; (b) cancel plans to centralize the historical artifacts and resources held by Parks Canada in one facility in Gatineau; and (c) commit to maintaining regional facilities for artifact storage and curation in Manitoba.

SIGN THE PETITION

 

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Passport Program at EDSC/IRCC

Information distributed to all Passport Canada locals

There is a transformation of the Passport program within ESDC/IRCC; a passport client demand reduction anticipated to start in the fall of 2018 as a result of the introduction of the 10 Year passport (back in 2013). It is anticipated that there will be no job loss among indeterminate members and few, if any, term employees will be impacted.

The Citizen Services Branch of ESDC, in collaboration with the Regions, is reviewing the matter, site by site HR projections included in review. The employer will be attempting to identify employment opportunities for impacted indeterminate staff prior to volume shifts, to maximize talent retention, leveraging opportunities across business lines.

According to the employer, the expected work transformation differs by EDSC region (passport Program Operations) with the following employer observations:

  • Work Force Adjustment (WFA Risk) is considered minimal for all sites
  • Workforce Management Committee informed of Passport HR Strategy
  • Transformation Working Group risk managed potential passport volume reductions since 2016, according to the employer
  • Integration of employees is underway within the Service Canada Centers, Passport Delivery Operations Centre/and other connected business lines

According to ESDC/IRCC, next steps will be to:

  • Monitor Workforce Management plan
  • Continue staffing levels until volume dip confirmed by IRCC – expected September of 2018
  • Begin alignment of staff to volume correction – approximately 20%, while maintaining staff compliment for winter peak – expected Fall of 2018
  • Ensure sustained staffing levels for unpredictable volume spike during a new winter peak
  • Financial smoothing for the transition period up to 6 months post “dip”up to a 6 month period between October 2018 and end of fiscal year
  • Review and update HR risk scenarios region by region, and site by site on a monthly basis, post “dip”

UNE continues to represent employees of the Passport Program in its current state and intends to represent any impacted employees transferred to other aspects of ESDC/IRCC, as this matter is a constitutional right afforded with the PSAC Constitution.

While this change creates uncertainty, Passport Program members can be confident that UNE is working hard on their behalf to effectively represent them and their interests during this period of transformation.

Respectfully, and in Solidarity,

Kevin A. King

National President

Union of National Employees, PSAC

 

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Update on SSO Negotiations

The bargaining team met in Ottawa from June 12 to 14, 2018, to try to reach a collective agreement for both office and field units.

An important improvement for our members in both units was reached after weeks of discussion with the employer: the conversion of term positions to indeterminate ones after four years of employment at SSO. The new policy will come into effect as of October 1, 2018 and cannot be altered unless both parties agree to modify it.

The PSAC bargaining team has been fighting hard to negotiate a fair collective agreement and put forward proposals on wage-related issues. The employer accepted the same wage increase that the core public sector gets but refused any other offer.

Since there are still important wages issues both parties could not agree, the next step will be to file for arbitration. Stay tuned.

Our bargaining team:

Shalane Spencer

Mary Ann Walker

Linda Woods

Shelly Daudlin

Alice Vallee

Claude-Andre Leduc

Anna Goldfeld

 

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Legislative Update: Bill C-262, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act

Daniel Toutant, MP Romeo Saganash and Ruby Langan

 

Bill C-262, An Act to ensure that the laws of Canada are in harmony with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, is a fundamental piece of legislation. Bill C-262 ensures that the laws of Canada respect the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This bill addresses an essential issue, Indigenous human rights. The sponsor of the bill, MP Romeo Saganash, worked with the United Nations for 23 years, negotiating the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples:

“Bill C-262 […] also allow[s] us to begin to redress the past wrongs, the past injustices that were inflicted on indigenous people. This is the main objective of Bill C-262, to recognize that on one hand they are human rights but on the other hand that we begin to redress the past injustices that were inflicted on the first peoples of this country.”

“The long journey of reconciliation involves recognizing fundamental Indigenous human rights and Bill C-262 shows us why we need to implement these international standards” explains National Equity Representative for Aboriginal Peoples Ruby Langan.

Ruby has been promoting this bill across the country and coordinated three rallies in late 2017, two of which were in Ottawa as well as one in Vancouver. She had the opportunity to attend the debate in the House of Commons on December 5, 2017 and listened to Romeo Saganash’s speech on this important issue. “Being invited by the Office of MP Romeo Saganash to attend the debate on this bill was an honour and a moment of pride for all the work aboriginal activists and allies put into the awareness of this fundamental issue”.

“Bill C-262 is about human rights. Bill C-262 is about justice. Bill C-262 is about reconciliation”, explains MP Saganash. The government supports the bill. Committed to reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, the Prime Minister established a working group of Ministers to study laws regarding Indigenous peoples. The bill has gone through three readings in the House of Commons and is scheduled for the Senate. Bill C-262 is a long-term commitment to improve Canada’s Indigenous human rights legislation.

Ruby has demonstrated her tireless commitment to not just indigenous peoples, but her hope to educate union leadership, and the general public as well. Her accomplishments are to be well recognized by all of us at UNE.

 

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Update: Union Leave Requests for PA, SV, TC and EB Members

Treasury Board did not update its leave system to include Union leave (Peoplesoft code 641) before January 1st. Treasury Board estimates it will have the necessary coding completed by February 15th.

Until the update to the leave system is completed, members will need to submit a paper request, including the union authorization letter, to their employer to claim Union leave. Code 641 should also be noted on any paper form submitted. The Employer will continue to invoice your Union for your salary expenses and your pay and benefits will continue uninterrupted.

All Union leave claimed during this time period will be entered into the leave system at a later date when the Employer completes its implementation of this new collective agreement provision.

Source: www.psacunion.ca