Category: Top Stories

May 18 is International Museum Day, so we thought this would be a perfect opportunity to showcase some of the great museums where our members work.

The Canadian Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg is one of the newest Locals to join the Union of National Employees. Our members there are already hard at work conducting research and preparing exhibits. The museum is set to open in 2014. If you want to take a look at what the museum looks like, you can look at it live via its construction webcams… it looks spectacular!

The Canadian Museum of Civilization is definitely worth a visit – especially if you have kids. The museum is located in Gatineau, just across the river from Ottawa (you can walk there from the Market, very easily, using the Alexandra Bridge). One of the most impressive parts of the museum is its grand hall, which features totem poles and house facades from First Nations on the pacific coast.

If you have more of an artistic penchant, head on over to the National Gallery of Canada; whether you’re into medieval art or contemporary art, you’ll be sure to have a great time. Yes, you’ll find pieces by the Group of Seven, but for something a bit more dramatically Canadian, check out Benjamin West’s The Death of General Wolfe. If you’re looking for something more contemporary, check out Ron Mueck’s Head of a Baby. And finally, there are great photo-ops outside the gallery, among Maman’s eight long legs!

Also close to Ottawa’s downtown is the Canadian War Museum, where, this summer, there will be an exhibition named Peace. The exhibition explores “events and issues that have propelled Canadians to act for peace.” Among its permanent exhibition, visitors will find impressive examples of military technology. There is also a hall that showcases the many ways that Canadians have commemorated fallen soldiers. Finally, take a moment to rest and reflect in the Memorial Hall.

The Canadian Museum of Nature is also a great spot to check out, especially with the kids. Best of all, it’s only a short walk from the UNE’s head office, in Ottawa’s Centretown! The building is impressive; it looks like a castle – and in 1916, it became the emergency headquarters of the Canadian government after a fire engulfed the Parliament buildings. Kids will be sure to love the impressive dinosaur collection and the animalium (those who are scared of tarantulas and other creepy-crawlers, beware!).

Outside of the downtown core, there’s another really cool museum to check out with the kids: the Canadian Science and Technology Museum. Everyone who’s ever been on a school trip to this museum will undoubtedly remember the Crazy Kitchen: a bizarre kitchen that messes up your body’s balance! Hang on to that railing! And yes, there are actual steam locomotives inside the museum!

If you’re in the mood for something a bit more warm and cuddly, check out the Canada Agriculture Museum, where you’ll find pigs, horses, cows… and even Alpacas! There are daily demonstrations that are worth checking out, like cooking with grains, milking a cow and grooming a calf.

Finally, be sure to check out the Canada Aviation and Space Museum. If you’re a bit nerdy, you’ll be happy to hear that, this summer, the museum is hosting an exhibition about Star Wars! But what’s most impressive about the museum is its collection of planes – and just recently, the museum added the Canadarm to its collection.

So next time you’re in Winnipeg or in the National Capital Region, be sure to check out some of the great national museums where our members work!

Yesterday, National Executive Vice-President Eddie Kennedy joined more than 150 protesters in Sydney, Nova Scotia, where the government wants to close a Veterans Affairs district office.

District offices are sprinkled around the country to help veterans who have questions about their benefits. The Sydney office is one of three district offices set to close in the Atlantic region.

Veterans in Sydney will now have to go to one of five Service Canada offices on the island. But the level of service there will be completely different.

“They’ll be directed to a computer or a toll-free number. They won’t have the same front-line support that they have at the Veterans Affairs office,” said Kennedy, who lives in Cape Breton.

If they require the kind of support that only a district office can offer, veterans will have no choice but to go to Halifax.

“And that’s a five-hour drive, one way,” added Kennedy.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has been grappling with cuts since 2011, when their budget was cut by $226 million. The department also plans to reduce its workforce by 500 over five years; over 1000 affected noticed have already been given out to VAC employees.

There are 145 veterans on Cape Breton Island.

The other district offices slated to close include Charlottetown, P.E.I; Corner Brook, N.L.; Windsor, Ont.; Thunder Bay, Ont.; Kelowna, B.C.; Saskatoon, Sask.; Brandon, Manitoba.

Last week, the government announced that Passport Canada would be dissolved and split between Citizenship and Immigration Canada and Service Canada. The announcement was unexpected – and the decision is striking many as rather strange.

“Not only did they fail to give the union any notice, they totally bungled the announcement,” said National President Doug Marshall.

The department chose to announce the change to its staff by way of a mass email that was sent at 4:23 Eastern Time, when most employees from Ontario eastward were either on their way home or already there.

Some employees report that they only found out about the email that night thanks to friends on the West coast who alerted them of the announcement. The email concludes with, “for more information on the transition, please visit your Intranet site later today and speak to your manager.”

Later that evening, a series of questions and answers were added to the Passport Canada intranet site. However, since employees cannot access the intranet from home, many were left with unanswered questions until morning.

“Obviously many members were concerned – and they had no way of getting answers to their questions. The way they carried this out shows that employees were the last of their considerations,” said Marshall.

But it gets better

Among the questions and answered prepared by Passport Canada was, “have the unions been informed?”

“Yes,” wrote Passport Canada. Uhh… not so! The Union of National Employees learned Passport Canada’s plans after its employees did. It’s thanks to concerned members who forwarded the announcement that we even learned of the transfer.

Passport Canada has since agreed to make a correction to the Q&A.

We still know very little

Upon learning of the transfer, Marshall contacted Passport Canada’s CEO. A meeting was scheduled for the next day; it included representatives from Passport Canada and Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

“During that meeting, we learned very little that wasn’t already public knowledge,” said Marshall.

In fact, the only new information to surface was that that no planning had been done; the employer will start working on plans this week.

The transfer affects all Passport Canada employees; 850 will move to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, 1900 will move to Service Canada. The change takes effect July 2.

Service Canada has yet to respond to our meeting request.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it

Over the past decade, Passport Canada has more than doubled the number of passports issued annually. Today, 67 per cent of Canadians hold a passport.

According to Passport Canada’s own CEO, more than 4.8 million passports were issued to Canadians last year – and 99 per cent of clients received their passports on time or earlier.

According to Passport Canada’s own 2008 National Client Satisfaction Survey, “there has been a notable increase in satisfaction along with ease of application submission (41% very satisfied, up 15 points) and with the time and effort required to obtain a passport (34% very satisfied, up 17).”

“I just don’t see why this government wants to abolish an agency that is clearly working well for Canadians,” concluded Marshall.

Media contact: Ben René 613-769-6905

More cuts were announced earlier this week. The Museum of Civilization announced that it was eliminating 23 positions; 17 members are affected, of which 14 have been laid off.

The Museum claims the layoffs are the result of a “significant” budget shortfall.

That said, according to the Museum’s own 2012 annual report, the museum has been performing well. The corporation met its onsite attendance objectives: 1.2 million visitors attended the museum last year. Paid attendance at the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the Canadian War Museum was within 2.6% of the corporation’s target.

In fact, 2012 financial statements claim that “overall revenues from operations were slightly higher than [the] prior year at 10.8 million.” The museum is nonetheless grappling with last year’s deficit of $658,000.

But while the museum claims not to have the money to keep staff employed, they’ll soon be swimming in money courtesy of the Harper Government, who, let’s face it, has a penchant for renaming stuff.

Bill C-49, An Act to amend the Museums Act in order to establish the Canadian Museum of History… err… I mean: An Act to Destroy The Canadian Museum of Civilization, is currently awaiting a second reading in the House of Commons. The Bill aims to do away with the Museum of Civilization in order to create the Canadian Museum of History.
We’re not just talking about fancy new letterhead and a new plaque outside the building; the museum’s focus will be considerably narrowed and its mandate will radically change. Oh, and it’ll cost taxpayers $25 million (so says the Harper Gov – though the change is expected to cost much more!).

In an editorial published in late 2012, Canadian Association of University Teachers Executive Director James L. Turk wrote that the change will rob Canadians of the country’s most popular museum.

Turk is also concerned that the change is largely motivated on ideology.
“From the federal government’s first announcement of the proposed new Canadian Museum of History, some have expressed fear that the new museum would be a parochial institution designed to reflect the Harper government’s ideological version of our history.”

Turk contends that the change fits into a pattern of politically-motivated heritage policy that includes $28 million dog and pony show over the war of 1812, among other examples.
Thomas Peace, a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow in Native American Studies at Dartmouth College, recently remarked that historians weren’t criticizing the commemoration of the war of 1812 – but rather, the extreme irony before them.

“Historians are upset because the government is paying for these commemorative projects while shutting down the research institutions that allow us to do our work and silencing some of our country’s brightest minds working within them.”

Today marks one year since the Harper government launched an all-out attack on public services. And yet, it seems like the general public isn’t fully aware of the true impact of these cuts. Some of these cuts are downright ridiculous – especially when you look at the government’s other priorities: pandas, shameless self-promotion, war of 1812 phone apps, etc….

So let’s put it out there. Let’s show how these cuts have impacted Canadians.

Over the next twelve days, we’ll be releasing an image each day on Facebook and Twitter. We’re counting on you to share these with your friends – and encourage them to do the same!

For those of you who aren’t on these social media platforms, you can still check back here each day to see what image we’re sharing!

Day 1 – If only Harper loved our national parks and historic sites as much as he lurrrrves PANDAS!

Day 2 – Fiscal conservative? The money spent on the war of 1812 could have supported over 800 local archives for the next 16 years.

Day 3 – Harper and Stats? LOL!

Day 4 – Harper and First Nations…err… Be right back!

Day 5 – Watch out for that wave, dude!

Day 6 – Arts only matter when they’re linked to a tax cut (or your approval rating!)

Day 7 – Uh oh! It’s a fire!

Day 8 – OMG! Like, Harper totally loves giving things a MAKEOVER!!!

Day 9 – You say Parks Canada, I say SPA CANADA!

Day 10 – I put the ‘reduction’ in poverty reduction!

Day 11 – I just LOVE ribbon-cuttings!

Day 12 – Let’s party like it’s 1984!

Earlier this month, the Union of National Employees raised $10,000 to create a series of high school bursaries. Thanks to donations from members at the All Presidents’ Conference, Locals, the national executive and our union, ten lucky high school students will receive $1,000 to help them pursue higher education.

Part of the money was raised through a raffle held at the All Presidents Conference. The first two winners won some rather cool prizes directly from Moscow: Russian nesting dolls and a jersey signed by Russian hockey legend Vladislav Tretiak. The next four names out of the hat won the opportunity to work with their regional team to identify a high school in their region worthy of our bursary.

Allan Combres of Local 20214, whose name was third out of the hat, admits that even if his name had been picked first or second, he would still have jumped at the chance to be part of the high school bursary program… even if his son probably would have been blown away by the hockey jersey!

“I think it’s a good opportunity to get children exposed to the labour movement,” said Combres.

Combres admits that his own children don’t hear much about the labour movement at school.

“They learn that from their dad, here,” he added, proudly.

This bursary is the first of its kind at the Union of National Employees. Specifically, it’s the first bursary that reaches out to the broader public, as opposed to only targeting members and their families.

“It’s crucial to reach out and explain the work of unions to the general public, especially to those who aren’t unionized,” said Donald Parsons, who will be working with the Atlantic region to select a worthy high school.

Parsons says that kind of work is especially important nowadays, since unions are increasingly being portrayed in a negative light.

“Too many people think ‘I don’t have that benefit; why should you?’ when they should be thinking ‘you have that benefit, why don’t I?’” said Parsons.

High school students who hope to be awarded a bursary will have to submit an essay detailing how unions have helped build a middle class in Canada and how they were (and continue to be!) a progressive force, fighting for values that would eventually become regarded as national values.

“It’s important that young people understand and appreciate that the labour movement will be there for them as they begin their working careers,” said Parsons.

For more information on this bursary and others offered by the UNE, please click here.

About 900 people per year lose their lives on the job.¹

It’s in memory of those men and women that the flag will fly at half-mast on Parliament Hill on April 28. The National Day of Mourning is both an occasion to remember those whose lives were tragically lost and a reminder that deaths in the workplace are largely preventable.

But only if there’s regulation to make it so!

It wasn’t so long ago that the PSAC warned that the Harper Government was putting public service employees’ lives at risk. The warning came at the heels of a report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, which revealed that cuts for federal inspections were leading to disabling injuries and fatalities.

According to Success is No Accident, by then CCPA Research Associate David Macdonald, the rate of disabling injuries in the federal sector had increased by 5 per cent between 2002 and 2007 while its counterparts in the provinces managed to cut these injuries by 25 per cent.²

In federally-regulated workplaces, health and safety inspections are conducted by HRSDC’s labour affairs officers (incidentally, these are UNE members!).

At the time, the 2010 report made it clear that there simply weren’t enough labour affairs officers to do the job.

“With only 128 [labour affairs officers] covering over a million Canadians, it is little wonder that there are concerns about insufficient resources to do the job,” wrote Macdonald.

That was two years before the cuts.

In the 2012 budget, the Conservative government eliminated HRSDC’s fire protection program. Labour Affairs Officers in charge of fire protection conduct inspections in passport offices, post offices and other government buildings. It’s thanks to their work that Canadians can feel safe in knowing that they’re not standing in a tinderbox when they have business to conduct in a government building.

These members also conduct inspections on First Nations reserves, since these fall under federal jurisdiction. Some of the buildings they inspect include schools, daycares and other offices offering family services.

By April 2014, the program will be no more; the responsibility will be delegated to departments. It’ll be up to each department to self-regulate and up to Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada to ensure that fire doesn’t pose a risk on First Nations reserves.

Evidently, the Harper Government hasn’t heard of an analogy involving foxes and henhouses.

On this National Day of Mourning, we call on the government to honour the memories of those who lost their lives on the job. We urge it to reverse this trend that is putting our members at risk – that is playing a dangerous game with the lives of Canadians and First Nations people.

No one should ever have to die for a paycheque.

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[1] Day of Mourning (2013) Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety.

[2] Success Is No Accident (2010) Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Earlier this month, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released a report about how recent cuts have affected service delivery. The Conservative government contends that everyday Canadians won’t notice the impact of its spending cuts, but the report – and our experience – tells an entirely different story.

National President Doug Marshall said the union knew right away that these cuts would have a dramatic effect on public services. The 2012 budget cuts were just one more blow in a series of departmental budget that have been happening year after year.

“First of all, the Conservatives keep saying these are only back-office cuts”, said Marshall. “Well, when you cut administrative support to front-line service workers, it inevitably reduces their capacity to provide those important services to Canadians.”

“They not only have to do their work, but they have to do the work of others.”

But, clearly, this report clearly shows that most of the job cuts are indeed affecting programs – they’re directly affecting Canadians.

In his report, CCPA Senior Economist David MacDonald identified the top five large departments affected by proportional cuts. Among the five are three departments where workers are represented by the Union of National Employees: Statistics Canada, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada and Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada.

The Union of National Employees can point to many examples of programs that have been directly affected by these cuts.

“In the Atlantic, for example, there were two people at AANDC who inspected water quality on First Nations reserves,” said Marshall. “Now there’s only one.”

Also at AANDC, cuts to administrative support have put a lot of pressure on the workers that are left. There are funding service officers, people who liaise with elected First Nations Representatives, who are working without administrative support.

According to a June 2009 organizational risk assessment conducted by AANDC, Funding Service Officers see themselves as the front-line of the department. Among their responsibilities are maintaining relationships with First Nations communities, “who many see the [Funding Service Officer] as their representative in Ottawa.¹

Over at HRSDC, where we represent labour affairs officers, one only has to look at the dismantling of the fire protection program to see how these cuts are not only affecting Canadians, but putting their lives in jeopardy.

“These are people who inspect federally-owned buildings across Canada as well as community buildings on First Nations reserves,” said Marshall. “We’re concerned that fire safety is being delegated to each department. We’re concerned because self-regulation simply doesn’t work – especially when it comes to health and safety.”

Finally, the effects at Statistics Canada are perhaps the most obvious. According to the report, Statistics Canada tops the list with a projected 35% decrease in full-time employees between 2012 and 2016.

“They’re quite simply conducting fewer surveys,” remarked Marshall. “Canadians are missing out on some very important data. We’re talking about data that can help governments at all levels better tailor their services to Canadians and data that can help the business community better understand their market.”

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives believes that the total number of job cuts by March 2016 will be 28,700. The total number of public servants is expected to fall by 8%; almost double what the government had projected in its 2012 budget.

“This is information we’ve been asking the Harper government for,” said Marshall. “It’s ironic that when we finally got some clarity, it had to come from a non-profit organization.”

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[1] Values and Ethics: An Organizational Risk Assessment (2009). Indian and Northern Affairs Canada.