When the merger took place and the former Statistical Survey Operations (SSO) interviewers were offered positions with Statistics Canada, some indeterminate and some part-time, all were advised it would be business as usual with additional entitlements and benefits as core public service employees under the PA collective agreement recently negotiated between TBS and PSAC. Since November 23, 2023, our DCC members have encountered many unexpected obstacles.
UNE believes all former interviewers should be treated as either indeterminate full-time or part-time workers, whereas the employer disagrees and believes part-timers should be treated as “shift-workers” and therefore not entitled to all the part-timer benefits as described in the newly achieved collective agreement.
Although a small victory in a long battle, UNE has worked with the employer on an overtime provision that benefits UNE members making the move from SSO to Statistics Canada. After many meetings between the employer and UNE representatives, the union was notified February 5, 2024 that the employer has agreed to correct overtime entitlements as described in article 25.13 of the PA collective agreement.
Each region will be asked to create a list of interviewers who have worked more than 7.5 hours/day as well as for weeks where interviewers worked greater than 37.5 hours/week. Once the numbers are compiled, the corrections will be made and outstanding overtime will be paid. The employer has now agreed to make the corrections retroactively going back to
November 23, 2023.
The work continues as UNE believes that all former SSO interviewers should be entitled to the benefits outlined in the PA agreement and since none were shift workers prior to the merger and no Stats Can letters of offer indicated any change in status, none should be considered shift workers post-merger. Therefore, shift worker articles do not apply.
UNE will continue to work with the employer to ensure all PA collective agreement articles are applied fairly and not applied selectively as the employer wishes.