Thanks to the Harper government slicing and dicing Passport Canada, we have a few updates for the members who now work for the passport program at Employment and Social Development Canada and Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
Transitions, transitions…
The transition is now progressing through the first phase, which saw Passport Canada’s responsibilities transferred to Citizenship and Immigration Canada and service-delivery become the domain of Employment and Social Development Canada and the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development.
Starting in April 2014, phase one will progress to the stage where members working in internal services who directly support passport operations will be divvied up proportionally between the two departments; in other words, this transition will see some members who are now with Citizenship and Immigration Canada get transferred to Service Canada.
“Right now, I might be dealing with a single person in labour relations who can address issues affecting all former passport members, whether they now belong to Service Canada or Citizenship and Immigration Canada,” explained Rose Touhey, an assistant regional vice-president for the Outside Canada region and President of Local 70130. “After April 1, nobody will be intermingling anymore.”
The final step is really separating the operations of what’s left of Passport Canada. The Union of National Employees is concerned that this step might lead to some job cuts.
“The employer recently told us that some of the internal services positions allocated to the passport program at Citizenship and Immigration Canada are likely to be abolished,” explained National President Doug Marshall.
The employer plans to achieve these reductions by eliminating vacant positions and through attrition – but we haven’t been provided with specific numbers.
“They originally told us everything would stay the same – but that was in phase one.”
Then there’s that huge grievance…
This all started when some employers decided to hit the pause button on the Treasury Board directive that sees term employees become indeterminate after three years of service.
“Term employees filed grievances at all major passport offices across Canada,” said Marshall.
After a brief discussion with the employer on November 6, the parties agreed to combine these grievances into one group grievance.
“The employer and the union also agreed that these grievances would go directly to the third level,” added Marshall.
This ensures that any response we get comes from the person at the right decision-making level.
The outcome of these grievances will apply to all term employees who were formerly employed by Passport Canada, and who continue to be term employees of the passport program as of August 2, 2013 – even those who didn’t sign the initial group grievances.
“The really mind-boggling issue here is that Passport Canada was never affected by the freeze that affected so many terms across Treasury Board,” said Marshall. “It didn’t affect them because Passport Canada is self-funded; the program continues to be self-funded. So, there’s simply no reason why the freeze should suddenly apply to these term employees.”