Category: Member Journalism

by Geoff Ryan

Too often, Canada’s First Nations, Métis and Inuit people are grouped into a category: Aboriginal Peoples. While this makes it easier to talk about a community that generally faces similar challenges and shares a common heritage, it does leave the impression that the group is homogenous. As we know, it’s anything but!

Our most recent census revealed that Canada is home to over 60 aboriginal languages. Of these, Inuktitut is the language of Canada’s Inuit.

But the language isn’t immune to modern pressures. In 2011, 63% of Inuit reported being able to carry a conversation in Inuktitut; a 6% drop from just five years earlier.

Luckily, the Nunavut government recognizes the importance of keeping the language alive and thriving.

For 10 years now, the territory has been celebrating Uqausirmut Quviasutiqarniq (Inuktitut Language Week), each year. It’s just one of many ways the government is trying to encourage its population to learn about the language’s history and its importance to the community.

This year, Nunavut is celebrating its language from February 17 to 28, under the theme of: “Our Language Keeps Our Culture Strong”.

There are over 35,000 people who speak Inuktitut and over 28,000 who use it as the primary language in their home. Most of these people live in Nunavut, Nunavik (northern Quebec), Inuvialuit (N.W.T.) and Nunatsiavut (Labrador), but there are Inuktitut speakers in every province and territory in Canada.

So do you want to learn some Inuktitut?

Well, there is an app for that… seriously! Developed by Pinnguaq, a Nunavut-based company, Singuistics teaches Inuktitut though songs while showing you images of Inuit art. It also features traditional and original songs by Inuit musicians alongside illustrations by Nunavut’s best artists.

The app is available to download on the App Store, for iPhone and iPad. Pinnguaq Director Ryan Oliver says iPod and Mac versions of the app are coming soon.

“We’re hoping to have an Android and Windows App Store version of the App available by the end of 2014,” added Oliver. “By that time, we’re also hoping to have versions of Singuistics in 5 other Indigenous languages. We’re aiming to do Cree, Mi’kmaq, Ojibwe, Dene and Gwech’in versions of Singuistics this year.”

Oliver is also looking forward to the end of March, when Singuistics will feature four new songs, three of which are from an Iqaluit band named The Jerry Cans.

“It will provide a more contemporary look at how Inuktitut is being spoken and sung these days,” explained Oliver.

But there’s one thing an App can’t teach you: if you are looking for the Inuktitut word for “hello”… sorry, you won’t find one.

Inuit say hello with a smile.

This article was written by Geoff Ryan as part of our member journalism program. Geoff is the UNE’s national equity representative for persons with disabilities, president of Local X0150 and a resident of Nunavut for over 30 years.

Did you know that over 55% of our articles quote one or more members? Or that many of our members have written entire articles for our website? It’s part of our commitment to sharing more members’ voices.

“We’ve really put a huge emphasis on treating our website like a news site,” explained  National President Doug Marshall. “It means reaching out to members to get quotes – it means putting front-and-centre the very people who make our union strong.”

“It definitely makes the content a lot more engaging.”

The Union of National Employees wants to encourage more members to participate in our member journalism program. If you’re interested in writing about an event near you or about a personal experience, please pitch your story idea to us at communications@une-sen.org.

But those with writers’ block needn’t worry: we’ve really tailored the program to make it accessible to all.

“From Day 1, we recognized that not everyone feels comfortable writing – or has the time,” said Marshall. “That’s why we’ve always had the option for members to act as a source. It’s turned out to be the most popular method for members to contribute.”

Indeed, entire articles have been written from short telephone interviews. This method allows members to express themselves in their own words – and later, entire articles come to life thanks to theses members’ quotes.

To date, the website already features close to 400 news stories. If you’re interested in finding out more about our program, you can consult the original announcement article. To pitch a story idea, contact us at communications@une-sen.org.

You may remember an article we posted last year, entitled Surviving being declared surplus, about a member who had just been declared surplus for the third time.

That member was Connie Gress, and she was kind enough to follow-up with us one year later. Luckily, once again, she was able to find an indeterminate position within the federal government.

“Thanks to workforce adjustment, I actually got a better job,” wrote Gress, who now works for the coast guard in Victoria, British Columbia, after working for Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada for almost 26 years.

For all its complex language and snakes-and-ladders-like flow-charts, the provisions of workforce adjustment are really there to protect employees. In many cases, they allow them up to a year to secure a new job or to transition to the job market, with training to make them a more viable candidate – a far cry from the 2-week notice period typical in the private sector.

Gress was able to choose between two job offers on the island. She said she considers herself lucky to have gotten the job at the coast guard.

“This was a big decision for me,” said Gress, “I left all my family and friends behind in Saskatchewan, which is the only place I had ever lived. But sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do.”

Gress also credits her take-charge attitude in landing herself this new job. While workforce adjustment provisions are there to protect employees, at first glance, the process looks downright complicated. It can be overwhelming, especially for someone who’s just been told they might lose their job.

Gress said she read everything about WFA that she could get her hands on.

“I took personal responsibility for understanding it all – and being able to make that decision with all the information.”

There are a lot of rumours going around about what’s going to happen to our sick leave.  What is going to happen?  Let’s break it down and have an informed discussion about this topic.

First of all, sick leave is a benefit that is in our collective agreement.  Any changes to the current regime will need to be negotiated – let’s hope this happens at the bargaining table and not in the press!

To have an informed discussion, we need to understand how the current sick leave regime works.

Sick leave credits are accumulated each month where an employee has worked a minimum of ten days.  Each month an employee accumulates a day and a quarter, for a total of fifteen days per year.  Any unused credits at the end of the year are accumulated and banked. The accumulation of sick leave continues throughout an employee’s career, with no maximum.

It’s very much like an insurance policy. Your accumulated sick leave is your financial safety net should you succumb to illness or injury. It gives you peace of mind.

This accumulation of sick leave credits becomes incredibly important for any employee who suffers an accident or a catastrophic illness; it provides them with a buffer until such time as they qualify for long term disability. Long term disability benefits become payable after 13 weeks of disability or illness, or after the member’s accumulated paid sick leave is exhausted – whichever is later.

If an employee does not have 13 weeks of sick leave available to them, any shortfall can be covered through EI sick benefits.  During this period, an employee only receives 55% of their salary – and to top it all off, often that money takes a while to start trickling in!

When an employee does not have any sick leave credits accumulated, management has the discretionary ability to advance up to 25 days of sick leave.  These must be repaid with any sick leave credits earned at a later date.

Why does the government claim that the system isn’t working?

We hear many arguments that the current sick leave system is out of date.

“There are abuses,” the government says. “Government employees are using more than employees in the private sector,” it deplores. “There’s a $5.2 billion liability,” it cautions. “New employees are being discriminated against,” it laments.

And so on, and so forth.

Some of this may be true, or not.  There’s always going to be people who abuse the system, but these individuals are in the minority.

And that liability that keeps getting referred to isn’t really a liability.  It only becomes a liability in a la-la land where every public servant takes every sick day that they’ve accumulated. By and large, the liability disappears when an employee retires, because any accumulated sick leave is not paid out in any way and vanishes in a puff of smoke upon retirement. Poof!

As for new employees, they can be advanced up to 25 days of sick leave, depending on need.  Maybe new employees could receive the same provisions as those in the EX group, who are advanced all the sick leave they need and whose disability premiums are entirely covered by the employer.

Perhaps some of the government’s woes are a result of downloading corporate services to individual managers. Human resources in the public service used to be delivered quite differently than today.

When someone went on long-term sick leave, they were monitored by human resources who worked with the employee to ensure a smooth transition when they returned to the workplace.  Today, it is up to manager to monitor the employee, along with everything else a manager does.  Human resources departments provide information and guidance to managers; they no longer perform other tasks such as monitoring.

Often, a manager will change jobs and the new manager will not even be aware that they have an employee on long-term disability. In many cases, they won’t have acquired the skills and competencies to manage disability. And this is in addition to all other tasks that have been delegated to managers.

So what is being proposed to “modernize” sick leave?  For the time being, nothing has been proposed.  However, the 2013 budget indicates that “the government will be examining its human resources management practices and institutions in a number of areas, including disability and sick leave management, with a view to ensuring that public servants receive appropriate services that support a timely return to work.”

Further, the Seventh Report to the Prime Minister of the Prime Minister’s Advisory Committee on the Public Service states:  “Another area for change is the current regime for managing disability and absenteeism.  Here too, we find a complex and costly system that is out of step with other sectors of the economy and that does not offer a level playing field for all employees.  This too must change.”  This clearly indicates change is coming but what?

We can get an idea by looking at the sick leave program in place at Canada Post.  Sick leave has been drastically changed for those employees; in all likelihood, the model that’ll be proposed for us will resemble what’s been imposed there.  The annual sick leave allowance will be reduced.  Unused sick leave will not be accumulated or carried over. After a short time on sick leave, the employee will go on short-term disability at 70% of their pay. The employee will graduate to long-term disability after a certain period on short-term disability.

In effect, managers will not manage sick leave, a private insurance company will.  And, there will be a cost to that administration; private insurance doesn’t come free. Employees will lose seven to ten sick days per year, and there will be premiums to pay to be covered by a short term disability plan.  One question that comes to mind is: who will pay those premiums?

What will happen if the employee has used up their allotment of annual sick leave and then gets the flu?  Will employees come to work when they are ill in order to avoid any disruption in pay? And how will the government handle an outbreak of a highly contagious illness, like the H1N1 virus a few years ago?

Now is the time for us to talk about sick leave.  Does the current regime really need to be changed?  If there is change, what do we, the employees, want it to look like?

Your comments and ideas are welcomed!

Richard Ballance is the Regional Vice-President for the Union of National Employees’ NCR-TB region. Join the conversation by leaving a comment below. This article was written as part of our union’s member journalism program. If you’d like to find out more, click here – to pitch a story or for any questions, please send an email to communications@une-sen.org.

Last weekend, Krystle Harvey, a member of Local 00383 in Sturgeon Falls, Ontario, attended what could be her last union event with the PSAC. Harvey just landed a new job outside Statistics Canada, which means, in addition to saying goodbye to her great co-workers and a job that she really liked, she also has to say goodbye to the union.

“I’m going to miss the union the most because I met so many amazing people and got to do so many amazing things,” she said.

After the training session was over, Harvey took to Facebook and called on her co-workers to get involved. Her status update read in part: “I urge all my stats co-workers to become more involved in your union! Because if you won’t fight for your rights then who will?”

Harvey, a 29-year-old employee at Statistical Survey Operations, admits she didn’t always think unions were so great. In a previous workplace, her main experience with her union was seeing it protect individuals who didn’t really deserve to be protected.

But luckily for us, after getting a job at Stats, Harvey got involved with our union and her opinion quickly changed. She currently holds the position of secretary in her Local. Her involvement, she admits, was a bit of an accident. At the behest of one of her friends, Harvey signed up for a course on political and social activism.

“One of my friends said ‘come, it’ll be so much fun – we’ll have a great weekend,’” recalled Harvey. “And… my friend didn’t actually end up going.”

Nonetheless, Harvey spent the weekend learning more about the union and getting to know members of her local executive.

“It got me a lot more involved – and it got me wanting to get me more involved with this particular union.”

It should be noted that Statistical Survey Operations has a number of longstanding issues that still need to be addressed. Our members hope that this round of bargaining will lead to a much fairer workplace. Harvey believes that becoming aware of these issues helped fuel her union activism.

“I didn’t really know about the issues before I got involved. Once I got involved, I started seeing all of these issues and wanting something to be done about it.”

Last weekend’s training session allowed 11 participants to talk about these issues. Despite the training being open to all PSAC members from the North Bay and Sudbury area, the only members who showed up were from Harvey’s Local.

One member who attended felt it was a pretty sad turnout, but Harvey doesn’t quite see it that way.

“Of all the people in North Bay, of all the Locals – we were the only ones who showed up,” she said. “I think that says a lot about our Local and how involved we are – and how united we are.”

Harvey’s new job outside Stats Canada is a management position. She jokingly admits that she probably won’t be as free to praise unions.

“But I still absolutely believe in unions, regardless of where I’m going and whom I’ll be working with,” she added.

In fact, Harvey is making sure her enthusiasm for the union lives on after she’s gone. In addition to urging her co-workers to get involved, Harvey is compelling her older brother Trevor, who also works at Stats, to get involved in the union.

“I told him, ‘Trevor, my legacy has to live on; so you need to become more involved.’”

Join us in wishing Krystle the best of luck in her new career – and Trevor the best of luck in his union involvement! Leave a comment below!