Your Bargaining Team met with the CFIA on December 19-21, 2017 and January 16-19, 2018, with some sessions lasting past midnight in order to push for a fair deal. We are pleased to announce that with the assistance of a mediator from the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations Board, we’ve reached a mutual agreement to conclude this round of bargaining.
At the beginning of this round of bargaining the CFIA made demands to significantly change your hours of work, scheduling and the way call-back and standby worked. We proudly announce that we resisted every single concession that the employer requested on these issues.
Your new deal includes expansion to family related and bereavement leave, and the conversion of the volunteer day to a second personal leave day.
We negotiated into the collective agreement the full payment of your registration fees, the memorandum of agreement on Scientific Integrity, and the improvements to sick leave through the EWSP.
You will have a 6% wage increase over the life of the contract and the meat hygiene allowance will be rolled into base pay for every VM-01 and VM-02.
Finally, we have secured improvements to the Employment Transition Appendix.
We will be posting complete details on the deal, as well as instructions for voting and ratification shortly.