RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS MEETING
Ontario Regional Executive
June 3, 2017
Meeting Date June 3, 2017
Time 9:00 am to 5:30 pm
Members
(Present) Peter Gilkinson, Regional Director and ORE Chair, and Labour day parade co-ordinator
Din Kamaldin, ORE Vice-Chair, and Labour day parade co-ordinator
John G. Purdie – Ontario Regional Council Chair & Branch Liaison and Newsletter Editor
Linda Joly – Ontario Regional Council Vice-Chair, and Event Co-ordinator
Tom Yantsis – Ontario Region Treasurer
Christopher P. L'Estrange – Recording Secretary, Training Committee Recording Secretary
Judy Chow – Training Committee Member & Lead Social Media Manager
Peter S. Jozsa – Steward Council Chair, and Training Committee Chair & Social Media Manager
Dean Corda – Branch Liaison and Newsletter Editor, Training Committee Member & Social Media Manager
Yvonne Snaddon – Training committee member, Branch Liaison and Newsletter Editor & Social Media Manager
Tim Azab – Labour day parade co-ordinator & Legacy Foundation Champion & Social Media Manager
Members (Absent) None
Alternates None
Invitees/Observers None
Presenters None
Secretariat Christopher L’Estrange
Item # / Discussion Summary
1. Call to order by the Chair
Motion to begin the meeting
Moved by: Peter Gilkinson
Seconded by: Chris L’Estrange
Motion Carried
2. Approval of Strategic Agenda
Motion to approve the meeting agenda.
Moved by: Peter Gilkinson
Seconded by: Chris L’Estrange
Motion Carried
3. Approval of the April Minutes
Motion to approve the meeting agenda.
Moved by: John Purdie
Seconded by: Judy Chow
Motion Carried
4. Items arising from the previous minutes
Chris went through the April 20, 2017 minutes to highlight action items as follows:
February minutes have been forwarded to Heather.
Completed Action:
Chris L’Estrange
Creation of a survey for use at the 2017 Steward Council and share it secretarially. Ongoing.
Action Required:
Dean Corda
PIPSC Legacy Fund. Pete Jozsa to report on the use of the funds in the legacy fund. Pete Jozsa explained this is at the Board for discussion. Pending. This portfolio has moved to Tim Azab.
Action Required:
Tim Azab
A BBQ for PIPSC staff in the summer of 2018 is being considered by the ORE. We are looking to have the BBQ in Toronto. To be tabled 2018 June meeting.
Action Required:
John Purdie
Action Item: Peter to report back at the next meeting regarding the matter of the Labour Day Parade expenses. Deferred to the May BOD meeting. Done.
Action Item: Pete to look into a resolution of the problems with the on-line training. Pete brought this to the TEC Committee for resolution. They are using a 3rd party provider. Pete is pushing to do this in house. Will address it at the next meeting. Perhaps they will add more time and remove the fail on the online tests. This is now with the TEC committee. Pete to follow up with the ORE.
Standing item.
Completed Action:
Peter Gilkinson
Action Item: Din will request electronic voting for Toronto North. Peter will bring this to the Board of Directors.
Action Required:
Peter Gilkinson
Completed Action:
Din Kamaldin
Funding of Executive meeting expenses by PIPSC:
Tom brought forward the topic of Christmas Dinner for PIPSC Staff – with ORE. Funding issues for cost of the dinner. The cost of the dinner was historically covered by PIPSC but 2016 was referred back to the ORE budget.
Action Item: John will bring it to the by-laws committee. On-going.
Action Required:
John Purdie
Action Item: Tom to discuss at the Finance Committee. Tom brought this to the Finance Committee. They will come back to Tom at the next meeting. On-going.
Action Required:
Tom Yantsis
Action Item: Tom to purchase 75 Blue Tooth Speakers for the PIPSC AGM.
Action Required:
Tom Yantsis
Action Item: Tom to purchase 11 shirts for the ORE.
Completed Action:
Tom Yantsis
Action Item: Peter to advise Heather to begin the process of location for the 2019 ORC; the Westin Trillium.
Completed Action:
Peter Gilkinson
Broadbent Institute Summit February 2018.
Peter suggested that we try to decide who we might want to send next year so that we aren’t scrambling at the last minute. There is no rush at present but we should make a decision ahead of the Summit next year.
Ongoing.
Action Required:
Peter Gilkinson
Steward Training Networking – Chargeback:
Pete Jozsa explained that while PIPSC has paid for our Networking in the past, this will no longer be the case. Peter explained that he can submit this under his networking budget.
Action Item: Tom to approach Finance committee re covering this expense.
Completed Action:
Tom Yantsis
Action Item: John and Peter to draft a amendment to the travel policy for discussion at the June 2/3 meeting. This was regarding travel to attend ORE meetings.
Action Required:
John Purdie and Peter Gilkinson
e-claims has been put on hold for now. Finance has stopped it.
Action Item: Tom to address this at the Finance Committee.
Completed Action:
Tom Yantsis
April is Sikh Heritage month:
Din explained that historically they have celebrated culture. However now it appears religion is being celebrated for some but not all. This will be brought to the Human Rights Committee.
Action Item: Din to speak at the Human Rights committee about why a religion is now being recognized with a month.
Action Required:
Din Kamaldin
This concluded our action items from the last meeting.
5. Ontario Regional Council Report – John Purdie
The feedback from the attendees at the ORC was very positive.
Comments suggested that the panel discussion and the role play were well received.
The breakout for the CS and the AFS negotiation updates were very important to our members as was highlighted in the comments.
The Branch Presidents meeting was also well received. An over whelming success. No negative comments. They want to continue with it.
John Purdie recommends that the introductions are made on the first night and the second night appears to be where more business is conducted so it appears that two hospitality nights be considered in future years. The reception we usually have is expensive. John suggests that the funding be better spent on the second hospitality night instead.
Pete Josza thanked John Purdie for all the work he has done. Pete likes the receptions and suggested that some attendees do not go to the hospitality and prefer the reception. He feels that we need more discussion on this subject.
John suggested that we may try to end the practice of having the hard copy binders. The electronic version is less costly and this option is being explored further.
The ORE congratulates the ORC Chair and Vice Chair.
6. Communications discussion
The Regional Facebook Group – Dean explained his views regarding how this communications tool could be used.
It could be a discussion group or a means to send out messages.
Also how do we police the comments – some views expressed by members may not represent the opinion of the group. Do we then delete posts or leave the message as we can acknowledge “free speech”.
We can add members of the group and remove as we have the role of maintaining the page. It was suggested that it not be considered the “official” means of communication.
This will be “another” means of communication. Not the primary or only means of communicating. The consensus is that this is something we are exploring as another means of communication.
We could also put a disclaimer explaining this is a discussion group.
If this is not a discussion group then it should be a top down means of posting communications to the group members.
General discussion ensued.
The consensus was to have an informal discussion group which we should monitor for any inappropriate discussions or conversation topics. We need to monitor the content. Also, we need to have a disclaimer.
Pete read the disclaimer.
Pete added the ORE members to the group.
This will be open to all Ontario Region PIPSC members.
7. Steward Council Planning Session
Ideas for the training breakout sessions at Steward Council.
Key legal updates
*Grievance Investigation Bootcamp: Interpreting the Collective Agreement
*Steward Immunity
*Psychologically Healthy workplaces
*Navigating Phoenix
Duty to Accommodate
Working with Members with Mental Health issues
Violence in the workplace
*Electronic surveillance
Pete will request several copies of the handbooks to hand out to the Stewards.
The ORE decided that we would go with the asterix items above with the four being the primary and the Bootcamp as a backup item. These four primary choices are all new subject areas for the Steward Council. The non-asterix items were topics at the 2016 Steward Council.
This ended the discussion on the 2017 Steward Council. Pete will provide an update at the next ORE.
Action Required:
Pete Josza
8. Brief follow up on yesterdays Strategic Planning Meeting
ORE Goals and Objectives for the Strategic Meeting:
John Purdie presented a “Strategic Goals” plan for use as a template at next year’s Strategic Planning Meeting.
General Discussion ensued.
It was decided that this document would be attached to the June 2, strategic minutes as an appendix.
John used the draft minutes from yesterdays meeting to create the document.
AGM Observer Policy:
John also presented the policy he prepared for Ontario Region Observers at the AGM.
General discussion ensued.
The purpose is to have some form of uniformity and to set the criteria for anyone who wished to request funding as an observer. This funding would be
Action Item: Branch Liaison to communicate with Presidents to solicit applicants for limited observer funding.
Action Required:
Branch Liaison
Action Item: Tom to get back to the ORE by September to advise how many applicants we are able to afford to fund on a limited basis and to what extent.
Action Required:
Tom Yantsis
Action Item: Chris to do up a draft form on behalf of the Branch Liaison to get them started.
Action Required:
Chris L’Estrange
9. New Business
PIPSC 19th Regional Ontario Steward Council.
Pete Josza presented the agenda for the upcoming steward council. He updated this agenda with the topics we selected earlier in this meeting.
The invitations for the 2017 Steward of the year will be sent out by Heather with the invitation to attend the Steward Council in July.
The promotional items – Tom explained that the cost of the Bluetooth speakers is lower than expected. Another suggestion is that a jacket may be purchased.
Motion to buy jackets for the Steward Council.
Moved by: John Purdie
Seconded by: Dean Corda
Carried.
Action Item: Tom to arrange to buy the jackets for the 2017 Ontario Steward Council
Action Required:
Tom Yantsis
Judy asked if we could hand out the jackets and take a group photo.
Discussion regarding taking a group photo of the Ontario Delegates wearing their jackets resulted in consensus that this would be undertaken.
National Public Service Week:
Peter announced that the BOD has discussed this and has decided that we will not boycott the NPSW at the National level. They have left this to the local level. PSAC has decided to boycott this event.
PIPSC at the local level can chose to hold their own events that week.
Buttons for “Fix Phoenix” to be worn during the NPSW should be requested through Better Together. Yvonne will communicate this message to the Branch Presidents on behalf of the Branch Liaison committee.
Action Required:
Yvonne Snaddon
Personal Leave Grievance – AFS group:
We have discovered that PIPSC doesn’t have a grievance tracking system. This has been addressed with a resolution at the 2016 PIPSC AGM which was referred to the advisor council and this has passed their vote.
Tom provided some background on the AFS Personal Day grievance.
Canadian Labour Congress:
The resolutions were well organized into a binder grouped logically. The event interesting with great issues.
The CLC has subcommittees which we could populate with PIPSC members. Peter will request that a strategy to have PIPSC members appointed to these subcommittees be prepared. We also have a resolution to bring to the PIPSC AGM.
Action Required:
Peter Gilkinson
We were allocated 110 seats wand we used 30. Din asked how we can better utilize these seats at the triennial AGM. Peter will raise the issues with the BOD.
Action Required:
Peter Gilkinson
The December Meeting location:
We have an email from Heather with a great rate at the Toronto Hilton.
Motion to stay at the Hilton in Toronto for our December meeting.
Moved by: Din Kamaldin.
Seconded by: Chris L’Estrange.
Carried.
The December Meeting Date:
We need to confirm a choice of dates that are good with this executive and then ask PIPSC staff which date they prefer.
We selected December 1 or December 8.
Action Item:
Peter will confirm with Marcia.
Action Required:
Peter Gilkinson
Labour Day Parade:
Discussion of ideas for the upcoming Labour Day in September 2017. We discussed coupons for lunch for participants at the Labour Day parade.
Action Item: Yvonne will ask the Branch Presidents if they are planning any Labour Day activities which they require funds for and secondly to inform them that an invitation for attendees to the Labour Day parade will be made soon by the LDP Co-ordinators and they will be taking names.
Action Item:
Yvonne Snaddon
Action Item: Peter and Din will send out the invitation to attend the Labour Day Parade.
Action Item:
Peter Gilkinson and Din Kamaldin
10. Committee Reports
Training Committee Report
The May Labour School update is not ready for this meeting as Pete has just recently received the information and has not yet compiled his report. He did take a cursory look at the details and there was nothing pressing, and no negative comments received.
He will present the report on the May labour school at the next ORE.
Action Item:
Pete Josza
Branch Liaison Report:
The second Branch President’s meeting was successful and the President’s want to continue with that as Pete said earlier.
Yvonne will arrange another Branch Presidents call in late June or early July.
The newsletter has been posted. Some good articles were brought forward for the newsletter.
Dean discussed the statistics for “hits” on the newsletter for the December newsletter was 170 English and 8 French.
Spring newsletter has 69 English and 10 French so far.
Treasurers Report:
Tom discussed the National audited Financial Statements which have been released by PIPSC on the website.
There were no questions.
Director’s Report:
PIPSC AGM Hospitality – Peter would like to have a session for the Ontario Region delegates to hear and discuss the resolutions we are bringing forward to the PIPSC AGM.
Peter is also looking at inviting an entertainer to come to the hospitality suite.
Linda Joly will request from Julie Gagnon a Murphy Bed room to be used as our hospitality room.
Action Item:
Linda Joly
Discipline – Peter discussed the process within PIPSC.
There were no questions.
11. Round Table
Judy thanked us for welcoming her to the team,
John Purdie suggested that as we are all on National committees of the board we might provide updates on the applicable committees for the benefit of the ORE and our members.
Peter Gilkinson welcomed Judy to the group.
12. Meeting adjourned at 5:30 pm
Peter Gilkinson thanked the executive for a productive meeting.