MINUTES / COMPTE RENDU

SP Executive Meeting / Rencontre de l’exécutif SP
November 1st, 2018 / 1 novembre 2018
Presence / Absence --- Présences / Absences

Bryan Van Wilgenburg (PRA/NWT – PRA/TNO)

P

Norma Domey (NCR – RCN)

P

Daniel Ingram (PRA/NWT – PRA/TNO)

P

Steven J. Colwell (BC/YUK – CB/YUK)

A

David Griffin  (PIPSC – IPFPC)

P

Sushil S. Dixit (NCR – RCN)

P

Elizabeth Ptasznik (PRA/NWT – PRA/TNO)

P

Waheed Khan (NCR – RCN)

P

Enzo Barresi (ONT)

P

Thomas Landry (ATL)

P

Judith Leblanc (QUE)

P

Suzelle Brosseau (PIPSC – IPFPC)

A

Marcel C. Beaudoin (NCR – RCN)

P

Donald Lefebvre (NCR – RCN)

P

Michael A. Forbes (ONT)

A

 

 

 

Anna Stepf joined as observer at 10:55 am.

Meeting opened

Elizabeth Ptasznik opened the meeting.

Agenda approved

Minutes approved

Action Items

Feedback to workplan to Donald Lefebvre.

Feedback acceptable for mid to late december

Standing items

Financial report

Donald presented financial report

ACTION Elizabeth, David - Will forward to Donald the revised budget for the Sub Group Presidents meeting for inclusion into budget and sharing with the rest of the exec.

Donald - Has included president’s discretionary budget as a standing item in the budget.

ACTION DONALD, SUSHIL - WIll communicate with each other to ensure accurate forecasting of annual allotment from PIPSC.

Bargaining Report

Sushil S. Dixit is rep at RCMP Table

Elizabeth Ptasznik is rep at Central Table

Essential services - Justin Shaer (MT Environment Canada), Helen MacDonald Picard (BI Health Canada), Marcie Shultz (SGREG Health Canada)

Bryan Van Wilgenburg summarized first face to face bargaining meeting with TB.

Next meeting Dec 4-6

Possible directions that bargaining might take were discussed, as well as options that could be used by the various bargaining tables (SP Group, Central Table).

Waheed Khan summarized the state of EWSP Bargaining

ACTION MARCEL Put EWSP as full 30 minute topic at next Exec meeting in Vancouver

ACTION WAHEED - Prepare 30 minute topic for next Exec meeting in Vancouver and for Subgroup Presidents Meeting

ACTION DAVID - Find contact person on employee side for NJC negotiations

ACTION JUDITH - Put a link to the EWSP on the FB pages.

ACTION - BRYAN (Bargaining Team) - Look at Terms of Reference for Bargaining Team to make sure they are up to date.

Subgroups

Enzo Barresi summarized most recent Subgroup Presidents Conference Call. Presidents are on board with idea of having subgroup presidents meeting surrounding mobilization.

Concerns brought up about EWSP, Scientific Integrity

ACTION JUDITH, ENZO - Will follow up with member who had questions about SI.

Enzo gave brief rundown of agenda for Subgroup Presidents Meeting in Vancouver

Motion (Enzo, thomas) - Hospitality budget of $1500 (maximum) for afterwards including appetizers and drinks. PIPSC policy is $25/person, asking for an extra $250.

Amended to $2500.75 to ensure everything will be covered.

Carried

ACTION - Regional reps - Verify that all subgroup presidents have all been invited and the contact info is available.

ACTION - ALL start thinking of prep for next zonal meetings

ACTION - MARCEL - put 30 minutes on next agenda for zonal subgroup presidents meeting

Membership

Sushil indicated he would be getting new membership listing in the winter to ensure that, with all of the new hirings at ECCC and DFO it is up to date.

Delegate coordinator

Michael A. Forbes summarized process for information being sent out to delegates for PIPSC AGM.

ACTION - Michael - Ask PIPSC to provide the timelines concerning the PIPSC AGM.

ACTION - MICHAEL - Send out a reminder email at the appropriate times.

ACTION - MICHAEL - Look at the delegate selection policies of other groups and have a summary ready for November.

Anna Stepf joined as observer at 10:55 am.

ACTION - MICHAEL - Start delegate selection earlier, prior to PIPSC starting the process.

ACTION - MARCEL - Put 45 minute discussion on next agenda for Delegate selection.

ACTION - ALL - Consider update to Delegate selection policies with a view of ensuring people who want to come can, and it is not always the same people attending AGMs.

IT

Daniel Ingram summarized status of IT inventory. Noted that technically, treasurer should be tracking assets.

Daniel summarized situation with laptop stolen from Tarek Salem.

ACTION - DANIEL will send questions raised by Didier Poutre to exec.

MOTION (Daniel, Judith)  - Approval for Norma to purchase a new laptop of equivalent quality and value (original purchase price of $899.99, on sale for $849.99) to replace the one unusable due to damage.

Carried

MOTION (Daniel, Bryan) - Approve the disposal of Norma’s currently damaged laptop of serial number (to be obtained later)

Carried

Stewards

Waheed summarized current situation with respect to SP Stewards. There are a lot of active members who are just waiting and looking for encouragement and guidance to enroll as a steward.

Members appreciate the SP group is having hospitality events at Regional councils, etc that have discussion on current events at PIPSC.

It was noted that many stewards do not have a lot of information that it is assumed they have by members of the Exec and how this results in many stewards feeling abandoned and/or ignored.  Stewards want current information to help members in their workplaces.

Thomas Landry noted this lack of information and lack of certainty over who is the lead for stewards has been brought up at the AC but, as of yet, no decision has been made.

Communications

Judith Leblanc summarized communications for the SP Group Executive as well as the Bargaining Team. Current focus is on Bargaining Team so that members do not get information overload.

ACTION DAVID - Will get PIPSC to look into printing out copies of “I support my Bargaining Team” and bring to Vancouver meeting.

ACTION - JUDITH - Will prepare a message to be sent out to stewards and subgroup presidents.

ACTION - Waheed - Will handle PIPSC Print Shop to ensure the posters are printed and sent out.
ACTION - JUDITH and Waheed - Will send message to stewards and subgroup presidents.

Judith - SP is on FB, IG and Twitter. Take pictures, send to Judith so she can share it on social media.

Executive Travel

Elizabeth - NCR subgroup has invited Elizabeth to their AGM

Elizabeth - Member of the exec has been invited to speak to St Andrews, New Brunswick DFO location. If they can change the date, Judith might be able to make it.

Judith - Participated in Nanaimo subgroup AGM. Went well. Spoke of Bargaining, SI, workplace. Presence of Judith was greatly appreciated.

Bylaws Committee

Norma Domey summarized status of Bylaws changes that were approved at Spring 2018 SP AGM. Are awaiting translation, but are currently in effect.

Discussion was held over issues. Needing to provide bilingual versions, posted. Bylaws translated may not be fully available until before the AGM. PIPSC Bylaws mandate that same document, must be made available to all members in both official languages. It’s not one document in english and another in french It is one document that is in both english and french.

ACTION - NORMA -Contact Diane/PIPSC to see about a notice being put up on website to indicate Bylaws have been repealed and are awaiting translation and posting.

Strategic Bargaining Committee

Elizabeth, Bryan - Not much to say. Most is confidential to the SBC.

Advisory Committee meeting

No updates.

SAC

Norma Domey summarized recent SAC meeting.  Federal election coming up. Result of federal election will have an impact on the momentum that PIPSC has going forward.

ECCC and DFO have launched processes to recruit departmental Science Advisors to work with departments and with Chief Science Officer.

E-Learning by Stewards

Waheed summarized changes (upcoming and desired) in steward e-learning.

ACTION - MARCEL - Bring up survey to stewards to find out how many have been rejected, how many are no longer applying for next Exec meeting.

SP Exec Meeting went into In Camera session

SP Exec left In Camera session

ACTION MARCEL - Put an agenda item on the Vancouver Exec meeting for disciplinary process

ACTION ELIZABETH - Contact Martin Ranger to get remainder of complainants notified as to the decision.

Break for lunch 12:30

Back from Lunch at 14:00

Visibility items

Donald Lefebvre summarized status of visibility items.

Motion (Dan, Marcel)  - Donald to work with Graphics Designer (PIPSC) to have a finalized banner design using the chosen wide base, based on the simplified l’Est du Québec Subgroup design, to be presented to SGP meeting to the presidents, to then be produced and shipped to the subgroups when completed.

Carried

Motion (Thomas, Bryan) - Send a christmas gift to the Stewards consisting of the new notebooks (plus possibly other items, depending on availability of stock). Distribution method by giving to subgroup presidents who would then distribute it to the local stewards.

Carried

Steward Councils

Waheed presented message he plans on presenting at SP Stewards Councils covering the following topics.

  • Roles of stewards
    • Additional value of SP stewards in the understanding of the SP Collective Agreement
  • Collective Bargaining
  • EWSP

2018 SP AGM Feedback

Feedback that was given in response to 2018 SP AGM was presented.

ACTION NORMA - Ensure that a summary of the rules of discussion will be prepared and presented to the members in some manner prior to the discussion.

Date for next SP AGM is Saturday April 6th.

Thus Executive Meeting will be Saturday April 5th.

ACTION ELIZABETH - Send email to Diane to let her know about the date (April 6th) and location (Montreal) of the next SP AGM.

Motion (Brian, Marcel) - Move to hold SP AGM in Montreal on April 6th, with Exec Meeting held the day before.

Carried

WORKPLAN

Donald summarized status of SP Group Workplan

ACTION - ALL In January, be prepared to discuss contents of Donald’s email.

Mobilization Committee

Elizabeth summarized CS mobilization committee, which gathers a number of members from across the country who have volunteered. Brings them into Ottawa, give them a day of training, and these members end up being the point of contact in the regions.

ACTION THOMAS, ALL - Come up with ideas for mobilization that can be distributed to the SGP in Vancouver.

PIPSC AGM Bylaws

Norma went through the PIPSC resolutions and summarized.

2019 SP Executive Election

Elizabeth summarized what is needed to be done.

Elections committee was formed

Donald (chair)

Daniel

Norma

ACTION - ELECTIONS COMMITTEE (Donald, Daniel, Norma) Committee will come up with a loose plan for the elections to be presented at the next Exec meeting.

Marcel presented his proposal for changing the way that Portfolios are elected

ACTION - ALL - Be prepared to discuss portfolio elections for November Exec meeting

Round Table

Donald - Reviewed requirements for reimbursement for things like Internet, Hospitality, etc.

ACTION - MARCEL - Send November Action items only, full minutes for January

Bryan - Moving to NCR, may have to be prepared for possible challenges.

ACTION - NORMA - Look into the Bylaws to see if there is a problem.

Judith - Since putting the social media accounts on the communications, lots of people following since then. Read out a comment congratulating Exec for not using disposable bottles.

Daniel - January 12th first Subgroup Exec meeting in 2019.

ACTION - DAVID Will communicate to Diane date (January 12th) for group exec meeting in January.

Anna - Suggestion for new SGP. Was expecting some sort of information package when she got elected to the position for new Subgroup Presidents. A 1-pager (or more) that can be used to provide guidance. It took a while to feel part of the family.

ACTION - MARCEL To bring up at next Exec meeting for discussion: Have SP Group sponsor 1 deserving young individual from each region to attend next PIPSC AGM.