I attended three LMNC meetings this past year - Ottawa, Montreal, and Kingston. There were many issues discussed that affect the Ontario region.
Most significantly, all our members were affected by Phoenix in some way, shape, or form. TB is aware of the issues and provided updates on their progress (or lack thereof). We have been assured countless times that they are in the process of fixing both the members issues and the system itself. Timelines were provided but not always adhered to. This is obviously an issue that will continue to be brought forward until all concerns are rectified.
In the CS side of the house, two major concerns were discussed. Firstly, contracting to outside companies for various software initiatives has led to problems with regards to follow up when updating the programs or fixing bugs. Secondly, the implementation of the second version of RRS was problematic as it didn't upload previous times /workload. Managers were asking employees to input the data "to the best of their knowledge". This presented an ethical issue as it could be construed that members are "making up" data so during one of the meetings, the director of IT agreed and put in writing that members would not be disciplined if the information entered was not entirely accurate.
Health Services had a number of issues. Clothing allowance was problematic for some as a bulletin was released early in 2018 and not promulgated to all staff - this bulletin allowed for submitting the claim without receipts and streamlining the process. We also noted that hiring procedures for RNs takes too long (due to the requirement for medicals) and we are losing potential new hires to other employers. We have also continued to express concern with regard to the difficulties faced in recruiting psychologists - we have been informed that it is solely related to pay but members indicate that workload and supervision of non-registered staff are also a deterrent to employment. This has led to the increasing practice of hiring RPNs and BSTs in place of RNs and psychologists.
The prison needle exchange program (PNEP) was legislated without union consultation. Gary was able to visit Atlantic Institution to see first-hand how the PNEP was implemented. As it stands presently, Atlantic Institution Grand Valley Institution have adopted the program. Fraser Valley Institution is next slated to on-board. This has been an ongoing concern for all unions and discussions are ongoing.
There was some miscommunication at some institutions between management and health care with when a wellness check is to be performed. Wellness checks are separate from post use of force, so this was clarified. Purkinje / OHIS Pharm was implemented and subsequently dissolved due to incompatibility issues. Of course, there was a significant amount of time involved in training, navigating, and then reconciling medications from pharmacy, nursing, and medical staff. This also affected staff and health operations as this had to be used in conjunction with the existing pharmacy system and OSCAR.
OSCAR had many issues of its own. First of all the lack of bandwidth made usage slow and crashes were frequent, affecting the whole country. There were problems with medication profiles not being updated when Purkinje / OHIS Pharm was dissolved, leading to an increase in patient safety incidents (mainly missed prescriptions). The overall consensus was that this will all work itself out once any year-long scripts expire.
The term employment policy was finally lifted as of January 1,2019, changes will benefit term employees within CSC . Bill C-83 is in the house and is legislating changes to segregation and implementing a structured intervention unit (SIU). This apparently will result in new money for new staff as there will be an increase in responsibilities for all staff. It seems as though staff assaults increased once this news was released. There were also rumours among the inmate population that staff were going to be targeted. RHQ indicated that they have investigated this and confirmed that it was only rumour, and nothing to be concerned about.
Contracting out remains a top priority for PIPSC. The union is reinforcing the changes to the collective agreement with the employer to ensure that they are compliant with the new language.
Last but not least, most PIPSC collective agreements are expired as of the release of this newsletter. As we are entering a new round of negotiations, it is important that everyone be familiar with the updates posted regularly on the PIPSC website www.pipsc.ca.
In solidarity,
Gary Desbiens
Ontario Regional Consultation President