On December 3, 2024, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency sent a Letter of Intent (email/letter) to certain former incumbents of the VM-02 Supervisory Veterinarian job (Decision Number 59668) who did not file a new classification grievance in 2022 and 2024. If you do not receive such a letter, please disregard this message.
This letter requests confirmation of your intention to either pursue or withdraw the classification grievance. CFIA set a deadline to respond as January 10, 2025, warning that failure to reply would result in the grievance being deemed abandoned and closed.
PIPSC urges all recipients to immediately respond to the employer indicating their intent to pursue this grievance. In our view, there is no advantage whatsoever of withdrawing your grievance. Failure to reply by the deadline may limit your future entitlement to any retroactive remedy.
PIPSC considers this request as another example of CFIA's troubling pattern of unethical tactics against grievors. We believe this is an attempt by the agency to strip former incumbents of their legal right to retroactive salary adjustments by inventing a baseless administrative hurdle that assumes you have withdrawn your grievance if you do not reply by an arbitrary deadline.
We note that numerous Memoranda of Agreement have confirmed the rights of former incumbents to the outcome of any classification grievance affecting the classification of a job description they held. This follows the basic principle, long defended by PIPSC, that former and current incumbents must be entitled to any retroactive grievance or job content decision. In other words, PIPSC believes the Agency's actions are pointless; however, we still urge members to maintain their grievance as an insurance policy against future legal action.
Although we strongly oppose CFIA's attempt to limit your rights, we have requested the employer rescind the letter, and we believe everyone, irrespective of grievance status, must be entitled to the outcome of any retroactive classification grievance decision; we encourage all affected parties to respond to the CFIA's request within the specified timeframe.
Members who did not receive the letter of intent do not need to take any action. Rest assured, PIPSC continues to work behind the scenes to protect your interests - while our actions may not always be apparent, we are prioritising legally critical actions above all else. We ask for your patience as we continue to push back against this adversarial and litigious employer.