National Team Members
President - Dean Corda, NLMCC, HRUMCC, SUMCC, IITB NUMCC
Vice President - Lynn Ohlson, SUMCC
Vice President - Yvonne Snaddon, IITB NUMCC
Communications Lead - Daniel (Shih-Ho) Shen
W-T UMCC - Lynn Ohlson, Terri Gobeil
Ontario UMCC - Stephanie Turkington, Nicole Beckett
Atlantic UMCC - Carolyn Hynes, Amberly Colter
PHSC - Dean Corda, Tanisha Coultis
A Message from your Consultation President, Dean Corda
Your consultation teams have been busy addressing issues at all levels with regards to the updated Directive on Prescribed Presence in the Office, Duty to Accommodate, use of contractors, limitations to available working hours, and bedbugs among others.
My first year as President of the team has seen us host two regional Steward meetings, enhance our relationships with senior leadership, and the publishing of this second newsletter for 2024 in addition to our regular and ad-hoc meetings with management.
Our plan to add two developmental vice-president positions has been paused indefinitely until we have a full understanding of the state of our budget coming out of this November’s PIPSC Annual General Meeting. None of us are getting any younger and we really need to encourage the participation of a more diverse group representing PIPSC to ESDC. Please feel free to get in touch with anyone from the National Team or your local Steward to find out more about becoming involved.
Bedbugs
The change from two to three days in-office for people means more bodies in the office and everything that brings. We have heard that sections of the 2nd and 6th floors of Place du Portage, Phase IV have dealt with the presence of bedbugs. We wish to remind you that the first actions should be contacting your manager, the National Service Call Centre and workplace Occupational Health and Safety Committee or OHS Rep in these instances. Management must be given the time to address the problem before complaints can be filed. That said, your psychological health is as important as your physical well being. If you’re concerned about going to a site with an infestation, speak to your manager about flexible work arrangements that may be available.
Duty To Accommodate (DTA)
Many members have submitted Duty to Accommodate requests through PeopleSoft for consideration by management. It is important to note that this process does not guarantee one an accommodation to work from home. Remember, you retain the right to grieve the decision provided by management but it must be done so within 25 calendar days of the decision. Once a grievance is denied at the 2nd level then you also have the right to have it sent for reconsideration by the ESDC Telework Review Panel. The Panel consists of two PIPSC representatives and two from management. As always, when it comes to DTA requests, management is not entitled to ask for or receive your personal medical information or a diagnosis. You must only supply a list of functional limitations provided by your medical professional.
Canadian Dental Care Plan
In May the self-serve service was launched. Seniors 65+ can access this in parallel with an online status check and a telephony system. These systems advise clients if they have been deemed eligible or not eligible for the program. In June, the program opened to those with disabilities and children under 18. This required a family structure rather than an individual one and the IITB team delivered this on time. These systems were developed completely in house by IT staff, your PIPSC brothers and sisters. To date three million applications have been processed. The team is now working on My Service Canada Account and the number of clients could rise to nine million by spring, the biggest single Canadian benefit ever. Congratulations to all ESDC staff whose dedication made this possible.
RTO
As per the direction from Treasury Board the department has begun the implementation of return to the office three days a week. For IITB employees currently (hybrid) in-office two days a week, the implementation of Phase I began Monday, September 9, 2024 to transition to three, (four days a week for EXs, Managers and Team Leaders). Managers were directed to begin tracking as of Monday, October 7, 2024. Phase II for those with IT exceptions will begin 2 days per week as of April 2025, with full integration of three days a week as of September 2025. ADM Exceptions and DTA updates are being made at the branch level. For areas where space is extremely limited employees may work from home with manager approval and will not be penalized. Individuals impacted by issues such as transportation are encouraged to reach out to their Manager.
From the EMA side of the house, the Phase 3 roll out of RTO has identified September of 2025 as the date the MA’s will return to offices 3 days per week. The Archibus booking system will be utilized to secure your work location. Please review the information provided by the department on exception status and Duty To Accommodate. There are resources in the PIPSC office dedicated to assisting with questions and concerns regarding RTO. Please contact PIPSC at the following link. Know your Rights - Return to Office | The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
IITB Report
Hello proud IT members. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Yvonne Snaddon. I am an IT02 member with the Asset Information Management Team. I am also a PIPSC Steward and a Vice President of the PIPSC National Consultation Team with the portfolio of IITB. Please reach out to your IT Steward or myself at ysnaddon@pipsc.ca if you have departmental concerns you would like to discuss or have us bring forward.
We meet regularly with the CIO and members of the IITB Senior Leadership Team. We have continued to raise concerns around the reduced number of onsite technicians vs. the number of clients and devices they support. The current average ratio of onsite technicians to client base is 610 to 1 and number of devices is 733 to 1. The target ratio of onsite technicians to client base is 450 to 1 and number of devices 550 to 1. There have been 17 new onsite technicians hired and Enterprise Operations is working on the development of hubs in offices where clients can come for repairs. IITB began re-instituting an evergreening program this summer to reduce the effect of technology decay in the future. We will continue to push for more resources to reduce stress and burnout of members.
With the implementation of the new IT Training fund, negotiated as part of the most recent IT Collective Agreement, we facilitated a presentation at the IITB Consultation table. We have asked the department to support staff by allowing them time during business hours to take advantage of the courses available through the fund. Members are encouraged to include these requests in their Learning Plans and negotiate the time with their Managers. We requested the department to update Directors, Managers and Team Leaders to support employees wanting to take the courses and include communication to employees in IITB news.
EMA Report
Hello Service Canada EMA’s. My name is Lynn Ohlson. I am the Vice-President of Consultation serving the MA community. I am also the President of the SH group and the EMA rep on the SH executive. Thus, I am very well tuned in to most of the issues affecting the MA community from a number of various sources.
There are numerous issues amongst the EMA community that are being followed closely by your consultation team. First and foremost of course is the concern over RTO which has been covered in the prior portion of this newsletter. Please remember that you have access to Duty to Accommodate legislation should you feel you would like to explore this option. If this is an option you are considering, please do not hesitate to submit your documentation as soon as possible. There is no need to provide any specific medical information to the employer but rather a fulsome description of your limitations. Please feel free to reach out to a steward if you require assistance in this area.
The Atlantic region has introduced a policy demanding that all processing staff including EMA’s begin work no earlier than 0800. Our collective agreement states that core public service hours are 0600 to 1800.Your national President and Vice-President have personally attended the Atlantic regional consultation meeting to address this issue as well as presenting it at the national SUMCC table. Despite our strenuous objections, the employer is firm in their stance that this is within their rights, and warranted, to allow MA’s to begin calling applicants as soon as they begin work. We encourage all members affected by this change to file grievances as soon as the policy is enacted.
A new pilot of an abbreviated Decision Summary in the Atlantic region is reported to be well received by MA’s and the likelihood it will be rolled out in Ontario and the WT in the new year is high. The National Time Scheduling Tool, also being trialled in the Atlantic region is a measure we have been requesting through consultation for some time. Though the document requires prescriptive detail in how the MA spends their time, it is most helpful in carving out the non productive aspects of your day and thus making your productivity stats much more accurate. For example, if your scheduled day is 7.5 hours but due to meetings, special projects etc you were only available for 4 hours to make a decision, that is the number used to calculate your productivity. It is recognizing that the number of decisions made will be proportionate to your potential productive time available.
The Reassessment “Return To Work” pilot continues and is being closely monitored for any dilution of nursing input or tasks and delegation of tasks that should be completed by a licensed nurse being assumed by non professional navigators.Stay tuned for more information as this unfolds.
There has been concern raised regarding the inconsistency of MAC appointments throughout the regions. Some regions employ a competition process and some are utilizing the talent management portion of the PMA reviews and/or merit appointment. We are monitoring the situation and will provide further information once it is available.
We are so pleased that we now have a steward in the Edmonton office and are looking forward to welcoming a new steward in Victoria in the new year. These two offices have been without a steward for some time so this is a wonderful improvement.
We continue to hold national EMA steward calls on a monthly basis which proves to be a valuable tool for staying abreast of the challenges and developments throughout the country and pooling our knowledge and resources.
Communication Report
Dear members, my name is Daniel Shen (Shih-Ho). I joined the mighty ESDC Consultation Steering Committee back in Spring this year and it has been a rewarding learning journey. As the communication lead, I have worked on various tasks to better our overall communication. Internally, I worked on the VP callout and various meeting surveys. Externally, I’ve been working on developing a plan to revive our e-bulletin board. Changes are planned to be rolled out progressively in the new year to provide more resources to our members.