When: Saturday, July 8, 2017
*Event is open for registration to Ottawa West Branch members only
Where: At the “Trolley Station” in Britannia Park
North of the Pinecrest Rd and Carling Ave intersection
Time: 11:00 – 16:00
Agenda:
Our goal for this Event is to bring members and their immediate families out to a fun-filled day of networking and activities for the children.
Your bargaining team met in a smaller group with management on June 5 and 6 in hopes of agreeing on a tentative settlement. We continued talks on Monday June 12 and the parties are continuing efforts to conclude bargaining.
On Thursday June 15th your bargaining team met all day to evaluate our options and continue working on the best deal possible for all PIPSC members.
We will inform you on our next meeting dates soon.
Sincerely,
Michael Simard
At the close of the RE Annual General Meeting on June 2nd, your new RE Group Executive took office, as per the Elections Results from the Fall.
The Ontario Region Steward Council will be held on Friday September 15 and Saturday September 16, 2017 at the Westin Prince, Toronto located at 900 York Mills Road, Toronto. The Council will be one and one half [1 ½] days, starting on Friday at 1:00 p.m., with registration beginning at 12:00 p.m. The Council will continue all day Saturday starting at 9:00 a.m. and will conclude at 5:00 p.m. No scheduled events will take place on Saturday evening.
Every day, Canada’s world-class public service professionals confront new challenges in such diverse fields as the environment, the economy, security and health.
As they meet these challenges from a global perspective, their expertise has earned respect worldwide.
For example, public service professionals are recognized as world leaders in:
Dear AFS Members,
We have met with our AFS subgroup and CS zone presidents and they overwhelmingly support our continuing to fight for meaningful classification reform. We have a clear mandate in going forward.
Our AFS Bargaining Team is again requesting new bargaining dates from CRA to negotiate the two remaining issues still outstanding at the bargaining table, classification reform and pay. We would like to hold these meetings as soon as possible.
In solidarity,
AFS Bargaining Team
The recent recommendations of yet another consultants’ report on Shared Services Canada (SSC) demonstrate that, when it comes to federal government outsourcing, there’s no shortage of private sector advice. The “SSC Resource Alignment Review,” begun last year at a cost of $1.35 million by Gartner Canada Co., criticizes the government for the fact that it “vastly underestimated the size, scale and complexity” of its IT plans. It then proceeds to recommend a number of changes – e.g., a joint SSC Transition Task Force comprised of industry representatives and government executives, a “relief valve” to allow departments to find alternatives when SSC can’t deliver, and the need to consider a new structure for SSC, “such as an agency, crown corporation, strategic partnership, joint venture” – all of which would, if implemented, promote even wider outsourcing of services than is practiced now.
It seems like only yesterday that Public Services Minister Judy Foote stood in the House of Commons and insisted SSC would not be allowed to outsource nearly a third of its workforce, as a 2014 PricewaterhouseCoopers report commissioned by SSC sought to do. This latest report deserves to meet the same fate.
After successfully negotiating stronger language to protect our CS Group members from the impacts of outsourcing, the suggestion that Shared Services should now be outsourced on an even grander scale than proposed under the Harper government is a bitter irony, given the Liberal government’s promises in 2015 to reduce spending on outside consultants to 2005-06 levels.
Equally troubling is the fact that the report’s “Management Summary” (the full report has not been made public) lists no fewer than 34 instances in which information has been redacted, meaning that the government is not sharing all the analysis and recommendations on which the report is based. PIPSC is filing access to information requests to learn more.
All of this comes on the heels of another separate report based on a 2016 survey of SSC employees by Ipsos Public Affairs which found, among other things, that outsourcing has contributed to a massive drop in morale at the department – a finding that corroborates our own survey findings of 2015.
Outsourcing didn’t work then and it doesn’t work now – as we are constantly reminded by the chronic cost overruns, delays and other problems associated with email consolidation, the Canada.ca website and pay transformation alone.
When it comes to outsourcing we’re all at risk of being Phoenixed.
The government should stop its overreliance on outsourcing and start listening to its own employees. That begins with investing in our members and the resources they need to make SSC succeed, not outside companies.
PIPSC will be writing to Treasury Board President Scott Brison to convey our concerns in detail and will pursue all means at our disposal to ensure the Gartner report is never implemented.
Better Together.
Debi Daviau,
President
“Managed Career Progression” Presented by Ontario Region Training Committee to:
Training and Education Committee