The NUREG Bargaining Team met with CNSC Management on April 10th and 11th, 2017. We bargained until late afternoon on Tuesday when CNSC broke off negotiations.
CNSC MANAGEMENT REFUSED TO NEGOTIATE A FAIR DEAL AT THE TABLE.
Your NUREG bargaining team is very disappointed with the CNSC Management for a number of reasons:
Dear Members,
Over the last several months PIPSC has been actively opposing Bill C-27, An Act to amend the Pension Benefits Standards Act. To ensure we succeed in ensuring the government knows that this type of degradation of our pension security is unacceptable, we encourage you to use this sample letter and write to your Member of Parliament. We have a government that says it wants to listen so the time is right now to have our opinion heard.
Please use the following link to find your Member of Parliament’s email and cut and paste the letter below into an email. Send a copy to the Finance Minister and Prime Minister (emails below) to make sure they all know you oppose Bill C-27.
Thank you for your time and support.
Debi Daviau
Dear Member of Parliament,
I am writing to you concerning Bill C-27, An Act to amend the Pension Benefits Standards Act.
Bill C-27 would potentially pave the way for federally regulated employers to erode pension security and shift risks from employers to employees by replacing defined benefit pensions plans with target benefit plans. It sets a dangerous precedent for the well-being of defined pension plans —and their beneficiaries – in the future.
The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), which represents some 55,000 members, including myself, in the federal and provincial public sectors has previously expressed its concerns about this legislation.
I strongly oppose this Bill and ask that it be dropped. I encourage your government to focus its energies on creating a legislative and economic environment in which defined benefit pension plans can thrive.
Thank you for your time and attention to this critical matter and I look forward to your timely reply.
Sincerely,
Cc: Minister Bill Morneau, Bill.Morneau@parl.gc.ca
CC: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, justin.trudeau@parl.gc.ca
The recent release of a new survey of provincial government scientists in British Columbia draws some disturbing conclusions that will be all too familiar to many of our federal science members.
April 18 , 2017
To all SH Group members,
Some of you have asked why it can take weeks or sometimes months between the time a collective agreement is ratified by members and the day it is signed and implemented.
After too long a wait, we finally met with the employer to discuss the terms of the next collective agreement. The previous collective agreement expired on June 20, 2014. Now that the employer has finally received a clear mandate from Treasury Board, the two parties have agreed to move things forward and reach a negotiated agreement as quickly as possible. Some proposals were exchanged. We should be able to present the terms of the tentative agreement to members soon. Once it is translated, the members can vote on it. We will notify you as soon as possible.
The BCFNHA group executives are seeking individuals from the general membership who are working in the Vancouver area and who would be interested in becoming part of the bargaining team for the next round of collective bargaining (negotiations) with the employer. If you are interested in joining the bargaining team or would like more information, then please contact the Sharon Trasatti-President of the BCFNHA group at: 250-338-7528 or email trasatti@telus.net by April 25, 2017.
Dear colleagues,
Our February RO/RCO newsletter included a bargaining update with the results of negotiations with other PIPSC science and research groups in the federal government. You can access the newsletter from our RO/RCO web page:
PIPSC President Debi Daviau’s comments on today’s technical briefing regarding the Phoenix Pay system and news suggesting that performance payments may have been awarded to department executives overseeing the system
Once again, PIPSC members come out of this latest technical briefing without the sense that a fix to the Phoenix system is coming soon.
While there is much tinkering around the edges, no global solution is yet in sight. And while mention of a “steady state” continues to be a favourite talking point (for example, with maternity and parental leave requests), there has been no indication that the funds would be made available to ensure we have a timely, long-term fix to all issues. Many disability leave requests, which affect the most vulnerable federal employees, have yet to be fixed.
Deputy Minister Lemay also remarked that “the way we’re organizing our work today is not our long-term approach.”
In fact, this is precisely why we recommended that a contingency fund to fix Phoenix be included in the recent federal budget and that further training be provided to government IT workers. The government should not be forever dependent on IBM or other consultants to fix its Phoenix problems. This would enable a fix that could be maintained by our complement of public servant IT employees. We see no sign of this kind of long-term planning.
We will be verifying with PIPSC members who contacted us for help, especially those on maternity and parental leave, to make sure their cases have indeed been resolved.
Finally, the possibility that executives overseeing the Phoenix pay system may have been awarded performance pay is deeply upsetting and, if true, would be a disgraceful misuse of Canadians’ taxes – especially given the enormous number of public servants who we know continue to be deprived of money they are owed, and after the government stated in December that bonuses for executives dealing with Phoenix were under review.
For Immediate Release
Ottawa, March 22, 2017 – The federal government announcement that it is investing $529.9 million more to crack down on tax evasion and avoidance by hiring new auditors is good news for tax fairness, but the government’s much-heralded “innovation” budget is lacking in needed, strategic investments in more science staff, says the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC). What’s more, the government continues to be slow in reducing the billions of dollars currently spent on outsourced services, and has offered no new money to resolve ongoing Phoenix Pay problems, despite union calls to do so.
“The new investments in the CRA will help make sure billionaires and corporations pay their fair share,” said PIPSC President Debi Daviau. “But after years of job and program cuts under the Harper government, at least 1,500 science jobs still need to be reinstated to maintain adequate service levels and restore important expertise.
“Reducing the approximately $12 billion annually now spent on outsourced public services would simultaneously strengthen public services and cut down on corporate profits made at taxpayers’ expense,” added Daviau. “The government earlier promised to shrink expenses on outside consultants to 2005-06 levels within 10 years. We feel this can – and should – be done within its current mandate.”
“We are of course disappointed the government has chosen not to invest further in fixing the Phoenix Pay problem once and for all,” concluded Daviau, “surely one of the darkest – and longest – chapters in mismanagement of the federal public service. The silence on Phoenix is deafening.”
PIPSC represents some 55,000 public-sector scientists and other professionals across the country, most of them employed by the federal government.
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For further information:
Johanne Fillion (613) 228-6310 ext 2303 (office) or (613) 883-4900 (cell.)
e-mail.
To get an update of ongoing PIPSC CFIA-IN issues or meeting minutes, please visit our website.
While browsing, also take a look at our ServicePlus member benefits program and take advantage of several benefits offered by various partners. For more details, follow the link http://www.serviceplusgroup.ca/