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News - April 2007
The headlines for news items published during this month are listed below.
Click on the headline of your choice to see the entire text of the article.
• Service Canada’s new ‘Made in Bangladesh’ policy!
• Stéphane Dion, Liberals receptive to NHWU’s concerns
with Service Canada
• ‘Culture Survey’ gives Service Canada workers the chance to send
wake-up call to senior management
• NHWU major participant in Joint Learning Program initiative
• Stickers remind members to ‘stick’ to the NHWU Web site
• NHWU an active presence at PSAC National Pride Conference
• Congratulations to these two NHWU scholarship winners!
Service Canada’s new ‘Made in Bangladesh’ policy!
Posted April 26, 2007
Many of our Service Canada members object to wearing the new red vests the employer is handing out.
The typical comment is that the vest makes them look like Wal-Mart ‘greeters’.
Now, to add insult to injury, it turns out that in some regions these Service Canada vests are made in Bangladesh!
You’d think that a Department that in part works to find jobs for Canadians might have thought to source its own ‘company uniform’ from the many struggling manufacturers here in Canada.
So much for ‘buying Canadian’. The NHWU says Service Canada should be ashamed.
Maybe we could cut the lovely red vests into strips and then make senior managers wear them as ties…
Stéphane Dion, Liberals receptive to NHWU’s concerns with Service Canada
Posted April 23, 2007
What do you do when your boss won’t meet you?
You find someone more powerful who will!
That was the case this week, as the NHWU flexed its political muscle to meet with Belinda Stronach and the Liberal Women’s Caucus.
Executive Vice-President Tony Tilley and Genie McDougall, President of NHWU Local 00009 and Alternate Regional Vice-President for Ontario, received a highly attentive and positive reception. They also had the opportunity to meet with the Leader of the Opposition, Stéphane Dion, who acknowledged our members’ concerns and stated that our issues would be forwarded to his policy people for review.
The meetings were organized and facilitated by Senator Jerry Grafstein, a widely-respected Liberal Party powerbroker. Grafstein’s concern and respect for seniors and their issues is clear from his active work on their behalf.
The photos below show: Tilley and McDougall addressing the Liberal Women’s Caucus; McDougall and Stronach; and meeting with the Leader of the Opposition, Stéphane Dion.
For months the NHWU has been asking for a meeting with the Deputy Head of Service Canada to discuss the numerous concerns over service, or rather lack of quality service, brought forward by our members.
Despite offering to meet any place, any time, we were told Ms. Gosselin had no time to meet with the union representing thousands of her employees.
It is about time that senior management started dealing in good faith with Service Canada workers and their unions...instead of hiding behind electronic surveys.
‘Culture Survey’ gives Service Canada workers the chance to send wake-up call to senior management
Posted April 16, 2007
Anyone glancing at a newspaper or listening to the radio knows that Service Canada is spending millions of taxpayer’s dollars to try and build the public awareness it has failed to achieve since it was launched in 2005.
Having touted what it likes to call its goal of ‘providing Canadians with seamless, easily accessible, personalized service’, senior management has only now apparently decided to ask Service Canada employees if its claims are true!
Over the next three weeks, all Service Canada workers will be e-mailed a request from an outside polling company to participate in the employer’s so-called ‘organization-wide survey on our culture of service excellence’.
This electronic survey – which will run from April 15 to May 7 – is being conducted by EKOS Research Associates, which has frequently received Service Canada largess.
Given the increasingly frustrating situation faced by Service Canada workers (and SDAs and other ISP providers in particular), this survey offers us a chance to inject a little reality into the senior management’s rhetoric.
The NHWU accordingly urges all Service Canada workers to take part in this survey.
Senior management wants to hear from you. So, let’s send them a clear, unmistakable message!
NHWU major participant in Joint Learning Program initiative
Posted April 12, 2007
The NHWU is a major participant in one of the most successful joint union-employer initiatives in the federal public service – the Joint Learning Program.
In fact, two of the 12 JLP union regional coordinators are from our own union: Manon Bouchard in Quebec, and Susan Jardine in British Columbia. As well, a number of NHWU members serve as volunteer facilitators of JLP courses:
• Susy Bartolozzi - Ontario
• Sonia Bellevue - Quebec
• Elizabeth Cannon - Ontario
• Edmond Kwan - Ontario
• Michael MacLean - NCR
• Steve McCuaig - NCR
• Genie McDougall - Ontario
• Patricia Benders - Ontario
• Pauline Pitcher - Ontario
• Carole Samson - Quebec
The JLP is a partnership between our bargaining agent, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, and the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada. (PHSRMAC wins the grand prize for longest acronym in the federal public service!)
The program fills a training void that would otherwise likely go unaddressed. As the JLP Web site itself explains: “The JLP is intended to provide joint union-management learning opportunities in areas where both parties have significant roles and responsibilities, and for which the employer does not already have a legal obligation to provide training. It is our aim that the JLP contributes to a better understanding of the respective roles of union and management and to improvements in labour relations within our workplace.”
Five JLP courses are currently on offer:
• Anti-Harassment;
• Respecting Differences/Anti-Discrimination;
• Collective Agreement;
• Union-Management Consultation; and
• Facilitator Training.
Interested members can obtain more information on the Joint Learning Program and its courses at:
http://www.jlp-pam.ca/
Stickers remind members to ‘stick’ to the NHWU Web site
Posted April 9, 2007
It’s a fact of modern life that more and more of us are relying on the Internet as a source of news and information.
The NHWU has spent considerable energy over the past year in rebuilding and revitalizing our Web site as the ‘go to’ location for the straight goods on workplace information.
As a timely reminder, the NHWU is distributing stickers to all our members to reinforce the importance of visiting their union’s Web site. A copy of the sticker is displayed immediately below:
These Don't Miss Out stickers are designed to be kept conveniently and discretely close to our members' workplace computers as a reminder to visit the NHWU Web site to keep up-to-date with the latest union information affecting their workplace lives.
If you haven't already received a sticker, ask your NHWU Local representative for one today!
NHWU an active presence at PSAC National Pride Conference
Posted April 3, 2007
The photo below shows just a few of the NHWU’s delegates to the past weekend’s 2007 PSAC National Pride Conference. Seen from left to right are: Réal Labbé, Local 30015, Edmonton; Claude Ouellette, Local 50012, Winnipeg; Moffatt Clarke, Local 20031, Vancouver, and Glenn Simkins, Local 00009, Toronto.
The Conference was held in Vancouver from March 30 to April 1, under the theme Include And Be Included. It brings together PSAC members who self-identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender (GLBT).
Conference objectives were:
• to educate, politicize and mobilize PSAC GLBT members by making the links between
union, workplace and GLBT rights within a safe space;
• to strengthen solidarity and build coalitions; and
• to enhance, support and promote inclusive GLBT self-organizing strategies in our union and our
workplaces.
Congratulations to these two NHWU scholarship winners!
Posted April 2, 2007
Congratulations to Kira Liu and Haylee Smysniuk – our two young recipients of the NHWU’s 2006 scholarships.
Kira Liu, age 17, is planning to study science at the University of Manitoba, with her ultimate goal of becoming a physician. As can be seen from the photo above, Kira is also an accomplished musician. Her father is a member of NHWU Public Health Agency Local 50012 in Winnipeg.
Haylee Smysniuk, of Saskatoon, is our second scholarship recipient. The 22-year-old will be studying agriculture at the University of Saskatchewan. Haylee is planning on an eventual career in environmental studies. Her mother Evelyn, is a member of our Service Canada Sub-Local 40101, and serves as NHWU Alternate Regional Vice-President for Saskatchewan.
Each young woman will receive a $2,500 scholarship to assist in reaching their career goals. And, of course, our best wishes for successful studies!
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