Previous Month                                                                                                                        Next Month

News - August 2006

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.

• Health Canada seeks co-development on response

to Public Service Survey

• PSAC issues 'Input Call' for 2007 bargaining demands

• Service Canada supremo Flumian turfed by Tories

• Despite delays, employer maintains timeline for release

of SDA-II classification panel report

Health Canada seeks co-development on response to Public Service Survey

Posted August 24, 2006

Health Canada has asked the NHWU to participate in a co-developed Departmental response to the results of the latest Public Service Survey.

Management is seeking our union’s help in resolving the issues of harassment on the job and career development identified by Health Canada employees in the survey. While the employer sees these as most pressing, the NHWU will be pushing for an expanded response and action on additional matters of concern to our members.

For instance, the issue of ‘voluntary’ overtime that is neither claimed nor paid is a consistent sore spot. As well, ‘career development’ needs to be broadened to encompass both classification issues and the lack of available funding for training.

A smart union knows when to fight, and when to work constructively with the employer for the betterment of its members. While our ‘NONService Canada’ campaign shows the former, our co-development projects with Health Canada are excellent examples of a win-win approach to labour relations.

The NHWU has had considerable success co-developing the Department’s Informal Conflict Management System and its policies relating to the new Public Service Employment Act.

The new Health Canada Code of Conduct booklet is another example of a recent co-development project between our union and the employer. A photo of the booklet, which was distributed internally during Public Service Week, accompanies this article.

PSAC issues ‘Input Call’ for 2007 bargaining demands

Posted August 22, 2006

Summer is barely half over, but it’s time for NHWU members to give serious thought to the issues and ideas they would like addressed in their next collective agreement with Treasury Board.

The Public Service Alliance on August 16 formally issued its ‘Bargaining Demands Input Call’ for all members belonging to the following Treasury Board bargaining units:
• Program Administration - PA (formerly Table 1);
• Operational - SV (formerly Table 2);
• Technical - TC (formerly Table 3); and
• Education/Library Science – EB (formerly Table 5).

The PSAC, our bargaining agent, wants to be in a position to present its contract demands to the employer sometime between next February and April.   This means following a very specific timetable.

Accordingly, Locals should move now to set up Standing Bargaining Proposal Committees to solicit membership input on the issues they feel should be included in the next round of negotiations for their group.  A limit of 30 non-wage demands from each Component for each bargaining unit has been established.

These proposed demands, complete with justification and rationale, must be completed by Locals on the PSAC’s new ‘bargaining demand form’ and submitted to the NHWU National Office no later than Monday, November 20, 2006. This will ensure we are able to avoid errors and duplications and meet the PSAC’s own November 30 deadline for receipt of proposed demands.

A copy of the Feedback on the Programs of Demands form and the new PSAC bargaining proposal form can be downloaded at the end of this article.   (The PSAC has sent its Program of Demands document to all NHWU Locals.)  We strongly advise all members to read these documents attentively.

The PSAC has also reduced the number of Regional Bargaining Conferences for the 2007 contract round to two:
       • an eastern conference (covering the Atlantic, Quebec, Ontario and the NCR) in Montreal on

          November 25-26; and
       • a western conference (covering the Prairies, B.C. and the North) in Vancouver on December 2

          3.

These regional conferences will deal with the proposed demands submitted by Components and other PSAC entities.  Following the procedure set out in PSAC Regulation 15, the NHWU will be entitled to one delegate from each of our four Treasury Board bargaining units for each PSAC Region where we have members.  The National Office will provide these names to the PSAC by the October 20 cutoff date.

A National Bargaining Conference will be held in Ottawa from February 1-4, 2007. Regional Bargaining Conference delegates will choose two representatives from each bargaining unit per region as delegates to the National Bargaining Conference.

PSAC Bargaining Proposal Form

PSAC Feedback on the Programs of Demands Form

Service Canada supremo Flumian turfed by Tories

Posted August 15, 2006

Maryantonett Flumian, the ‘my way or the highway’ boss of Service Canada, is being dumped by the Harper Conservatives.  The news, made official August 11 on the Prime Minister’s Web site, was widely reported in media leaks earlier this month.

We’d like to think that our own ‘NONService Canada’ campaign, with its lobbying of Conservative Members of Parliament and letter-writing to the Prime Minister, may have in some small way played a part in this welcome turn of events.

Flumian’s replacement is a familiar face to the NH&WU – Hélène Gosselin, formerly an Associate Deputy Minister at Health Canada.   The National Office will be making efforts to meet with Gosselin when the new Deputy Head formally takes up her responsibilities on September 5.

Meantime, Flumian, the woman who turned Service Canada workers into ‘Wal-Mart greeters’ (complete with little red vests), will serve some time at the Privy Council Office in bureaucratic purgatory before being parachuted into some other cushy government job.

Despite delays, employer maintains timeline for release of SDA-II classification panel report

Posted August 1, 2006

Despite delays at the employer’s end, Service Canada is holding tight to its previously-announced autumn 2006 release of the much-anticipated findings of the May 2006 SDA-II classification panel.

This was one of several useful pieces of information that resulted from a June 28 meeting between NHWU Executive Vice-President Tony Tilley and Phil Jensen, ADM of the People and Culture Branch of Service Canada.

Our union had pushed for the meeting to seek more information on the SDA-II file, particularly with reference to the classification panel.

Jensen stated that the size and complexity of the panel’s work had produced several important questions that needed to be investigated and clarified before any proposal could be taken to the Deputy Head for approval. As a result, Service Canada had yet to release the panel results.

As before, Jensen stressed that “at this time” no decision had been taken on the matter. Understanding the level of frustration this is having on our SDA-II members, the Service Canada ADM said the employer is maintaining its fall 2006 timeline for the release of the panel decision.

One positive agreement to flow from the meeting was Jensen’s commitment both to produce a new series of questions and answers for the SDA-IIs and to welcome the NHWU’s participation in this process.