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News - June 2010

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 gets serious about workplace harassment with agreement

to joint union-management committee

• PSAC dues increase: Health Canada posting requires clarification

• Presidents’ Conference arms Local leadership with skills and understanding

to meet workplace challenges

Health Canada gets serious about workplace harassment with agreement to joint union-management committee

Posted June 13, 2010

Aggressive intervention by NHU has led Health Canada to agree to a joint union-management committee to address the ever developing problem of workplace harassment.

The employer was moved to act after a persuasive presentation was made recently by National President Tony Tilley to the Deputy Minister and other senior departmental staff.

Based around a compelling PowerPoint presentation, Tilley put forward our union’s long-standing concerns.

Generally, he noted that senior management has failed to recognize harassment as a growing concern by significant numbers of Health Canada employees does not accord the issue sufficient priority and has thus been largely ineffective in addressing it.

As well, the Department lacks a clear initiative or an action plan to address harassment in the workplace. As a result, existing mechanisms are neither fair, nor impartial, nor productive.

Tilley backed up these assertions with a number of telling examples where there were clear discrepancies in equal treatment, conflicts of interest and drawn-out investigations.

The NHU was also careful to reinforce our arguments with concrete and irrefutable data drawn from the neutral employee surveys conducted annually across the federal public service. Three of the most significant findings from those surveys were that:

          • In 2008, almost one in three (31 percent) of the almost 7,000 Health Canada survey

                 respondents said they had been a victim of harassment on the job within the prior two years;

          • The actual number of persons identifying they have been harassed has more than doubled in

                 the six years between the 2002 and 2008 public service surveys; and

          • Throughout the period 2002-2008, 75 per cent of self-identified harassed employees were

                 harassed at least once by someone with direct authority over them in the workplace.

These statistics allude to a compelling indication of a culture of ingrained harassment within the department. It is a serious workplace malignancy eating away at the morale and effectiveness of the Health Canada workforce.

Senior management has acknowledged this and the need to move forward.

Accordingly, there is agreement (and we quote) “that a joint committee of management/labour be formulated to assess the issue of harassment within Health Canada and to initiate a comprehensive program to adequately address the needs of our current environment”.

Going forward, the intent is that Health Canada managers will address any alleged harassment of which they are aware, whether or not a complaint has been made. They are expected by senior management to intervene promptly and involve the parties in resolving the problem.

The NHU has no illusion that we still have a long way to go to turn good intentions into concrete deeds and to set things right when it comes to workplace harassment at Health Canada. However, all must acknowledge that the establishment of the joint union-management committee is a welcome first step forward.

PSAC dues increase: Health Canada posting requires clarification

Posted June 10, 2010

As many of you have seen, Health Canada has posted a notice that ,as of July 2010, the PSAC dues amount taken from NHU members' salaries will be increasing.

The announced increase results from the fact that our dues are calculated on a percentage base. As most of our members will be receiving a 1.5 per cent salary increase on June 21, the dues will be adjusted accordingly.

Please rest assured that neither the NHU nor the PSAC itself has held a recent meeting at which the dues structure was increased.

Presidents’ Conference arms Local leadership with skills and understanding to meet workplace challenges

Posted June 2, 2010

The NHU’s local leadership left last week’s 2010 Local Presidents’ Conference with both a better understanding of the challenges that lie ahead and a stronger grasp of how to meet them head on.

The three-day Conference, held in Winnipeg from May 26 to 28, was an important educational opportunity that also allowed Local Presidents from across the country to network and exchange ideas and successes. To further the sense of teamwork, the Conference included a round-table session that allowed issues and concerns to be raised and discussed by all those in attendance.

National President Tony Tilley opened the Conference with a report on the state of our union. Over the three days of work, Local Presidents received presentations from NHU and PSAC staff on such timely issues as the labour-management process, collective bargaining, workplace harassment, disability claims and the threatened attack by the Harper government on our members’ pensions.

The gathering was also used as an occasion for the National President Tilley and National Vice-President Patricia Todd to distribute new official NHU Local Charters.

All told, the Conference was an important step forward in the continuing growth and strengthening of our still-young union.