E-mail

Print Version

Site Plan

Search

Other Links

Shop

Subscribe

Français

President’s Report
Executive Council
September 2004

Betty Bannon - Item 6

Membership Realignment:

The National Office has continued to complete requested transfers from the locals and CEUDA. Again I would like to express the importance of the locals checking their membership lists on a monthly basis.

One thing that has come to our attention is a group of members who are on loan or acting with HQ but do not leave their home location. The employer’s disk shows them in HQ and the National Office has no way of knowing that they have not left their home locations and we have transferred them to HQ. This may entail a change in UTE local or in the Component. Then we get a call from the local or member requesting that we transfer them back. Unless there is some strong disagreement I would like to leave these members in their home local with UTE or in the home branch of CEUDA, depending on the jurisdiction. This would allow the easiest access for these members to the union. However, it would also mean that they will not be transferred to the HQ local or branch.

Bargaining:

Each Council member was provided with a CD containing the UTE CRA designations and subsequently received an e-mail from the National Office with all of the CRA designations to share with their locals.

At the time of writing of this report the team is scheduled to return to the table on the afternoon of the Tuesday after Labour Day with a strike deadline looming at midnight the same day. It certainly is a sad state of affairs especially with the amount of work that the team has done and the messages that the members have been sending that we want a tentative agreement. However, our strike plans have been finalized and the membership is poised to take strike action if it becomes necessary.

I joined the Parks Canada local picketers at the downtown locks on Labour Day Sunday and they wish us well in our negotiations and if we are successful they are hopeful that it will impact on them favourably. They have also thanked us for our support shown across the country.

ITPR Representation:

I will be distributing a list of qualifications or skills that someone would need to represent in an ITPR process. Via this report we will discuss the handout and I will seek input as to where we should go from here. The skills required are not necessarily those that were required to do the old appeals, thus it is far from automatic, in my opinion, that we should consider those that previously handled appeals.

Donations/Sponsorships:

Non UTE Events:

Web/Communications:

Our Web/Communications Officer this quarter worked on the “Help Manual” in order to provide an updated copy for our two new locals. We will be providing updates for everyone else shortly. She also met with the communications committee to work on the September newsletter. As a side note, I wish to congratulate the locals who are getting updated addresses from their members when we send back the returned envelopes. For our April 2004 newsletter, we only had 445 envelopes returned out of the 22618 mailed out, compared to over 2000 returns from a previous mail-out. Such a low return rate has allowed us to send out the September newsletter at publication rates, which are lower than letter mail rates.

The last month or two has been busy with web updates. Whether it is highlighting what our members are doing to support the Parks Canada strike, or information about our own conciliation report or strike preparations, we have had updates almost every day. Between now and the time a new contract is signed, we will have regular updates on the website informing members of what has been happening across the country. I encourage the locals and council members to keep sending in photos for posting but remind everyone that a small write up should accompany the photos.

Shortly, we will be adding to our website the ability to “subscribe” to various information lists [(Bulletins), (Bargaining), (Reports, Minutes & Conference Proceedings), (CRA Information) and (All News)]. Initially, we will be using the e-mail list collected from the Questionnaire, but we will be encouraging our members to “subscribe” to their areas of interest or the “All” list. These new lists will improve our ability to communicate with our members whenever there is something new on the website.

Susan continues to provide support where possible and was able to help Sylvie, our membership person, to complete the CEUDA/UTE HQ realignment changes in July by preparing a database for PSAC’s IT department.

Information Technology:

One of the major IT issues during this past period and especially during the last part of the period was our internet and e-mail connectivity. It has become very slow. This however, is not a UTE problem but a PSAC IT equipment problem. The PSAC’s main network connections allowing IT communications with the outside world and to which the UTE is connected, has been functioning close to its full bandwidth capacity for the last year. The additional communications traffic resulting from the bargaining requirements of all components has in fact caused an overload of the network connections which, in turn, has drastically reduced the connection speed of all IT equipment connected to the network within the PSAC building. Because of the slower connection speed, some equipment may “time-out” when downloading e-mail or be excessively slow when connecting to an internet site.

To further enhance our education commitments we have purchased a second data projector and two new cargo cases. We now have two complete sets.

Grievances:

Since our last Executive Council meeting, sixty-six (66) grievances, other than classification, were received at the National Office.

During the same period, fifty-nine (59) grievances were presented dealing with a variety of issues, including: two (2) suspension, one (1) harassment, one (1) termination and one (1) rejection on probation grievances.

Mediation refused by employer. Referred to PSSRB and waiting for formal hearing.

First hearing held May 25, 2004, ongoing.

There are presently one hundred and sixty-five (165) grievances in the National Office inventory which have not yet been presented at the Final Level.

CLASSIFICATION GRIEVANCES

During this quarter, we received seventeen (17) classification grievances.

APPEALS

During this period, no appeal was received in the National Office where the Union of Taxation Employees was requested to provide representation.

INDEPENDENT THIRD PARTY REVIEWS (ITPR'S)

During this period, three (3) Independent Third Party Review (ITPR) were received in the National Office.

Membership Count Report

Visit often, and send us your comments to the webmaster@ute-sei.org if you have any problems.