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President’s Report
Executive Council
September 2005

Betty Bannon - Item 6

CONVENTION:

This convention was not an easy one for anyone but it was especially hard on the members of Executive Council, the Greater Toronto Regional participants and myself.  Diana Gee, was not only an UTE Executive Council member but a longtime personal friend of mine.  I miss her very much and I’m sure that we will all feel her absence in our own way.  Her death has left a mark on all of us. 

As for the Greater Toronto Region; the participants, under very trying circumstances, participated in the entire convention and showed their gratitude to everyone for their kindness and empathy with the special night on the Saturday.  I thank them on behalf of all of the delegates and observers in attendance.

It is obvious to me that we don’t appreciate each other the way we should until it is too late.  I have learned a great deal with the death of Sister Gee and my personal involvement with the individuals around me.

Although our convention was a very much subdued version of other conventions we did manage to get through a great deal of work.  Two of our major concerns were dealt with on the first day; the budget and the resolution dealing with the Full Time 1st Vice President position.  These alone are an accomplishment.  Our organization recognized the need for another full time position for which I am very grateful.  Bob Campbell has now relocated to Ottawa which is a major change for him.  However, I will certainly keep him busy as he can attest to himself.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of the delegates and observers for their exemplary behavior during the convention.  The respect that was shown to all participants certainly made my job of chairing easier.  A special thanks goes to Linda and Kent.  I had held it together for the entire week until Saturday night at which time I broke down and was glad to have friends around me.

Our “front” convention crew of Pierrette, Shane and Susan were invaluable and did an absolute marvelous job in having everything ready and dealing with any problems during the convention.  They are the ones that made things run smoothly during the week and made my life easier with them dealing with most of the concerns that arose.

Finally, the Host Committee.  I want to publicly thank them again for the great job and the hard work that they put in to make our events a success.  I also hear that they are quite willing to rent out their services to which ever local has to host the next convention.

National Office Staffing:

We have completed the Term Assistant Financial Office position and I am pleased to welcome Monique Desrosiers to our staff.  Left to do is the Executive Assistant to the National President, the IT Officer position and/or the Web/Communications position.  After council these will be the priority.  The delay in the Executive Assistant to the President is the re-writing of the job description due to now having a full time 1st VP.  In the mean time, Shane O’Brien is still acting in the position.

Meetings With the CRA:

Since convention I have attended one meeting with the CRA regarding Revenue Collection and their Strategic Strategy for the coming years.  I sent out a brief explanation of what happened at the meeting, as well as, the decks that were provided to us.

BUDGET IMPACT COMMITTEE:

The new postcards that can be mailed directly to the Minister have been printed and sent to the locals for distribution as they see fit.  I have received a few reports of visits to MP’s and/or Board of Management Members, but I expect that the council members will report on how their visits have gone.

An article was published by an organization of Francophone Retired Persons of New Brunswick along with an inserted revised postcard, which received a circulation of approximately 4000 individual homes.

I will be speaking to the members of the committee during council regarding where we go from here.

ACS:

Our representatives have met with the CRA on this issue and I expect that the Chair of the Staffing Committee will provide a general update on how this issue is progressing.

UMI:

To the best of my knowledge the training for the Senior people will be October 13th.  The National Steering Committee will then be able to start their work and that is where we will seek the changes regarding ADR application and UMI.

DONATIONS REPORT:

NON UTE EVENTS REPORT:

GRIEVANCE REPORT:

ince our last Executive Council meeting, thirty-four (34) grievances, other than classification, were received at the National Office.
During the same period, twenty four (24) grievances were presented dealing with a variety of issues, including:  one (1) suspension, three (3) terminations and one (1) harassment.

There are presently one hundred and fifty five (155) grievances in the National Office inventory, which have not yet been presented at the Final Level.

CLASSIFICATION GRIEVANCES

During this quarter, we have not received any 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)

Since our last report, 6 ITPRs have not been presented to date.
No cases were scheduled or heard during this period.
Of the ten (10) cases pending from the last quarter, two (2) were allowed and eight (8) were dismissed.

My report this time is actually quite brief as I did get to take some time off after the convention and Brother Campbell will likely report on some of the issues that came up during my absence.

In Solidarity,

Betty Bannon
National President UTE

Attch. Item 6

PRESIDENT’S ITINERARY
EXECUTIVE COUNCIL
SEPTEMBER 2005

In Solidarity,

Betty Bannon
National President

Attch. Item 6

Web / Communications Officer Report – September 2005

Most of this period was spent getting ready for Convention, working at Convention, taking time off after Convention and catching up on items not done before Convention or needing to be done before Presidents’ Conference.

We created Convention Posters which were used for various functions during Convention. We posted updates to the Convention website including the Resolutions and later the Resolutions with the Convention Committees’ reports and rationales.

The Communications Committee met for a few days in June to prepare the Special Edition Newsletter which focused on the cuts to client services.
http://www.ute-sei.org/English/Publications/union-news/2005/union-news-july-2005.pdf

We put the EAP questionnaire online and programmed it so that not only would an email be sent to Sister Ruel, but it would also be entered into a database automatically.
http://www.ute-sei.org/English/committees/eap/2005/questionnaire-may-june.cfm

We created on online petition to “Maintain the current access level of the Client Service counters”.  Data from this petition is collected in a database.
http://www.ute-sei.org/English/headlines/2005/petition.cfm

We put the EO questionnaire online and programmed it to email Sister Ruel.
http://www.ute-sei.org/English/committees/eo/2005/survey-conferences.cfm

The list of MPs, MPPs and Mayors was completed with help from Sister Laplante-Brière.  A copy of the lists in Excel and PDF formats was sent to Council and all Locals. 

At Convention we took pictures and wrote updates every day.  Sister Duncan also assisted Brother O’Brien with his various duties during Convention.  Not all of the pictures have been posted online yet.

During the past few weeks, we have put June’s Council reports online, as well as the minutes and reports for various committees who held meetings just before Convention. 

Information Systems Officer – September 2005

The audit was completed at the end of May and based on the findings, some work was started immediately.  The new operating system and backup software were installed just prior to convention.  These items were required in order to ensure the office computer network’s continued operation.

The operating system migration was fairly smooth with only one real hiccup in the process.  The consulting firm we used lost some data on one of the systems and we had to spend some time recovering data and re-configuring the system.

We have also created a draft of what software and hardware should be budgeted for in the short and long term.  This is a work in progress but should help everyone involved more accurately predict IT expenses.

We set up a few “refurbished” laptops (old RVP laptops) for use at Convention.  One was configured with ACCPAC so that Donna would not have to bring her office computer with her.  Donna will now use this laptop instead of her office computer whenever accounting is providing onsite cheques.  One was configured for Web/Communications so that we can update the website remotely. One was configured for Pierrette to replace the aging laptop she was using.  Pierrette’s old laptop was then re-configured for Lyson so that she does not have to bring her computer to Convention or Presidents’ Conference.

After convention we continued our pro-active updating and servicing of the office workstations to ensure that they remain virus and malware/adware free. We have completed about 1/3 of the systems.  Several office computers and laptops were infected with Malware/Spyware.  Our anti-virus software does not protect us against these threats.  These programs can be installed as part of other free software programs (icon programs, graphic programs, pc tuning programs etc.) or they can be propagated through the internet or via networks.  Once infected, cleaning can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few days and may require a few re-install.  We have been testing the full version of Ad-Aware as well as Microsoft’s Anti-Spyware program.

We continue to have problems with some of the laptops.  Some of the laptops were purchased without extended warrantees and the repair costs will have to be borne by UTE.  Other laptops have had continued problems and we will have to keep sending them back until they are fixed.  We will take some time to look at the laptops and ensure that they are up to date and working well, when they are next in Ottawa.

We configured systems for Sister Wolff’s replacement Sister Desrosiers, and for Bob Campbell who is now working in our office. 

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