
	Friday November 21, 2008

Who we are….

Who we are | Where we're found | How we're structured | What we do | A final word

We’re the Union of Taxation Employees (UTE), representing more than 27,000 employees of Canada Revenue Agency. We exist to maintain and advance the workplace rights of our members – a big task in today’s federal public service!

It’s a job we take very seriously. The UTE believes in fostering a constructive relationship with Agency management. But, we’re aggressive in protecting our members’ interests – from the office floor to Parliament Hill.

As a progressive, innovative union, our vision extends into the future. At the same time, our roots go back more than half a century. In 1943, employees working for the then-Taxation Department first organized themselves into the Dominion Income Tax Staff Association. Then, as now, federal workers recognized that unionizing is the best insurance policy against unfair and unreasonable employer actions.

In 1966, with the advent of free collective bargaining in the federal public service, the UTE joined the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) as the “Taxation Component”. Our 1987 convention voted to adopt our current name. With the passage of the CCRA Act, we moved from a department of the federal public service to an agency. This Agency was proclaimed on November 1, 1999. On December 12, 2003, the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA) became the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).

The Program Administration (PM) classification group represents the largest number of UTE members, working in such areas as Client Services, Assessment and Collections and Compliance Programs. The next largest group of our members belongs to the Clerical and Regulatory (CR) group. Their tasks include clerical and administrative support, enforcement of the Income Tax Act etc. assistance to clients and maintenance of taxpayers’ files. Our union also represents members of the Administrative Services (AS), Data Processing (DA), Drafting and Illustration (DD), Engineering and Scientific Support (EG), Electronics (EL), General Labour and Trades (GL), General Services (GS), General Technical (GT), Information Services (IS), Management (MG-SPS), Office Equipment (OE), Organization and Methods (OM), Purchasing and Supply (PG), Printing Operations (PR) and Secretarial, Stenographic and Typing (ST) classification groups.

All of these groups are covered under one collective agreement (the Program and Administration Services agreement).

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