CRA bargaining: summary of our current position

February 28, 2014

We’ve been in bargaining since September 2012.  We’ve met with CRA for a total of over 40 days of negotiations.  We spent 6 days in mediation.  We are committed to negotiations, but we remain in dispute in a number of key areas.

Thetext below represents an explanative summary of our current position on the issues outstanding.

Three Year Contract

We have proposed an expiration date of October 31, 2015.  A three-year contract has been the norm over this cycle of negotiations in the federal public service, and has been the norm traditionally in CRA bargaining before this past round. 

While CRA is proposing concessions such as ending severance accumulation for purposes of voluntary termination, it is too late in this round of negotiations for CRA to propose additional concessions such as changes to our sick leave.

Our position is that we want a three year collective agreement so that our sick leave and the other hard won rights in our contract remain protected under our collective agreement until the fall of 2015 – in all likelihood the year of the next federal election.

The employer is proposing a two-year contract, with an expiration date of October this year.A contract expiration of 2014 would provide the employer the ability to propose cuts to our sick leave and other concessions later this year.

Job Protections

We want new protections for our jobs in this round of bargaining. CRA has abolished positions and contracted out work.  The government has made job cuts and privatization a key priority.  There are locations where there has been an increase in the hiring of students to do our work.We have to protect ourselves. In order to do this we have proposed new protections against layoff, protections against contracting out and protections against the elimination of our work. All of these proposals are modeled on what has been agreed to by other federal employers, including Canada Post. To date the government and CRA have rejected these proposals.

Scheduling

We have proposednew scheduling rights to ensure protections for part-timers and evening workers – such as recognition of seniority.  These proposals also reflect what has been agreed to by other federal employers. We are also looking for more flexible work hours for day workers.

Precarious Employment at CRA

Based on figures provided by the employer, there are over eight thousand term workers at CRA. Some – many – have worked for CRA for years and have not been given the opportunity to achieve permanent employment. We have proposed a joint-committee to address the need for fairness in terms of employment stability at CRA.

Leave

We have proposed language that would ensure that policies such as Leave with Income Averaging and leave for medical appointments be protected under our collective agreement, and that would ensure fairness in terms of access to these leaves.

Economic Proposals

Employer Position

In the fall we made our economic proposals to CRA, who promptly rejected them all and instead proposed a 2-year agreement with 1.75% in 2012, 2% in 2013 and the loss of severance accrual for the purposes of voluntary termination.Since then, the government and CRA have made no movement on any of these issues.

Our Position

Long Service Pay

An issue raised on occasion by more senior members of the union is that there is not sufficient – or any – additional compensation for workers with more years of service, beyond annual across-the-board wage increases.  What we have proposed in this round of bargaining to address this concern is Long Service Pay, modeled on what is contained in our agreement with Treasury Board for the SV group.  Unlike wage scales, which are based on a certain jobs being performed and achieving a certain competency, long service pay is based on years of service, regardless of which job or classification an employee is working.

Wage Increases

We have proposed 3% per year annual increases.  This is in line with what has been projected by a number of major financial institutions and economic forecasters across Canada in terms of private and public sector increases in salary for 2012 and 2013.  We have also proposed a 1% economic adjustment to take effect the first day of the contract.

Wage Scale

Steps in wage scale are always predicated on job competency.  The theory behind a wage scale is that the number of steps to the top represents the amount of time required for an employee to acquire all of the knowledge and skills needed to reach full competency.  As has traditionally been the policy of UTE, PSAC and the labour movement in general, the less time it takes for a worker to reach the job rate (i.e. the top of the scale) the better. 

With respect to the SP grid, workers in the PA bargaining unit at Treasury Board in comparable jobs are not required to work as long to achieve the job rate.  Consequently we are proposing to remove step in both the SP and MG grids, so that it takes less time for our members to achieve the job rate for bargaining unit jobs.  We have also proposed to further reduce the significant discrepancy that exists between the SP 7 and SP 8 levels.  While some progress was made on this in the previous round, an abnormal 18% difference still exists between the SP 7 and SP 8 rates.

Acting Pay

Current rules concerning acting pay have been a source of frustration for many workers in the bargaining unit.  Under the current system, all time worked in an acting position counts towards moving up the pay scale for that position, but only if you are a term employee.  Indeterminate workers must work at least 6 weeks in the position for the time to count.  We are proposing to change this so that all time counts in acting positions for all union members, irrespective of status.

Also under the current system an employee that is acting is placed on the corresponding wage scale based on the employee’s substantive position.  The problem is that workers are often appointed to an acting position when already acting in another position. For example, an employee at the substantive position of SP-3 acting at an SP-4 will be placed on the wage scale based on his/her SP-3 substantive position. If the same employee acts at an SP-5, he/she will be placed on the SP-5 scale based on the SP-3 substantive position salary. 

 As a result, we are proposing that an employee that is appointed to an acting position be placed on the corresponding wage scale based on the position that they were in immediately before the appointment, and not based on substantive position.

Lastly, the rules associated with the amount of compensation an employee is paid when in an acting position is not in the collective agreement, but rather in a policy.  We have proposed that all rules associated with acting pay be contained – and therefore protected – in our collective agreement.

Severance

The employer has proposed the elimination of severance pay for the purposes of voluntary termination.  Our position at the bargaining table has been that we wish to protect this benefit as it has been in effect for well over 40 years.  We have told the employer that if we were to agree to its elimination there would need to be a significant tradeoff for our members in exchange, as the changes proposed to severance represent a key element in the government’s agenda to extract concessions from public service workers.  In negotiations for a great many other groups, the government agreed to significant economic improvements – beyond the base wage pattern – as part of settlements where the accumulation of severance for the purposes of voluntary termination has been brought to an end.  No such offer has been made to us.