Marc Brière - Item 5
- PHOENIX PAY SYSTEM – At my request, PSAC President, Brother Chris Aylward, sent us on July 6 via a memorandum an update on the issues with the deductions for union dues related to the fact that the Phoenix pay system is not able to correctly read PSAC’s “Changes to union dues file.”
The memo stated that following a meeting between PSAC, Treasury Board and Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) on June 19, the Treasury Board finally committed to enabling the activation of the Change File. However, no date had been advanced for the implementation deadline as they had to take a systematic approach to running the Change File in order to minimize the risk of errors and other pay issues for our members. Testing of the software that runs the file in Phoenix was conducted over the summer.
A special meeting of the National Board of Directors (NBD) has been convened for Thursday, September 13, to provide us with an update on this topic. I will inform the Executive Council and the Locals of any development as soon as possible.
- UNASSIGNED UTE MEMBERS – We approached the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) Central Administration for an updated and complete list of our members indicating their work sites. We obtained this list, but unfortunately the members were identified by region and not by office. We have reiterated our request to the CRA and the Central Administration is working to provide us with this list. We will continue to follow up on this matter.
In addition, we continue to monitor the situation with the Workforce Administration section of PSAC.
- BASIC ACCOUNTABILITY TRAINING COURSE – The development of the basic accounting training course by our Finance Administration Officer, Liam Merrigan, is well underway. As the facilitator and participant modules are completed, they are systematically reviewed by our Senior Labour Relations Officer, Brother Shane O’Brien. My goal is still to have the final product completed by December 31, 2018, and I’m hopeful that this timeline will be met.
- NATIONAL OFFICE STAFF JOB DESCRIPTIONS – The National Office has finalized drafting the duties of the Administrative Assistant and the Executive Assistant to the National President, Sister Sylvie Bastien and Brother Daniel Camara. The documents were sent to PSAC for classification purposes.
- INTERNAL CONFLICT RESOLUTION - At the June 2018 Executive Council meeting, a discussion took place about how we deal with and resolve conflict situations within our union.
At present, we never use external conflict resolution firms to help us. I have been asked to review practices taking place in other PSAC Components and to explore the possibility of using external firms in the future. During a meeting of the Components’ Presidents that took place on June 18, 2018, it was confirmed that several Components are sometimes using the services of such firms. Since we do not have a dedicated budget line item for such expenses, the Executive Council will have to discuss this issue before considering going forward with the hiring of external firms.
- UTE FLAGS – At the June 2018 Executive Council meeting, I informed the Council that we intended to purchase 4’ X 6’ flags with the UTE effigy for use at events to increase the visibility of our Component. We then offered all of our Locals the opportunity to join the National UTE order and purchase flags at a reduced price.
We ordered and received a total of fifty-five (55) flags. Of this total, twenty-four (24) were ordered by the Locals. Each officer of the Executive Council has received or will receive a flag and one (1) flag has been erected at the entrance to the National Office. Eleven (11) flags will be kept at the National Office to be borrowed by members for gatherings. Finally, six (6) additional flags were added to our store inventory in case an individual or Local might want to acquire one at a later date. Please note that each flag is accompanied by an 8-foot aluminium pole (2 detachable sections of 4 feet each).
Respectfully submitted,
Marc Brière
National President