Report of the President - Executive Council

Bob Campbell - Item 6

Budget 2013 Fall out:  We are still expecting more jobs to be affected in the Fall due to budget 2013. We hope to present a verbal update during the council meeting.

PSAC WAAA Campaign:  We have been informed that UTE has been participating in great numbers during this campaign.  This is a critical campaign and needs the support of all the leaders at all levels of this organization and the Union Movement as a whole.
 
June Collective Bargaining  Activities: Again, I would like to thank all of the Locals from across the country for the actions taken during June in support of bargaining and in opposition to National Public Service Week.  It was left up to the Locals as to what activities they would partake in.  There were many creative and different ideas across the country it shows the commitment and dedication of our leaders. You all should be very proud and please thank your members and executives. In addition, the RVPS and Alternates were very involved and this shows that we can motivate our members.   

Pacific ALTERNATE RVP:  The National Office held an election to fill the Alternate RVP Pacific position. It is with great pleasure I welcome Brother Wayne Little as the new Pacific Alternate RVP.

Meetings with CRA:  We had several meetings with CRA during this period on issues including Discipline Policy, Staffing, Personal Security Screening, and Recovery of Amounts due to Crown.

Conservative Government’s AttacKS on Public Servants: It has become painfully obvious that this Government has an aggressive agenda to overhaul Human Resources in the Public Service. This agenda includes sweeping changes to performances reviews, sick and disability benefits and pay modernization.  We have tried to respond to the comments of the President of the Treasury Board and his blatant disrespect for his employees. Letters were written by me, and other members of Council and the membership at large. We are still waiting to see the effects of these actions on our membership and we will continue to stand up for the members and public service employees as a whole.

WEB/COMMUNICATIONS:

We created our second short animation “Tony Clement’s new vision for the Public Service”.  This animation was shared on Facebook, YouTube and our own campaign page.

YouTube English:  1095
YouTube French:  275
Facebook uploaded video English: 2779
Facebook uploaded video French: 354
Facebook campaign link English: 342
Facebook campaign link French: 117
Website campaign page English: 1683
Website campaign page French:  353

This video was viewed approximately four times more than the previous one and much better than a bulletin or memo would.  Our reach would be increased by the use of targeted ads on Facebook, something we may look at for future campaigns.

We created a version of our registration system to handle the National Equal Opportunities Conference.  We have started our convention preparation and the letterhead was designed and printed, and the convention website has been launched.

We are currently working on the Owner’s Manual and Achievement Booklets.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY:

All IT systems have been running well. Regular software maintenance of internal computers and servers was performed. We renewed the warranty on our Cisco firewalls for another year. We renewed our SSL certificate until 2017 for our web server. There will be an update coming shortly (Oct-Dec timeframe) to our Microsoft Exchange Online email service. The update will provide the latest features of Microsoft’s Exchange server 2013. Notifications will be sent to all users once the date has been finalized.

DONATIONS/SPONSORSHIPS AS OF SEPBEMBER 10TH :

NON UTE EVENTS: SEPTEMBER 10TH

GRIEVANCES:

Since our last Executive Council meeting, forty-three (43) grievances, other than classification, were received at the National Office. 
During the same period, twenty-six (26) grievances were presented dealing with a variety of issues.  In this quarter, we received forty-eight (48) grievance replies from CRA which consisted of forty-one (41) being denied and or dismissed, six (6) being withdrawn and one (1) partially allowed.

1. Grievance awaiting a hearing date from Redress Section.  A hearing date has now been secured, but CRA initially took the position that the matter was not grievable.
2. Grievor was originally identified by the CRA as being an employee of Shared Services Canada at time of grievance.  Employee has been confirmed as an SSC employee and a hearing was recently held with respect to that grievance.
3. MOAs have now been concluded for three of these grievances, but files will not be closed until the terms of the settlements are given effect.  The remaining grievances deal with BC PSTAR employees’ entitlement to severance upon retirement. The employer has offered a settlement, but was rejected by the grievors. As this has far reaching implications, discussions are ongoing.
4. An MOA has been negotiated for this grievance, but is awaiting the implementation of the terms of the MOA before withdrawing it.  

There are presently forty-seven (47) grievances in the National Office inventory which have not yet been presented at the Final Level. 

As noted in previous reports, the number of outstanding adjudications and the delays in same remain a concern for our office.  Discussions continue to be held with the PSAC, but to date, no resolution has been found.  The major difficulty being experienced is the large volume of adjudications in inventory at the PSAC and the lack of Grievance and Adjudication Officers on strength to deal with them. Additionally, the Public Service Labour Relations Board is attempting to deal with its large case inventory, but they too lack sufficient human resources to deal with them.

POLICY GRIEVANCE:

During this period, there were no policy grievances filed.

CLASSIFICATION GRIEVANCES

There were no new classification grievances received during this quarter.

ACS-SP CLASSIFICATION CONVERSION GRIEVANCES :

To date, we have provided representation for forty-three (43) of these grievances and await the employer’s decision with respect to one (1) of these grievances.  As noted in the chart below, all but one (1) (SP0632)  have been presented.  Before we can present this grievance, we are waiting for the employer’s final re-write of the work description. 

INDEPENDENT THIRD PARTY REVIEWS (ITPRs):

During this quarter, eight new ITPRs were received in the National Office concerning staffing, three of which were subsequently withdrawn and closed.

There are currently six ITPRs in our inventory requiring representation by the National Office. Settlement discussions are ongoing for three of these files and will likely be concluded imminently.

CRA POLICY REVIEW GRIEVANCES:

Currently there is only one CRA Policy Grievance in our inventory.

September 11, 2013

President’s Itinerary
September 2013

MAY
30                    Attended Brother Jackson’s Senate Committee Testimony , Ottawa
30                    CRA – NSCC Meeting, Ottawa

JUNE
3-6                  Executive Council, Ottawa
6                      NUMCC, Ottawa
7-9                  Winnipeg Locals Appreciation Event, Winnipeg
10                    Consultation with CRA on the Discipline Policy Updates
                                    and Administrative Suspensions, Ottawa
10                    Component Presidents’ Meeting, Ottawa
10                    Meeting with ICA / Major Ed Smith, Ottawa
11-12              NBoD, Ottawa
13                    Anti-NPSW rally at MP’s Office, Saint John NB
14-16              Tri-Regional Conference, Summerside PEI
20-21              Regional Mental Health Conference, Calgary

JULY
16                    Local 70010 Town Hall Meeting, Ottawa

AUGUST
20                    Meeting with DAC – HR, Ottawa

SEPTEMBER
3                      Meeting CRA re. WFA, Ottawa
4                      Meeting with Ad-Hoc UTE Structure Committee, Ottawa
9                      Meeting CRA – F & A, Ottawa
11                    Meeting CRA – NSCC, Ottawa

MEMBERSHIP

Respectfully submitted,

Bob Campbell
National President