Report of the President - Executive Council

Bob Campbell - Item 6

PSAC WAAA CAMPAIGN:  We continue to be informed by the PSAC 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.  We are still hoping to reach our goal of UTE members that have signed and submitted cards by December 1 2013.

BILL C- 4, THE Conservative Government’s LATEST ATTACK on Public Servants: The attacks continue. This government continues to be the most blatantly anti-union regime in Canadian government history. Once again, they have taken an Omnibus budget bill and filled it with attacks on bargaining, health and safety, and on our very voice and essence. The union has continued to try and keep the members informed and encourage them to stand up to these attacks. The membership MUST be the ones to contact their MPs to try to stop, or at least amend, these hideous pieces of legislation. We have distributed handouts and held meetings on the implications. The PSAC is holding telephone town hall meetings across the country to talk to the membership. Please continue to make every effort to keep your members informed and engaged. Each and every one of us must stand up and do our part in fighting these attacks.

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING:   I would like to thank all of the Locals from across the country for the continued actions in support of bargaining.  We have left it up to the Locals as to what activities they want to partake in.  There were many creative and different ideas across the country that show the commitment and dedication of our leaders. Of special note was the hand-made and signed banners, flags and pictures submitted from across the country. These have been proudly displayed by the Bargaining Team during the last two sessions with the employer. 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.

LOCAL ANNUAL GENERAL MEETINGS: We have been attending AGMs across the country and have been talking to the members on all of the issues, including bargaining and the attacks on us. The overall attendance at Local AGMs has been up and the support shown to us has been overwhelming.

CONVENTION 2014: Plans are well underway for Convention 2014 in Windsor, Ontario. There was a final site visit in November with the hotel to confirm meeting space and accommodations. We took this opportunity to also meet with the Host Committee, who informed us they well advanced in their planning. The official convention call will be issued by the National Office in early January 2014, and we will also start sending out convention bulletins shortly after that.

NATIONAL OFFICE STAFFING:  At this time, I would like to thank Sister Nicole St-Aubin and wish her well on her upcoming retirement. The Sister will be leaving us in early 2014 after 20 years of service. She has been a great asset to the office and will be missed. We have undertaken a competitive process to fill her position and we hope to have it completed shortly.

MEETINGS WITH CRA:  We had several meetings with CRA during this period on issues including the Discipline Policy and Staffing Simplification. We have received a commitment from the Agency that we will be meaningfully consulted on the Staffing Simplification initiative as it continues, as well as on other Committee items.

WEB/COMMUNICATIONS:

The last few months have been busy updating the web site with member activities and other updates.  We have also been examining various web content management systems (CMS) with a view to choosing a new platform for our website.  Most large websites have moved away from large collections of web pages and into CMS to better store, display and search information. 

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY:

All IT systems have been running well. Regular software maintenance of internal computers and servers was performed. We renewed our Symantec antivirus software and Exchange Online service for another year. The Exchange Online upgrade in October went well. We will be upgrading our internal Wi-Fi network at the National office in order to support older wireless devices. The National office internal computers were upgraded to Microsoft Office 2010.

DONATION and SPONSORSHIPS AS OF NOVEMBER 14, 2013:

NON UTE EVENTS AS OF NOVEMBER 14, 2013

GRIEVANCES:

Since our last Executive Council meeting, fourteen (14) grievances, other than classification, were received at the National Office. 
During the same period, thirty-three (33) grievances were presented dealing with a variety of issues.  In this quarter, we received eighteen (19) grievance replies from CRA which consisted of fourteen (14) being denied and or dismissed, four (4) being withdrawn and one (1) settled.

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.  Hearing postponed as additional information was received.
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. These grievances deal with BC PSTAR employees’ entitlement to severance upon retirement. The employer has offered a settlement, but was rejected by the grievors.  Replies expected in the near future.  Twelve grievances for the period May 27 to Sept 11/13 are included.
4. One grievance held in abeyance at request of grievor pending WSIB appeal and one grievance held in abeyance pending mediation.

There are presently twenty-eight (28) 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, but the numbers are gradually declining.  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 still waiting for the employer’s final re-write of the work description. 

INDEPENDENT THIRD PARTY REVIEWS (ITPRs)

During this quarter, eleven new ITPRs were received in the National Office concerning staffing, one of which was subsequently closed as member belongs to PIPSC.

There are currently thirteen  ITPRs in our inventory requiring representation by the National Office. Settlements are pending for three of these files.

CRA POLICY REVIEW GRIEVANCES

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

November 19, 2013

President’s Itinerary
December 2013

SEPTEMBER
12                                CRA *NSCC Meeting – Ottawa
                                    PSAC Pension Committee Meeting – Ottawa
16                                PSAC Component Presidents’ Meeting – Ottawa
23-25                          UTE Executive Council – Ottawa
26-29                          UTE Presidents’ Conference – Ottawa

OCTOBER
1                                  Plantgate – Cash and Counter Closure – Montréal
2-3                              Speaking at Dalhousie University – Halifax
7                                  Meeting CRA- HR – Ottawa
7                                  PSAC Component Presidents’ Meeting – Ottawa
8-11                            PSAC NBoD – Ottawa
15                                Meeting with CRA – Staffing Simplification – Ottawa
17-20                          UTE National EO Conference – Ottawa
22                                CRA NSCC Meeting – By phone
23                                AGM Local 50031 – Winnipeg
24                                AGM Local 50032 – Winnipeg
25-26                          AGM Local 60005 – Saint John, NB
28                                PSAC Pension Committee Meeting – Ottawa
28                                Meeting CRA with the AC/HR – Ottawa
30                                PSAC Meeting on Bill C4 – Ottawa
30                                UTE Management Meeting - Ottawa
31                                CRA NSCC Meeting – Ottawa
31                                CRA Meeting – Staffing Simplification – Ottawa

NOVEMBER
5-6                              Meeting Caesar’s Convention Hotel – Windsor
7                                  AGM Local 00018 – Windsor
8-10                            UTE Regional Mental Health Conference – Calgary
12                                AGM Local 90000 – St. John’s, NL
13                                CRA NSCC Meeting – By phone
13                                AGM Local 90001 – St. John’s, NL
14-15                          AGM Local 90002 – Charlottetown
16-17                          AGM Local 90006 – Summerside
18-20                          PSAC National Equity Conference – Toronto
21-28                          **CEBC Pension Conference – San Francisco

*  National Strategy Coordination Committee
** Canadian Employee Benefice Conference

MEMBERSHIP

Respectfully submitted,

Bob Campbell
National President