President’s Report - Executive Council

Robert Campbell - Item 6

It has continued to be a very busy time since my last report in December. I have had numerous meetings with Management, RVPs, staff of the UTE Office, PSAC personnel, Presidents and members.  We also had a very eventful PSAC Convention with two members of UTE being elected, Sister Robin Benson as National President and Brother Chris Aylward as National Executive Vice President. On behalf of UTE and all of our members, I would like to take this time to congratulate them both and we know that they will both always work for the benefit of all the members of PSAC.

With the departure of Brother Aylward, we must begin the process of electing a new 1st National VP for UTE. A call for nominations has been sent to all locals with a closing date of June 1st. We also have put out a call to all locals so that we may confirm all delegates to the last UTE Convention, as per By-Law 7, Section 4 Vacancies. We will be conducting the election by Email voting and will be working with Andrew Foreman CA, from Andrews & CO. to make this happen. Further information will be provided to all delegates and locals prior to the call for voting.

CFIB AND THE BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA

At the March Presidents’ Conference, we further escalated our campaign to inform our members and the public about the lies and propaganda spread by CFIB relating to our membership, their jobs, wages, benefits and pension. So far, the feedback that I have been receiving has been positive on our message.

We have made the decision to sever our dealings with The Bank of Nova Scotia and Scotia Cassels in regards to their partnership with the CFIB. We are in the process of moving banking and investments at this time and hope to have it all completed by the end of June. Some other components are also considering moving their business to other financial institutions after the Bank of Nova Scotia’s response to UTE was shared with them. We also made a request at the PSAC convention for support of our campaign and I have been receiving some very good comments from other components and members.

NEXT ROUND OF BARGAINING

The UTE National Bargaining Committee met May 15th to 17th and reviewed the demands and set their priorities. The Negotiating team was selected. Brother Lalancette will give a much more detailed report. I did have a chance to speak to the committee where I stated that I believe this will be a much harder round of Negotiations with the involvement of outside influences and the heavy hand of the government. We all wish the team great success and they have our full support. 

PSAC CONVENTION

The PSAC Convention was held in Ottawa from April 29th to May 4th at the Westin Hotel. The delegates from UTE did an outstanding job and our membership was well represented. I believe that at the end of the day the Union came out in a much stronger position with the hope that we will all be working together to stand up for our members.

NATIONAL COURSE

There will be a UTE National Grievance Course held in Ottawa September 28 to 30th; a call out for participants will go during the month of July.

HOTEL CONTRACT

We are in the process of negotiating a new contract for our hotel and meeting needs for the next three years with the Fairmont Chateau Laurier Hotel. We will keep you informed on our progress.

UTE CONVENTION 2014- WINDSOR ONTARIO

We have started to have discussions and negotiations with the Caesars Windsor Hotel for our next Convention. We will be meeting personally with them on May 29 and 30th, so we should have some additional verbal information to give you after that time.

MEETING WITH MANAGEMENT

A meeting was held May 18th with the Commissioner Linda Lizotte-MacPherson. This was the first time I have been able to sit down with her since my election, due to the fact that she has just returned from extended leave. We had an open and frank discussion on Bargaining, Budget 2012 and our on going working relationship. I found her to be approachable and very willing to work with us. 

In this cycle, I also had a meeting with Cheryl Fraser where we discussed similar topics and items that were referred from the Presidents conference and Executive council. These meetings seemed to be very informative and the Agency seemed to be listening.

WEB/COMMUNICATIONS REPORT

Since the last report, we completed the registration form for the EO Conference in Winnipeg, the last one in this series.  We created the online scholarship application form, including a file upload capability.  We also created the data entry form for the Health and Safety Committee’s 60-question questionnaire as well as the statistics reports for it.  The Harassment Committee’s Statistics form has also been created and will be online in the near future. Some of the regular updates were delayed but we are catching up.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

All IT systems have been running well.  Regular software maintenance of internal computers and servers was performed. The use of the iPads during the March Executive Council meeting went well. Several RVPs used the iPad exclusively instead of the paper binder. We will still use the both methods (iPads and paper binder) for the June Executive Council meeting. We replaced the air conditioner in our server room because the previous unit did not start when we had the warm weather in March.

The time to replace our cell phones without a hardware penalty fee in our cell phone contract with Rogers is approaching. We are looking at alternatives to the Blackberry. Our current cell phone contract with Rogers expires June 2013. The telephone system in our office is very old and we are experiencing issues with many phone sets. We are looking at replacing our phone system in the near future.

NON UTE EVENTS

DONATIONS/SPONSORSHIPS

GRIEVANCES

Since our last Executive Council meeting, twelve (12) grievances, other than classification, were received at the National Office.
During the same period, twenty-five (25) grievances were presented dealing with a variety of issues.  In this quarter, we received forty-eight (48) grievance replies from CRA which consisted of thirty-two (32) being denied and or dismissed, ten (10) withdrawn and six (6) closed at the discretion of the LRO after an evaluation of the file.

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1 We have received the decision of the Federal Court concerning Currie and are engaging in discussions with the employer concerning all related grievances
2 Statement of duties grievances under the responsibility of the CRA’s Redress Section.  They are currently backlogged.
3 MOUs were rejected by the grievors and final level replies are pending.
4 Pending all parties’ signatures to an agreed MOA
5 Tentative MOU being reviewed by the grievor and manager.

There are presently twenty-nine (29) 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. 

On March 8, 2012, Brother O’Brien met with a senior level representative of the employer to discuss the delays by the employer in issuing final level responses. The employer has committed to attempting to ensure a more timely response framework and a further promise to request extensions where necessary and for valid reasons. Some improvements were immediately noted, and the employer continues to work on its backlog of outstanding responses.  Our office continues to monitor the timeframes for response and discussions are ongoing to ensure that the employer honours its commitment.

A recent problem has been noted, as well, with respect to delays in receiving grievance replies for job description grievances.  As these grievances are the responsibility of the CRA’s Redress Section (as opposed to Staff Relations), Brother O’Brien will be initiating discussions with that section of the Agency to address these delays.

CLASSIFICATION GRIEVANCES

There was no new classification grievances received during this quarter.

ACS-SP CLASSIFICATION CONVERSION GRIEVANCES

To date, we have provided representation for forty-two (42) of these grievances and await the employer’s decisions with respect to three (3) of these grievances.  As noted in the chart below, all but two (2) have been presented.

INDEPENDENT THIRD PARTY REVIEWS (ITPRs)

During this quarter, five new ITPRs were received in the National Office concerning staffing.  Three were subsequently withdrawn and two are pending hearing dates.

CRA POLICY REVIEW GRIEVANCES

There are currently no CRA Policy Grievances in our inventory. 

May 18, 2012

PRESIDENT’S ITINERARY

Respectfully submitted,

Bob Campbell
National President