BILL C-45

On October 18, 2012, the Conservative Government presented its budget Omnibus Bill in the House of Commons. Buried at the end of this lengthy Bill is an amendment that will see collective bargaining for the CRA return to the control and mandate of the Treasury Board. UTE was not consulted or even advised of this direction. We issued Bulletin 18/12 on October 19th and I discussed this development with both the NDP and Liberal opposition Labour Critics shortly thereafter to bring this to their attention and garner their support in opposition to this Bill. On November 7th the Political Action Committee issued Bulletin 21/12, instructing members to send the covers of their collective agreements to the chair of The Treasury Board, Tony Clement  to demonstrate their opposition to this regressive development.  

NEW STORAGE MANAGEMENT MODEL AT CRA

On October 23, 2012, the UTE National Office was given the official WFA notification resulting from this initiative.  On October 26th, I wrote a letter of concern to National Revenue Minister Gail Shea. Following this announcement, myself, several Council members and Local activists did a number of newspaper and radio interviews with the press, where we voiced our concern for the loss of our members’ jobs and the threat to the privacy of Canadian taxpayers.  On November 7th, I sent a similar letter of concern to the Privacy Commissioner. We attracted the interest of the Council of Canadians, who has posted a petition on their web site concerning the threat to Canadians’ privacy.  We sent this petition link to all Locals to be widely distributed to their members, friends and family, we have also included it in the latest newsletter. 

Shared Services Canada  

As you all ready know, UTE filled a Policy Grievance to this initiative. Our position is that the CRA should have declared this a WFA situation. The process is ongoing, and at this time, both parties have agreed to make written submissions to the PSLRB. 

BC PSTAR

On November 6th, the National Office was informed by CRA Management that all members that were affected by BC PSTAR who chose not to return to the BC Government have retained permanent employment with the CRA. This is an example of how our intervention assisted the members and the CRA in a difficult situation. I would like to acknowledge the excellent work of Brother Kent MacDonald on this issue.

Meetings with CRA

We had several meetings with CRA during this period on issues including IT Help Desk Renewal; Personnel Security Screening; and Regional Policies. 

WEB/COMMUNICATIONS

We would like to thank everyone for their cooperation in letting us know how many calendars they needed and we hope that your members enjoyed the new colours.  We were able to print these calendars in colour, for less than what we spent last time for a two-colour process. The new company is also printing December’s Union News, at a substantial savings over previous editions.  The new firm is local and unionized.

We have made some changes to the website to make it more visually appealing.  We have been adding graphics to the headlines and where possible, have added an excerpt from the item we are linking to.

The last few months have been hectic but we are doing our best to keep up.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

All IT systems have been running well.  Regular software maintenance of internal computers and servers was performed. We are replacing our aging internal phone system with a Cisco IP telephony solution from TELUS. This solution will converge the phone system onto to our data network allowing new capabilities not available with our current phone system. With this new phone system, we are changing our analog phone lines with a digital PRI which will provide new capabilities and reduce our monthly phone cost in half. The contract has been signed and we are planning for a completed installation before year end. We are also replacing our Microsoft Exchange email system with a hosted email solution from Microsoft. This hosted solution will reduce downtime due to server maintenance and reduce the cost to provide email service. As a result, external users will notice an increase in Outlook Web Access performance. We renewed our Symantec anti-virus software with Symantec’s hosted AV solution. This hosted solution will provide remote manageability of the RVP laptops and reduce the cost of managing our internal PCs and servers. We have signed a new cell phone contract with Bell Mobility which will provide the latest smartphones to our mobile users and reduce our monthly cell phone expenses. Lastly, we will replace our out of warranty web server in December with a new server from Dell.

Non UTE Events – November 16, 2012

Donations – November 16, 2012

GRIEVANCES

Since our last Executive Council meeting, forty-one (41) grievances, other than classification, were received at the National Office.

During the same period, twenty-seven grievances were presented dealing with a variety of issues.  In this quarter, we received nineteen (19) grievance replies from CRA which consisted of eleven (11) partially allowed; seven (7) being denied and or dismissed and one being withdrawn.

1 Final details of a MOA pending implementation
2 One grievance held in abeyance at the request of RVP and one grievance awaiting a hearing date from Redress Section
3 Tentative MOU rejected by the grievor and manager for three grievances
4 Follow-up made with CRA – response expected shortly
5 Grievor was an employee of Shared Services Canada at time of grievance.  CRA without jurisdiction.  Hearing being sought with SSC

There are presently thirty-nine (39) 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.  Brother O’Brien is in the process of compiling a summary of adjudications that have been delayed excessively and will be meeting with the PSAC once again in an effort to have them scheduled.

Further to Brother O’Brien’s March 8, 2012 meeting with the employer concerning delays by them in issuing final level replies, the employer continues to work on its backlog of outstanding responses.  Our office continues to monitor the timeframes for response and discussions are ongoing with them to minimize delays at the final level of the grievance procedure.  Improvements have been noted, but some minor delays are still being experienced.

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-two (42) of these grievances and await the employer’s decisions with respect to one (1) of these grievances.  As noted in the chart below, all but two (2) have been presented.  The grievance against the SP393 position is scheduled for November 29, 2012 and the remaining grievance against the SP632 has yet to be scheduled.

INDEPENDENT THIRD PARTY REVIEWS (ITPRs)

During this quarter, one new ITPR was received in the National Office concerning staffing.

There is currently only one other ITPR in our inventory requiring representation by the National Office.

CRA POLICY REVIEW GRIEVANCES

There are currently no CRA Policy Grievances in our inventory. 

November 22, 2012

President’s Itinerary
September to December 2012