February 28, 2014
We’ve been in bargaining since September 2012. We’ve met with CRA for a total of over 40 days of negotiations. We spent 6 days in mediation. We are committed to negotiations, but we remain in dispute in a number of key areas.
Late Wednesday night, after 4 years of negotiations, 3 mediation sessions, a Public Interest Commission hearing and recommendation, our bargaining team signed a settlement with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). This will be submitted for a vote to the membership.
We believe this agreement is the best we will be able to achieve in the absence of a strike mandate from PSAC/UTE membership at CRA.
Over the coming days, more details will be made available with respect to the content of the settlement and voting process.
Hours of work and work-life balance were critical issues for the PSAC-UTE bargaining team during negotiations with Canada Revenue Agency, February 15-17. The team placed a strong emphasis on improved hours of work and remote work options for our members employed by CRA.
Our team has made proposals that would provide for better access to compressed work week options, provide enhanced notice when employees’ hours are changed, and ensure employees’ years of service count when decisions are made concerning evening work.
We met the CRA in mediation on Wednesday and Thursday. We came ready to negotiate. Unfortunately the Agency came to mediation with no movement. In fact, the Agency has not negotiated with us over the issue of compensation in the almost 2 years since they first made their wage proposal, despite our efforts to get them to bargain. The Agency made an offer to us. A copy of the Agency’s offer can be found here.
On Wednesday night our UTE/PSAC bargaining team signed a settlement with the Canada Revenue Agency. We did so because we believe that this is the best that our union is going to be able to achieve without receiving a strike mandate from UTE members at CRA. The team feels that it’s time that the membership have the opportunity to vote.
The settlement would improve our members’ working conditions in several ways. These improvements are the product of the hard work of our team and the membership over the course of this round of bargaining.
April 30, 2013
In the last 2 rounds of negotiations, we have had a new collective agreement concluded before the previous one expired. This time around, we are still negotiating 6 months after our contract expired.
This is not new. We have been here before with this employer.
The Public Interest Commission (PIC) issued its report with non-binding recommendations for PSAC-UTE to reach a settlement with Canada Revenue Agency February 14. The recommendations are intended to guide the parties in negotiations and help provide an avenue to make progress towards an agreement.
Ratification votes for PSAC-UTE members working at the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) will begin on May 24 and end June 16 at 12 noon ET.
In order for PSAC-UTE members to receive their new rates of pay, retroactive pay, and lump sum payment, the new agreement must first be ratified. To ensure this ratification process is done as quickly as possible, PSAC will be conducting an expedited ratification process.
Our bargaining team was very surprised – to say the least – to see CRA’s email to all staff today regarding our current negotiations. ( read email )
After more than four years without a wage increase, the CRA has never made a wage offer to our bargaining team. Not in the Public Interest Commission (PIC) hearings, and not at the negotiation table. There has been absolutely nothing preventing them from doing so, including any outstanding demands from the union – that’s exactly what the bargaining table is for.
Bargaining objectives
