Clement wants sick-leave deal before election

Treasury Board president Tony Clement has further turned up the pressure on federal unions by saying he wants to reach a deal on a new sick-leave regime before the election.

In an interview, Clement said he is open to further negotiations with the 18 federal unions on his contentious plan to revamp sick leave and disability management, but wants agreement by this fall. Federal election day is Oct. 19.

He didn’t clarify how long he was willing to continue those negotiations in the run-up to polling day. Whether negotiations fail, hit an impasse or proceed too slowly for his liking, the government is giving itself the power to impose the terms and conditions of a new sick-leave regime whenever it wants.

The government has been tightening the circle around unions in recent weeks after nearly a year of collective bargaining that has unfolded at a snail’s pace.

The big issue is accumulated sick leave, which the government wants to replace with a new short-term disability plan.

The 18 unions dug in their heels from the start, signed a solidarity pact and refused to make any concessions on sick leave. They claim they are willing to fix any problems or abuses but won’t budge on the existing accumulated sick-leave regime that their members want.

Treasury Board wants to replace the sick-leave benefit of 15 days of paid sick leave a year – which can be rolled over year to year. Its latest proposal includes six days of paid leave, which can’t be carried over. Those who use all six days would face a week-long unpaid waiting period before they qualified for a new short-term disability plan.

The first squeeze on the unions came with last month’s budget, when the government booked $900 million in savings for this fiscal year through winding down the existing sick-leave regime.

The move left unions in an uproar, accusing the government of trampling their collective bargaining rights and bargaining in bad faith by “pre-determining” the outcome.

Then came the budget-implementation bill, which ramped up the pressure through proposed legislative changes that would allow the government to override the Public Service Labour Relations Act and impose whatever deal it wished.

With these cards stacked against them, the unions have been huddled in meetings all week to discuss their bargaining position.

The giant Public Service Alliance of Canada withdrew from its scheduled talks with Treasury Board negotiators this week to re-evaluate its position. The IBEW also bowed out of its scheduled talks with the government in early June.

But Clement rejects unions’ complaints that the measures have “put a gun to their heads,” forcing them to settle or risk being saddled with whatever deal the government decides to impose. “I reject that terminology completely and absolutely,” he told the Citizen.

“I have been negotiating and bargaining in good faith. I have been offering fair and reasonable proposals. I am seeking to modernize a system that is over 40 years old and needs modernization. I have been seeking to be fair to the taxpayer and the employee.”

Clement said he was disappointed that PSAC decided to pull out of talks after repeatedly rejecting his offers but he hopes the largest union will have a “change of heart” and return to the next session of talks scheduled for June.

“They (unions) keep saying ‘no, no’ and they have been doing that for close to 200 meetings and that is why the option is in the legislation. I am hoping they have a change of heart. I have been fair and responsible and negotiated in good faith. It is now their turn to return to the bargaining table,” he said.

The unions, meanwhile, are exploring legal options. They could file a constitutional challenge, arguing the budget-bill measures violate their Charter rights, which guarantee freedom of association and collective bargaining. Other options include an unfair labour practice complaint with the Public Service Labour Relations Board, lodging a complaint with the International Labour Organization or staging work-to-rule campaigns.

All the unions are working to mobilize members and campaign against the Conservative government’s cuts to the public service and to the programs and services it provides.

Opposition parties criticized Clement in the House of Commons Wednesday for showing “disrespect” to public servants and breaching their right to free collective bargaining. Clement responded that the government will continue to meet with unions to strike a deal that will be “fair to employers and taxpayers.”

kmay@ottawacitizen.com

Negotiating teams postpone bargaining with Treasury Board over Budget Act

PSAC bargaining teams for the core public administration and separate agencies met today to discuss their response to the government’s decision to gut collective bargaining rights in the recently tabled Budget Implementation Act. Bargaining teams all decided to postpone this week’s round of negotiations in order to assess the implications of the government’s violation of our members’ rights, and evaluate all possible actions to defend them.

The Budget Implementation Act (Bill C-59) authorizes Treasury Board to rip up collective agreements to remove sick leave and impose a short and long term disability plan outside of negotiated agreements. The Bill will circumvent the Public Service Labour Relations Act as well as ongoing negotiations.

“In light of the recent attack by this government against our members, our elected bargaining teams have decided not to engage in the scheduled round of negotiations this week,” said Robyn Benson, National President of PSAC. “This government is obviously acting in bad faith and have decided to bully their way into getting what they want, in complete disregard for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and existing collective agreements.”

The Supreme Court established the right to collective bargaining as a Charter right. Bargaining teams were strong in their resolve to defend our rights using all means at our disposal.

PSAC’s recent National Triennial Convention recently voted to use up to $5 million to protect members’ rights and promote public services.
Bargaining teams will continue their discussions. Further decisions on the next round of scheduled negotiations will be taken in due course.

Conservative budget bill sets up battle with federal unions

The Conservative government is giving itself new powers in the latest omnibus budget bill to impose controversial sick leave changes to the public service, a move that sets up a battle with federal unions just months before the October election.

The budget bill tabled Thursday, C-59, has 157 numbered pages, which is less than half the size of both budget bills tabled last year. However Thursday’s bill continues the pattern of jamming budget bills with a wide-range of substantive measures, including entirely new laws.

Bill C-59 includes the government’s long-promised balanced budget legislation, as well as a new law called the Prevention of Terrorist Travel Act, which restricts the release of intelligence used by government to cancel a passport on national security grounds.

Critics have long opposed the government’s approach to omnibus budget bills, arguing that including major new measures all in one bill means that the individual changes do not receive the same thorough Parliamentary scrutiny that they would have received had they been introduced as a piece of standalone legislation.

Unions had already expressed concerns about the government’s plans on sick leave when they were first signalled in Finance Minister Joe Oliver’s April 21 budget.

Bill C-59 gives the Treasury Board minister the power to ignore provisions of the Public Service Labour Relations Act and unilaterally change the terms and conditions of sick leave in the public service and create a new short-term disability program.

Treasury Board President Tony Clement has said a new sick leave regime was his priority heading into labour negotiations last year with public service bargaining units. The major unions had said they strongly opposed Mr. Clement’s proposal.

“Nothing in this [section] affects the right to strike under the Public Service Labour Relations Act,” states one section of the budget bill.

“The government has decided to completely throw out any pretense that they intend to respect the collective bargaining rights of its workers,” said Robyn Benson, president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, the largest union of federal public servants. “This attack on our members’ rights will seriously harm public services by forcing people to go to work sick, and cause irreparable damage to labour relations. We will take every available action in our power to challenge the legislation.”

Other sections of the bill implement the wide range of tax credits announced in the budget, including repealing the child tax credit, expanding the Universal Child Care Benefit and introducing income splitting for couples in different income brackets.

The bill creates a new “Parliamentary Protective Service,” that would place responsibility for security on Parliament Hill in the hands of the RCMP.

The bill also lays out new rules regulating unpaid internships, including that they cannot replace any employee and that the internship must not be a prerequisite to the person being offered employment.

The budget bill includes changes to a wide-range of existing laws, including the Industrial Design Act, the Patent Act, the Trade-marks Act, the Canada Labour Code, the Copyright Act, the Export Development Act, the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, the National Energy Board Act, the Parliament of Canada Act, the Employment Insurance Act, the Canada Small Business Financing Act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the First Nations Fiscal Management Act, the Canadian Forces Members and Veterans Re-establishment and Compensation Act, the Ending the Long-gun Registry Act, the Trust and Loan Companies Act, the Bank Act, the Insurance Companies Act, and the Cooperative Credit Associations Act.

Bill Curry

Ottawa — The Globe and Mail

Published Thursday, May. 07 2015

$2.7B employment insurance surplus balanced Joe Oliver's books

Remember two decades ago, when surpluses in the employment insurance fund started giving the Chrétien government billions in extra revenue to repay debt, cut taxes or fund other things?
For two years only — just until 2017 — those days are back. And how convenient: it's just enough to nudge Joe Oliver's books into the black in time for this year's election.

• Canada's deficits and surpluses: 1963 to 2015
• Analysis: Oliver's promises-kept budget: Ignore the sleight of hand
• Federal budget 2015 overview
• How Joe Oliver balanced the books

The last recession dipped the EI account balance into the red, accumulating a deficit of $9.2 billion by 2011. But as of 2015, that's paid off.
A rate freeze by former finance minister Jim Flaherty in 2013 — ostensibly to protect employees and employers from more rate increases — is keeping contributions higher than necessary to maintain that balance.
That translates into an extra $2.7 billion for 2015-16. Without it, Stephen Harper wouldn't have his balanced budget.
Next year, it'll be worth $1.4 billion extra.

Then starting in 2017, contribution rates will be based on a seven-year "break-even" formula. Premiums will drop to a level that keeps the account in balance, not surplus.
The overall goal? More transparent rates. And an end to multibillion-dollar dipping into EI funds to finance the ambitions of future governments.
But first, a final windfall.

'Slush fund … needs to stop'

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business was among those "screaming and yelling" about payroll tax unfairness.
But president Dan Kelly says that while his members want lower premiums, they understand you need surplus years to balance out deficits.
"I am generally supportive of the government's approach," Kelly said, "and I say that with a bit of a heavy heart, because this year and next, because of this new formula, rates are not coming down as much as they could come down, and so the economy is missing out on that benefit."

"Right now, the EI surplus is subsidizing the books of the government of Canada, I think that's a fair statement," Kelly said.
But by that logic, in bad times the government subsidized the EI account.
"That's why we haven't been lighting our hair on fire on this," he said, emphasizing that consistent rates are what counts.
Kelly said his group asked for a chart in the budget to track the EI account over time. (And sure enough, there is one.)
"We wanted to have that accountability," he said. "EI has been used as a bit of a slush fund for decades and that needs to stop."

Election 'jiggery-pokery'

Liberal deputy leader Ralph Goodale said that while in theory the idea of a seven-year rate-setting mechanism is anti-cyclical — stabilizing rates over time rather than making them rise and fall with economic fortunes — the way the Harper government implemented this was pro-cyclical, making things worse at a time when job creation was supposed to be the priority.
"This is not a time to play jiggery-pokery with EI rates," he said.

Leading up to 2013, the revenue from payroll premiums increased by $600 million in each of the years 2011, 2012 and 2013. Then premiums were frozen at that "artificially high" level. Add it together up to 2017 and you've got $14.4 billion in additional revenue for the Harper government, Goodale said.
The former Liberal finance minister — who also enjoyed a hearty EI surplus in his budgeting days a decade ago — said Tories have "used it in such a shameful fashion, all the while proclaiming that they weren't."
"This one was deliberately contrived to suit their election timing," he said. "It was clearly intended to pad the government's books."

Come 2017, Finance Canada confirmed Friday it will not apply its five cent cap on premium increases or decreases. Instead, premiums are expected to drop more substantially — from $1.88 to $1.49 per $100 of insurable earnings — to begin the new break-even strategy.
"They'll drop the rates in a dramatic fashion and say 'Oh my! What a good boy am I!" Goodale said,

'Almost like a tax'

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is disappointed that the government continues to treat EI surpluses like general tax revenue.
"The current government is not going quite [as far as previously], but the principle is the same," said federal director Aaron Wudrick.
"Our big fear is that governments become dependent on it, and start to bake it into their assumptions," he said.
Extra revenue risks government "getting a little loose" with spending, Wudrick said. But if surpluses were used to pay down debt, he'd support that.
"Some people might argue that it's not a big deal that it goes into general revenue," he said. "But we think it is reasonable that the government be honest about what it's doing with the money."

In 1998, former Reform party critic Monte Solberg told then finance minister Paul Martin the government had a "moral obligation" to pay back the extra billions belonging to the "waitresses and plumbers and all those people who have contributed to the EI fund."
Few Conservatives of Solberg's vintage are left to feel discomfort now that the shoe is on the other foot.

By Janyce McGregor, CBC News  Posted: May 05, 2015

Union membership ‘ticket into middle-class stability,’ study says

A union card is “a ticket into middle-class stability,” according to a new study that shows most union members earn incomes that put them at the upper end of the income spectrum in Canada.

As a result, efforts to shore up the country’s disappearing middle class should include measures to support collective bargaining, says the study by the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives being released Friday to mark International Workers’ Day.

“We can expect the middle class to shrink and upward mobility to stall, as long as union representation continues to decline,” said economist Hugh Mackenzie, co-author of the study with statistician Richard Shillington.

About 45 per cent of full-time workers earning upper-middle-class wages are union members, while just 8 per cent of Canada’s lowest income earners belonged to a union, the study says. (The average upper-middle-class wage for a single person was $78,352, before taxes, in 2011. The lowest income earners made an average of $8,560.)

The study, which looked at union membership between 1997 and 2011, found that the overall percentage of unionized workers has been relatively stable at 27 per cent.

But the loss of unionized jobs in the private sector during this period — from 21 per cent to 14 per cent — resulted in many workers getting “kicked out of the middle class,” Mackenzie said. 

Workers who lost unionized jobs during the economic downturn in 2008 saw their incomes drop by about 9 per cent, the report says.

However, workers who joined a union during the recession saw their incomes jump by about 39 per cent.

“The findings suggest that there is a huge opportunity cost for workers who lose a unionized position, especially during recessionary periods,” Mackenzie said.

“Conversely, workers represented by a union tend to move a notch or two up the income ladder,” he said. “They’re not only better positioned to weather economic storms, they’re more likely to experience the Canadian middle-class dream of upward income mobility.”

As politicians battle for the middle-class vote in next fall’s federal election, they can’t ignore the role unions play in bolstering the middle class, he said.

“Any policy discussion around middle-class economics should examine these startling trends and reconsider ways to facilitate the rise of collective bargaining in Canada’s future,” he said. “The health of the middle class depends on it.”

By: Laurie Monsebraaten Social justice reporter, Published on Thu Apr 30 2015 Toronto Star

Unions fight new federal screening rules on public servants

As more than a quarter million federal government employees face credit checks and fingerprinting, one of the unions representing them is going to court to stop it.
The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada is citing a case involving New Brunswick's J.D. Irving Ltd.

The individual background checks are among new security screening standards the Treasury Board says are required to ensure the reliability and trustworthiness of civil servants handling sensitive and personal information.
The new background checks apply to existing employees as well as to new hires.
The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada has applied for an injunction to the federal court to halt the added security screening until a full legal challenge can be dealt with.

"We simply have no evidence from the government that such a broad, blanket application is reasonable in any way," said Isabelle Roy, the general counsel for the union, which represents 55,000 civil servants.
"We're simply not convinced of the rationale and reasonability for such privacy invasive measures being implemented across the board."
Roy says the application for an injunction cites the 2013 Supreme Court of Canada case CEP Local 30 v Irving Pulp and Paper.
In that case the top court ruled that privacy rights trump the rights of the company to initiate random alcohol testing on all employees.

'Unwarranted violation of personal privacy'

Another union, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, says it also is challenging the credit check requirement.
"These checks will be an unwarranted violation of personal privacy," said Chris Aylward, the union`s vice president, in a statement to CBC.
"They could put people's livelihoods in jeopardy without cause."

The attempt is also being followed closely by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
"Many of these things such as fingerprints - biometrics - are potentially deeply privacy invasive. We think of fingerprints as something we do to criminals not employees in general," said Brenda McPhail, who heads the association's privacy, technology and surveillance project.
"It's going to create an atmosphere in the workplace that suggests as an employer we do not trust you."
Employees will be required to consent in writing to the added security screening. Those who withhold consent will lose their jobs.

Michael Gosselin, a Treasury Board spokesperson, defended the decision in an email statement.
"Canadians have a right to expect that government employees and contractors undergo appropriate security screening which is a fundamental practice before being entrusted with public resources, or with the personal and/or sensitive information they provide when filing their tax return, applying for Employment Insurance, Canada Pension Disability benefits or a passport," he wrote.

The new measures were declared last October.
All federal departments and agencies have been given 36 months to fully comply with the new rule.

By Connell Smith, CBC News     May 01, 2015 

Chris Aylward re-elected PSAC National Executive Vice-President

Chris Aylward was re-elected as the National Executive Vice-President of the Public Service Alliance of Canada this morning at the PSAC’s 17th National Triennial Convention.
Aylward was first elected as PSAC National Executive Vice-President in 2012 and previously held the full time position of First National Vice-President for UTE.

Chris is a vocal advocate for the rights of all members to a safe workplace, a fair wage, and a strong collective agreement.
In accepting the new mandate, Aylward reminded delegates that there is a lot at stake for both PSAC members and for the country. “We have to be united against this government. We will be victorious on October 19.”
Larry Rousseau, Regional Executive Vice-President (REVP) for the National Capital Region, was elected Alternate National Executive Vice-President. Rousseau remains an REVP but would become the National Executive Vice-President if the position becomes vacant before the next national convention.

Robyn Benson re-elected PSAC National President

Robyn Benson was re-elected as the National President of the Public Service Alliance of Canada this morning at the PSAC’s 17th National Triennial Convention.

Benson was first elected as PSAC president in 2012 and previously served as the Regional Executive Vice-President (REVP) for the PSAC Prairie Region since 2000.
In accepting the new mandate, Benson thanked the delegates for their support.
“It will be an honour and a privilege to serve our members for the next three years.”
Benson has always been and continues to be an advocate for human rights, social justice and strong public services, and is vehemently opposed to public service cuts. She has made it her mission to defend the collective bargaining rights of PSAC members and all workers in Canada.
“We will work for change on October 19,” said Benson.
She pledges to continue to work with others to win social justice and equality for all.