“Morale in my workplace, it’s the lowest it could ever be,” said Keith Parsons, a civil aviation safety inspector working for Transport Canada in St. John’s, Nfld.
At his workplace, Mr. Parsons said that many employees are on stress leave because of morale-related issues.
“Folks are very stressed … and instead of trying to do their jobs, they’re looking to leave,” said Mr. Parsons.
The federal government employs at least 11,000 inspectors, regulators and scientists in a variety of fields and across dozens of organizations including food inspections, fisheries management, marine, train and aviation safety, occupational health and safety, as well as chemists, biologists and countless other professions.
“They’re really technical jobs that are frontline employees, they’re not in the backroom doing the paperwork in the support roles. They are actually hands on,” said Mr. Parsons, who is head of the St. John’s local of the Union of Canadian Transportation Employees.
Mr. Parsons, 50, has worked for Transport Canada for eight years. He has 15 years of Canadian Forces service as an Air Force mechanic, but left in the 1990s because of downsizing.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada estimates that at least 80 inspectors have been cut since $5.2-billion in cuts to departments’ budgets were announced in the 2012 budget last March. That includes workers in beef research, aircraft maintenance, disease research, road safety, and air, water and biological analysis.
The union said it believes that the number of affected scientists and inspectors is actually higher, but because these workers are spread across multiple departments and unions it is difficult to get a fuller picture of the cuts.
“Departments are currently implementing planned reductions including notifications to employees and bargaining agents and selection of employees for retention or lay-off. Some of these processes are still ongoing,” Treasury Board Secretariat spokesperson Theresa Knowles told The Hill Times recently.
The Treasury Board Secretariat is responsible for more than 180,000 employees across more than 80 departments in the core public service.
June Winger, a decontamination technologist at National Defence Research and Development’s Counter-Terrorism Technology Centre in Suffield, Alta., is part of a team that runs training exercises for the Canadian Forces, NATO allies, and Canadian emergency responders that involve responding to chemical, biological, or nuclear threats.
Ms. Winger explained that it is one of only two centres in the world sanctioned by the United Nations to deal with live chemical or nuclear substances. The other is in the Czech Republic.
There, response teams go through simulations of real-life scenarios, “To make sure that what they plan on doing in an emergency is actually going to work,” she explained.
“We’re quite well-used, there’s always groups fighting to come and see us,” she added.
Recently, the federal government has cut the subsidies it had provided to municipal emergency teams so that they could go through a week of training at the centre, said Ms. Winger.
It also plans to stop allowing NATO teams to train there, she said.
In future, the frequency of training exercises will go from a week every month to three or so a year, she said.
“We are looking at increasing the amount of training with the CF, but not nearly the same amount. Then we come to the question of, ‘Do we keep the same staffing levels?’ ” she said.
Already, staff in the centre’s lab who handle the chemical, biological and radiological agents have been cut, meaning that when there is a training exercise going on, the work that they do in the lab will have to wait while remaining staff handle the training exercise, she said.
Ms. Winger, 42, has been in the public service for 14 years. She joined the Counter-Terrorism Technology Centre shortly after it was launched in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. She represents Defence workers in Alberta and the North in the Union of National Defence Employees.
“Being a union representative, you don’t always get the phone call saying, ‘Life’s really great and I love my supervisor. Everything is going great.’ They usually call you when there is difficulty, and I understand that in my role, but the calls have greatly increased,” Ms. Winger said.
Ms. Winger added that she has seen younger staff members lose their motivation as morale has gone down in the workplace.
“You see them lose their drive for innovation on different ways of doing things, because they feel, what’s the point?” she said.
Ms. Winger added that for older workers, it’s the second time they’ve faced public service-wide cuts, having survived the restructuring of the mid-1990s that cut 45,000 jobs from the federal public service.
“I’ve received a number of emails from members that just break my heart. They’ll write things like, ‘I’m sitting at my desk and I can’t stop crying,’” Ms. Winger said.
Mr. Parsons said that the slump in morale from the cuts is combining with longstanding issues, such as a significant gap between what transportation inspectors would be paid in the private sector compared to the salaries they make as public servants, is making it hard to recruit and retain inspectors.
“The government’s goal is to ensure fair compensation for employees and, at the same time, to deliver on our overall fiscal responsibility and our commitment to the priorities of the government and Canadians,” stated the Treasury Board Secretariat in a briefing about the pay of inspectors.
The Treasury Board Secretariat and PSAC have been negotiating a new contract for technical services employees such as the inspectors for more than a year. They are at an impasse over issues such as the pay gap and the elimination of severance payments for public servants who retire or depart voluntarily.
Mr. Parsons suggested that there would be more cuts to come in the regulatory sector because of the budget.
“There’s going to be more cuts as programs are reviewed and decisions are made. That will all trickle down to the loss of jobs, absolutely,” he said.
As of mid-October, there were 2,734 people on a priority waiting list to be placed into new public service jobs. Of these, 1,066 people had lost their prior job in the civil service because of cuts, according to the Public Service Commission.
“What we have to recognize is, you don’t just save the money and then that’s the end of it. You save the money but you lose the service. Losing that service is a critical part of what makes Canada Canada,” said Ms. Winger.
Estimated Public Service Jobs Affected by Budget 2012:
Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development: 742 positions with 482 positions to be eliminated
Agriculture and Agri-Food: 886 positions, including biologists, chemists and commerce officers
Assisted Human Reproduction: at least three positions
Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency: 97 positions including commerce officers
Canada Border Services Agency: 1,151 positions affected, with 1,026 to be cut over three years. This includes up to 100 intelligence officers as well as clerical workers and program officers. This does not include 325 frontline service jobs the union was also told would be cut.
Canada Food Inspection Agency: 648 positions, including up to 100 inspectors
Canada Revenue Agency: 1,212 positions including almost 400 auditors, as well as the closure of all in-person enquiry services. Of those workers affected, 399 people are expected to be laid off.
Canada School of Public Service: 73 positions in the corporate management and strategic directions branches. Of these, 35 positions will be cut.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: 650 positions over three years, including 475 in this fiscal year. Eighty-eight positions will be in news.
Canadian Heritage: 258 positions
Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat: 2 positions
Canadian International Development Agency: 722 positions affected, with 250 to 300 expected cuts
Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency: 3 positions
Canadian Space Agency: 30 positions
Citizenship and Immigration: about 516 positions, including IT specialists.
Correctional Services Canada: 766 positions, including 401 positions due to the closure of two penitentiary facilities in Kinston, Ont., and 17 positions from the Inmates Rights and Redress program
Economic Development Agency of Canada for Quebec Regions: 101 positions, including about 70 commerce officers.
Environment Canada: 355 positions, including 23 workers at Montreal’s Biosphere.
Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario: 34 positions including about six commerce officers
Finance Canada: 12 positions, all in the National Capital Region
Fisheries and Oceans: 1,502 positions affected, including 763 Coast Guard workers. The figure doesn’t include about 100 contract Coast Guard workers on ships whose contracts will not be renewed.
Foreign Affairs and International Trade: 118 positions including 53 commerce officers, and 43 administrative, analytical and communications jobs located in the National Capital Region
Health Canada: about 1,375 positions, with 840 to be cut, including about 150 jobs in scientific positions.
Human Resources Skills Development: 5,216 positions, affecting at least 18 different branches or programs. Under HRSDC, at least 1,450 Service Canada workers and 15 positions at the Service Canada College are affected. A total of 2,100 HRSDC workers will eventually be let go.
Immigration and Refugee Board: 107 positions
Industry Canada: 414 positions
Infrastructure Canada: 29 positions, including nine positions in the Office of Infrastructure of Canada
Justice Department: about 836 positions, potentially including communications and internal library staff
Library and Archives: 503 positions, with 105 positions to be cut
National Defence: at least 1,850 workers including about 380 IT specialists and defence scientists
National Research Council: 54 positions affected in Calgary, Alta. and Winnipeg, Man.
Natural Resources Canada: 348 positions
Parks Canada: 1,689 positions received affected letters, with 638 positions to be eliminated. Affected jobs are across the country and include workers at historic sites, scientists and engineers.
Patented Medicine Prices Review Board: two positions
Parole Board of Canada: 36 positions
Public Servants Disclosure Protection Tribunal: One position
Privy Council Office: 139 positions, with 90 to 100 positions to be declared surplus between June and November 2012
Public Health Agency of Canada: 688 positions
Public Service Commission: the equivalent of 87 full-time positions will be cut
Public Safety: 71 positions
Public Works: 281 positions, with at least 45 positions expected to be eliminated
RCMP: 149 positions could be eliminated
RCMP Public Complaints Commission: One position in the commission’s library
Statistics Canada: 2,343 positions, with at least 322 positions declared surplus
Transport Canada: 455 positions, including security analysts, intelligence officers and inspectors, health and safety advisors, boating safety workers, airport security officers in the Atlantic region and aircraft maintenance engineers. At least 107 people will be laid off.
Treasury Board Secretariat: 56 positions, with at least nine positions declared surplus
Western Economic Diversification: 65 positions including about 20 commerce officers
Veterans Affairs: 261 positions, including 75 client service positions to be cut by this fall
Total: 27,626
Note: These numbers are best estimates based on best information available at time of publication, but may be revised significantly up or down as employment situations change.
—Source: Government of Canada, reports, and public service unions
Compiled by Jessica Bruno
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: JESSICA BRUNO
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