Hundreds more affected notices go out to seven government departments

OTTAWA — Hundreds of public servants at seven departments received notices today that their jobs are on the block as part of the Conservative government’s ongoing spending cuts.

Employees at Agriculture and Agrifood Canada were the hardest hit, according to the three major unions which are braced for “affected notices” to be delivered to some 665 employees.

Gary Corbett, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, said 350 of the union’s members are affected across the country but not all those positions will disappear. The department’s science and technology and market and industry services branches bore the brunt of the cuts, including commerce officers, IT specialists, research scientists, engineers, biologists and a handful of research managers and procurement officers.

“The government just keeps doing this and the public service is demoralized to the extreme. I don’t know how it will ever pull up its socks and get back on stream. It will take years for the workforce to recover.”

The Public Service Alliance of Canada, the largest of federal unions, said 530 of their members were handed notices in seven departments, including 235 who work at Agriculture and Agrifood Canada, 132 at the Department of Defence, 86 at Transport Canada, 68 at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, seven at Citizenship and Immigration Canada, one at the Courts Administration Service and one at Human Resources and Skills Development Canada.

Unions say they have yet to sort out how programs or services to Canadians would be affected by the reductions and how many jobs will ultimately be lost.

“We’d like to know more about what all of these cuts mean for Canadians and the economy,” said PSAC National President Robyn Benson.

Corbett said he is frustrated that the government doesn’t even try to explain the rationale for cuts and what services are disappearing. He said the jobs on the line are “high-value employees” who work in developing crop management, minimizing the impact of agriculture on the environment, supporting the profitability of farming and tracking market data for producers and exporters.

PSAC officials say the cuts at Transport are related to changes in the Navigable Waters Protection Act.

The Canadian Association of Professional Employees said about 100 of their members received notices at Agriculture earlier this week, most in the National Capital Region, and 79 of them will face competitions for work.

This isn’t the first time Agriculture was hit by cuts. Last year at this time, Agriculture employees were notified that nearly 700 jobs would be affected. That’s when the department decided to close the highly-respected Cereal Research Centre in Winnipeg.

The volume of the cuts have slowed down compared to the thousands of affected letters that were being issued to workers in the weeks after the release of the 2012 budget. That’s when the government set the target to eliminate about 19,200 jobs as it phased in the $5.2 billion spending cuts from the 2012 budget. It has so far eliminated about 17,000 positions and the number of employees shrunk 5.5 per cent to 262,902.

PSAC said 21,613 of its members have received notices that they could lose their jobs since the cuts began, and PIPSC estimates about 6,000 of their members have.

So far, departments reduced their spending by $1.5 billion last year but the reductions will double this year as departments swallow another $1.5 billion this year and an additional $1.7 billion in 2014-15.

Workers affected are offered the opportunity to compete for their jobs in a competition or they can pick one of the three options offered under the Workforce Adjustment Directive that the government negotiated with unions to manage the downsizing.

Employees who face layoff have three options. They can remain on payroll for a year and go on a priority list to look for another job while they continue to work. They can opt for a buyout, based on years of service, or take an education package to retrain.

The first batches of surplus employees who opted to go on the priority list and get first dibs on other jobs in the public service will be coming up to a year on the list this summer, after which they lose their priority status and will be laid off.

Last week, the Public Service Commission told MPs that there are currently 2,900 people on the priority list, a 60 per cent increase since April when the cuts began. Since then, about 956 people have found new positions.

Original Article
Source: ottawacitizen.com
Author: KATHRYN MAY