OTTAWA — The chair of a conciliation panel has scolded the federal government after its representative on the panel rejected three recommendations he had earlier endorsed during contract bargaining involving more than 4,000 employees of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
“It does not assist the process when one party backtracks from earlier agreements,” Lorne Slotnick, a respected mediator and arbitrator, wrote as the three-member panel released its recommendations, including a dissent from Andrew Tremayne, the member representing the CFIA.
Ian Lee, an assistant professor at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business, said the flip-flop is consistent with the Conservative government’s “larger narrative” of taking on public service unions in the lead-up to the anticipated federal election in 2015.
“The big contracts all come up in 2014,” Lee said in an interview Monday. “It’s going to be very tough and very hardball.
“I don’t think the Conservatives are going to back down,” he said. “This is going to be a major election plank in 2015. They see this as one of their signature issues — as was law and order, as was the long gun registry — to truly differentiate their party from the Liberals and the NDP.”
The collective agreement between the CFIA and the Public Service Alliance of Canada, which represents about 4,450 agency employees, expired nearly 19 months ago.
After bargaining failed to resolve major issues, the PSAC requested the appointment of a Public Interest Commission — a conciliation panel consisting of one union nominee, one employer nominee and a neutral chairperson — in May 2012.
Though more than 100 issues were in dispute, commission members were able to reach consensus on recommendations for a settlement earlier this year. The recommendations are not binding but — if unanimous — they can carry considerable weight as the parties work toward a negotiated settlement.
Though PSAC’s nominee on the panel, Nick Stein, had considered filing a dissent on some issues, he advised Slotnick on May 12 that he would not be doing so.
“However, by that time the employer nominee (Tremayne) was being instructed to dissent,” Slotnick wrote in the commission’s report, dated July 25.
Slotnick said he was disappointed by the dissent, noting that the CFIA’s objections concern “recommendations that had been agreed to by all three members of the commission.
“This has been a challenging round of bargaining for both parties,” he wrote. “A settlement will not be achieved unless both sides are prepared to make difficult compromises.”
The commission supported the CFIA’s position on many key issues, including the elimination of severance pay for those who retire or resign voluntarily.
That was a key concession the PSAC made in bargaining in 2010 in exchange for a wage increase, and it has set a pattern for virtually all negotiated settlements and arbitration awards ever since.
But the panel backed the union position on a few points, including the three items about which Tremayne filed his dissent.
One would reduce the work week for 69 employees who currently work 40 hours a week to 37.5 hours, the number worked by all other full-time members of the bargaining unit. Another would expand wash-up time to 15 minutes from the current 10 for meat hygiene inspectors.
The third would allow employees to accumulate overtime worked during a week and be paid for each 15-minute period worked. The collective agreement now provides premium rates for each 15 minutes of overtime worked daily, but nothing for employees who work 14 minutes or fewer. That meant many were working unpaid overtime, the union argued.
In his dissent, Tremayne said the reduced work week for the 69 employees would effectively give them a “significant increase” in their hourly wage. “These employees would receive the same pay for less work; the employer would receive less work for the same pay.”
He described the changes to overtime calculations as “a precedent-setting ‘breakthrough’ proposal” that has never been awarded in arbitration or recommended in any Public Interest Commission report.
As for the wash-up improvements, Tremayne said the panel was recommending language not found in any other federal employer agreement.
He did not, however, shed any light on why he changed his position after earlier supporting in writing the same three recommendations.
But Lee said each of the items on which Tremayne reversed course were “micro issues that deal with compensation and benefits. They’re the kinds of issues that the Conservatives have been opposed to.
“There’s a myriad of little ways where (Conservatives) argue that public servants have advantages that the private sector doesn’t,” Lee said. “As they dig deeper into all the facets of the collective agreements, they’re starting to realize there’s a lot more under the hood that they could harmonize.”
There have been other signs recently that the government is not at all reluctant to get into brawls with public service unions.
It has been locked for weeks in a bitter and escalating contract dispute with striking foreign service workers. And in a speech in June, Treasury Board President Tony Clement announced plans for a new short-term disability plan that would eliminate banked sick leave in the public service.
If the government is spoiling for a fight, it will have ample opportunity next year.
Seventeen of the 27 collective agreements that Treasury Board negotiates expire in 2014, including the Program and Administrative services contract, which covers nearly 70,000 public servants, the Computer Services Group, with 13,000 members, and the 11,000-member Audit, Commerce and Purchasing group.
“I think 2014 is going to be a very interesting time,” Lee said. The Conservatives “want to make sure that their base is going to be mobilized to go out and support them again in 2015.
“If they do have a big fight with the unions, that’s going to demonstrate their commitment to the cause and show their street cred,” Lee said. “That’s going to be part of their grand strategy for 2015.”
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Don Butler
“It does not assist the process when one party backtracks from earlier agreements,” Lorne Slotnick, a respected mediator and arbitrator, wrote as the three-member panel released its recommendations, including a dissent from Andrew Tremayne, the member representing the CFIA.
Ian Lee, an assistant professor at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business, said the flip-flop is consistent with the Conservative government’s “larger narrative” of taking on public service unions in the lead-up to the anticipated federal election in 2015.
“The big contracts all come up in 2014,” Lee said in an interview Monday. “It’s going to be very tough and very hardball.
“I don’t think the Conservatives are going to back down,” he said. “This is going to be a major election plank in 2015. They see this as one of their signature issues — as was law and order, as was the long gun registry — to truly differentiate their party from the Liberals and the NDP.”
The collective agreement between the CFIA and the Public Service Alliance of Canada, which represents about 4,450 agency employees, expired nearly 19 months ago.
After bargaining failed to resolve major issues, the PSAC requested the appointment of a Public Interest Commission — a conciliation panel consisting of one union nominee, one employer nominee and a neutral chairperson — in May 2012.
Though more than 100 issues were in dispute, commission members were able to reach consensus on recommendations for a settlement earlier this year. The recommendations are not binding but — if unanimous — they can carry considerable weight as the parties work toward a negotiated settlement.
Though PSAC’s nominee on the panel, Nick Stein, had considered filing a dissent on some issues, he advised Slotnick on May 12 that he would not be doing so.
“However, by that time the employer nominee (Tremayne) was being instructed to dissent,” Slotnick wrote in the commission’s report, dated July 25.
Slotnick said he was disappointed by the dissent, noting that the CFIA’s objections concern “recommendations that had been agreed to by all three members of the commission.
“This has been a challenging round of bargaining for both parties,” he wrote. “A settlement will not be achieved unless both sides are prepared to make difficult compromises.”
The commission supported the CFIA’s position on many key issues, including the elimination of severance pay for those who retire or resign voluntarily.
That was a key concession the PSAC made in bargaining in 2010 in exchange for a wage increase, and it has set a pattern for virtually all negotiated settlements and arbitration awards ever since.
But the panel backed the union position on a few points, including the three items about which Tremayne filed his dissent.
One would reduce the work week for 69 employees who currently work 40 hours a week to 37.5 hours, the number worked by all other full-time members of the bargaining unit. Another would expand wash-up time to 15 minutes from the current 10 for meat hygiene inspectors.
The third would allow employees to accumulate overtime worked during a week and be paid for each 15-minute period worked. The collective agreement now provides premium rates for each 15 minutes of overtime worked daily, but nothing for employees who work 14 minutes or fewer. That meant many were working unpaid overtime, the union argued.
In his dissent, Tremayne said the reduced work week for the 69 employees would effectively give them a “significant increase” in their hourly wage. “These employees would receive the same pay for less work; the employer would receive less work for the same pay.”
He described the changes to overtime calculations as “a precedent-setting ‘breakthrough’ proposal” that has never been awarded in arbitration or recommended in any Public Interest Commission report.
As for the wash-up improvements, Tremayne said the panel was recommending language not found in any other federal employer agreement.
He did not, however, shed any light on why he changed his position after earlier supporting in writing the same three recommendations.
But Lee said each of the items on which Tremayne reversed course were “micro issues that deal with compensation and benefits. They’re the kinds of issues that the Conservatives have been opposed to.
“There’s a myriad of little ways where (Conservatives) argue that public servants have advantages that the private sector doesn’t,” Lee said. “As they dig deeper into all the facets of the collective agreements, they’re starting to realize there’s a lot more under the hood that they could harmonize.”
There have been other signs recently that the government is not at all reluctant to get into brawls with public service unions.
It has been locked for weeks in a bitter and escalating contract dispute with striking foreign service workers. And in a speech in June, Treasury Board President Tony Clement announced plans for a new short-term disability plan that would eliminate banked sick leave in the public service.
If the government is spoiling for a fight, it will have ample opportunity next year.
Seventeen of the 27 collective agreements that Treasury Board negotiates expire in 2014, including the Program and Administrative services contract, which covers nearly 70,000 public servants, the Computer Services Group, with 13,000 members, and the 11,000-member Audit, Commerce and Purchasing group.
“I think 2014 is going to be a very interesting time,” Lee said. The Conservatives “want to make sure that their base is going to be mobilized to go out and support them again in 2015.
“If they do have a big fight with the unions, that’s going to demonstrate their commitment to the cause and show their street cred,” Lee said. “That’s going to be part of their grand strategy for 2015.”
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Don Butler
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