The Public Service Alliance of Canada and Treasury Board are meeting this week for another round of contract talks in which government negotiators will present the new offer that has been quietly made to other unions over the past month. PSAC is the largest of the 17 unions, representing the majority of public servants in five large bargaining groups.
So far, the two sides are divided over sick leave. Treasury Board President Tony Clement is bent on scrapping the existing sick-leave regime and replacing it with a short-term disability plan by 2017.
For the unions, the new offer is an improvement on the government’s opening proposal, which slashed paid sick leave from 15 days a year to five days. It also proposed an unpaid seven-day waiting period before employees can apply for sick benefits under the new short-term disability plan. Also, the bank of unused sick leave that public servants have rolled over year-to-year would be eliminated.
Treasury Board softened the original offer by offering public servants six days – rather than five – of annual paid sick leave.
After using those days, employees would still face a seven-day unpaid waiting period before they can apply for short-term disability benefits. Once on disability, they can collect 100 per cent of salary for five weeks, rather than the original four weeks proposed. After that, benefits are reduced to 70 per cent of salary, under the government’s plan.
But the new proposal introduces a formula that will allow employees with accumulated sick leave to convert it into credits that can be used to top up benefits from 70 per cent of salary to 85 per cent.
Under the formula, sick leave is converted from time banked into “top-up credits” at a rate of 15 hours for 15 per cent of income. This means someone off work sick for six weeks (five weeks plus the unpaid seven-day waiting period) can use about two days of banked sick leave to top up benefits from 70 per cent to 85 per cent of salary.
The credits can also be used to bridge the unpaid seven-day waiting period for disability.
These credits, however, are only good for the first year following the plan’s implementation. In September 2017, the government plans to abolish the sick-leave bank. Similarly, the banking of sick leave will stop once the new disability plan is up and running in September 2016.
The new proposal, however, will allow public servants who don’t use their six days of sick leave to carry over one day a year to a maximum of seven days.
The government’s internal studies estimate public servants have socked away about $5.2 billion worth of sick-leave credits. It expects bureaucrats will only use about $1.5 billion of that due to illness – which is the amount booked in the Public Accounts as the liability for sick leave.
Under existing collective agreements, public servants get 15 days a year and any unused days can be rolled over from year to year. Public servants can’t cash out their banked sick leave when they leave or retire, so it disappears.
The PSAC wouldn’t discuss the offer but has presented its proposals for a “healthy workplace.” The union has argued fewer sick days, combined with the unpaid seven-day waiting period, mean people will go to work sick and infect their colleagues rather than stay home and lose pay.
Relations between unions and Clement are fractious and have been deteriorating since the Conservatives began cutting public servants’ benefits and weakening bargaining rights.
The negotiations that began last summer have made little progress and, many argue, have departed from the norm. The two sides normally table positions, then the horse-trading begins with counter-proposals.
Treasury Board began this round of negotiating by asking the unions to take part in “consultations” outside the bargaining table about the new short-term disability plan, which they unanimously rejected.
Treasury Board then tabled its first offer but the unions decided not to respond with counter-proposals until the government explained its business case for the new plan and why it was necessary. Without a counter-proposal, some were surprised that Treasury Board came out of the blue with a new, second offer.
“Treasury Board is tabling different positions but has yet to explain why these changes are necessary which really is a requirement of bargaining in good faith. It has to explain why and that is what is missing so far in these talks,” said Ron Cochrane, co-chair of the joint union and management National Joint Council.
“He (Clement) is being a dictator. You can’t dictate in collective bargaining. You have to negotiate.”
But Clement disagrees. “We are bargaining. We are putting forward positions and amending positions. We really want to engage with the unions on how they see sick leave improving,” said Clement.
Clement is also clear he will only negotiate details of the new short-term disability plan. He’s not open to discussing how to revamp the existing plan.
“Their bargaining position is about tinkering with the current system and that isn’t good enough,” said Clement. “My position is we actually have to have a modern system but we certainly want to hear from them on how to implement a modern system and make sure it is positive for employees. That is the kind of conversation I want to have.”
PSAC demands freeze on cuts to Veterans Affairs
The Public Service Alliance of Canada has tabled a demand for a “moratorium” on program and budget cuts at Veterans Affairs Canada until an independent study can assess whether the department can still meet its mandate.
The clause is proposed for the contract representing 70,000 administrative and program employees PSAC represents, including nearly 1,600 at Veterans Affairs.
PSAC President Robyn Benson said the union made the demand after learning that short-staffed Veterans Affairs offices face backlogs that, it said, are delaying services to veterans for months.
The government shut nine Veterans Affairs offices last year and has eliminated 900 jobs – nearly a quarter of the workforce – since 2010.
Original Article
Source: canada.com/
Author: KATHRYN MAY
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