So far, the number of layoffs is a fraction of the more than 18,200 notices that departments have handed out in three waves since the budget announced annual spending cuts of $5.2 billion that would eliminate 19,200 jobs by 2015.
Treasury Board officials provided the latest tally to a meeting this week of the labour-management National Joint Council. As of May 31, 2,184 employees have been declared surplus and another 915 are losing their jobs, but have been guaranteed “reasonable” job offers somewhere else in government.
It’s anyone’s guess how many of the 15,104 remaining employees who received affected notices could end up losing their jobs, but some union leaders expect it will be considerably less than the thousands of letters that have thrown the public service into turmoil. The unions are braced for a fourth wave of notices to be handed out to employees before the end of the month.
Gary Corbett, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, said the large number of notices coupled with the long, drawn-out process of deciding who goes is disruptive and demoralizing.
In some cases, he said managers are simply issuing large numbers of notices to be safe because they are still figuring out what to cut. He said the Canadian Space Agency, for example, issued affected notices to all its research scientists while it figures out what to focus on with a reduced budget.
Employees have been left in limbo. Colleagues are pitted against each other, competing for jobs or forced to take exams, all but killing productivity.
“The longer they delay, the better it is for staff because they can continue working, but it is not good for the public service with everyone competing with one another. It turns the work environment toxic and creates chaos,” said Corbett.
The government argues it is simply following the process for layoffs that is spelled out in the collective agreements negotiated with the unions. The unions, however, insist nothing in the contract dictates such a drawn-out process.
In fact, the unions argue that Treasury Board’s failure to enforce the alternation or job-swapping provisions of the collective agreement is increasing the number of layoffs.
With swapping or alternation, public servants who are declared surplus and want to stay can swap positions with employees in similar jobs who want to go. Trades are allowed between departments among employees who have similar jobs, pay and levels of bilingualism.
Robyn Benson, president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, said there have been few successful job swaps so far and many departments are refusing to take workers traded from another department.
“They have to talk across departments and departments aren’t doing it,” said Benson. “Our members are at a loss. We have those who want to retire and those who want to stay and they will never be matched. Departments have to get on board like they’re supposed to and Treasury Board has to tell them to get on board.”
Treasury Board set up an intranet site that is supposed to function like a matchmaking service, bringing together employees to trade jobs and get access to a cash package or education allowance. Benson said swapping worked effortlessly in the mid-1990s when they were managed manually “with a human touch,” but the website is a failure because no one is tracking the results or is responsible for it.
Swapping was highly popular during the Liberals’ historic downsizing in the 1990s, which eliminated more than 45,000 jobs. The policy drove up the attrition rate and fuelled an immediate and unexpected stampede of workers looking for someone to swap with so they could cash in on generous buyout and early retirement packages. Unions expected swapping would drastically reduce the number of involuntary layoffs this time as well.
PSAC, the largest of the unions, receives daily complaints from members who are unable to find matches. By all accounts, the number of volunteers willing to leave and swap jobs is higher than the number of surplus employees facing layoff.
The big problem is that a surplus employee only has 120 days to find a swap. That deadline is looming this summer for those who found out in the first wave of notices that they were being laid off. After that, they must decide whether to go on a surplus list for a year to find another job in the public service, or leave the government with a buyout, pension waiver or education allowance.
Benson said she suspects some departments are reluctant to swap because they expect more cuts are coming, so they don’t want to take on other departments’ employees.
Claude Poirier, president of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees, said some departments are simply refusing to allow swaps with older workers who may be only a year or two from retirement so they don’t have to pay them buyouts. The volunteers who swap into surplus jobs get access to the departure incentives, such as a buyout, training allowance or early retirement without stiff pension penalties.
“They are accepting almost no alternations. They are not letting people alternate if they think they are eligible to retire in a year or two. That is age discrimination, because even if someone is at 58 years old, they may not be ready to retire.”
In the months leading up to the budget, managers say many public servants who were ready to retire held off in hopes of landing buyouts to sweeten their departures.
Original Article
Source: ottawa citizen
Author: KATHRYN MAY
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