News - August 2007                Previous Month         Following Month

The headlines for current month's news items are listed immediately below. Click on the headline of your choice to see the entire text of the article.

CFIA announces timelines for new contract

and PI/EG Review pay adjustments

Agriculture Union produces practical, one-page

Workplace Hazard Prevention Program chart

Tentative Essential Services Agreement reached with CFIA

PI Review – Scope of June 22 announcement clarified

Our July ‘Rand’ campaign winner…

CFIA announces timelines for new contract and PI/EG Review pay adjustments

(Posted August 24, 2007)

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has informed the Agriculture Union of its projected timeline for implementing three important steps arising from the recently-concluded new collective agreement and progress on the PI/EG Review:
          • contract pay adjustments;
          • issuing of letters to members impacted by classification decisions on mediated job description wording;

                  and
          • pay adjustments for any classification change resulting from the new job description wording.

The following information comes directly from the CFIA itself:

Please be advised that CFIA recently consulted with the PSAC on CFIA's plan for implementing pay adjustments related to the new collective agreement and EG Review.

CFIA will be implementing the new collective agreement first, with pay adjustments estimated to be made between October and November 2007. During this same time period, they will be issuing letters to the over 3,000 individuals affected by EG Review. Once these letters have been issued and payments related to the collective agreement implementation have been completed, CFIA will implement EG Review. CFIA anticipates that payments associated with EG Review will be made to employees between December 2007 and March 2008.

The collective agreement pay implementation occurs first as there is a strict time limit following formal signing of the contract. As well, time-consuming duplication of certain retroactive pay calculations is avoided.

Agriculture Union produces practical, one-page workplace Hazard Prevention Program chart

(Posted August 16, 2007)

Agriculture Union health and safety activists at the Local level perform an invaluable service for their co-workers. Their dedication is all the more admirable, given the complexity of the laws and regulations designed to make our workplaces as safe and healthy as possible.

Now, our Union has produced a practical, one-page reference chart designed for use by Local safety representatives or committee members. It’s a ‘first’ for the Public Service Alliance of Canada and its Components, and perhaps for the entire Canadian labour movement.

The chart is a handy and practical guide that illustrates the essential components of a Hazard Prevention Program and how they are connected, as well as explaining the basic role of the main ‘players’ involved in maintaining safe and healthy workplaces. As a checklist, it covers everything that employers, along Local Union health and safety reps, need to put in place and monitor.

Newly updated this summer, it is available for viewing and downloading on our Web site HERE.

Tentative Essential Services Agreement reached with CFIA

(Posted August 10, 2007)

The Agriculture Union has a tentative Essential Services Agreement with the Canadian Food inspection Agency. The ESA determines which CFIA positions are deemed essential to the public’s health and safety. The members occupying those jobs would be prohibited from participating in strike action.

The accord is a first for both parties, as ESAs have replaced the former ‘designations’ process as a part of a raft of legislated changes to federal public service labour laws since the last round of bargaining.

Work on developing this first ESA began in March 2006. The next 16 months saw the drafting of a protocol to guide these negotiations, followed by extensive review, discussion and challenging of proposed positions to be identified as essential.

‘Essential service’ is defined in the new Public Service Labour Relations Act (PSLRA) as “a service, facility or activity of the Government of Canada that is or will be, at any time, necessary for the safety or security of the public or a segment of the public”. This definition is broader than in previous legislation and gives the employer the exclusive right to determine the level and frequency to which these services will be provided.

However, the legislation also provides for “essential duties” to be shifted amongst the employees in the bargaining unit. This allows for a lower complement of employees than in normal operations to provide the level of essential services.

The tentative ESA establishes an agreed-to level of service within the CFIA at approximately 40 per cent of employees, spread out amongst a number of commodities. Once a position has been identified as essential it will maintain that designation until it can be shown that the duties no longer meet the definition outlined in the PSLRA. In the future, new employees may be advised of this designation upon being hired.

The National Office in the near future will provide Locals with details of the protocol and such other information as the timeline for delivery of notices to affected members.

PI Review – Scope of June 22 announcement clarified

(Posted August 7, 2007)

Last June 22, we were pleased to jointly announce with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency a significant step forward in the PI Review grievance process. As can often occur there has been some misunderstanding as to the nature and scope of that announcement.

What was announced was the CFIA’s completion of their classification of the newly worded generic job descriptions.

We had agreed to the wording of generic job descriptions through a mediation process that was successful for all but one of the job descriptions.

There is no formal agreement with CFIA on other outstanding issues.

As is always the case, CFIA classified the generic descriptions based on the new wording. We were not part of the classification decisions in any way, as classification is an exclusive prerogative of management under federal public service labour laws.

The results of the CFIA’s classification exercise will be sent to each affected member, along with the usual instructions about how to grieve if they are not happy with the new decision.

Confusion has arisen in part because CFIA line managers have told some of our members that the nature of the mediated settlement on generic job descriptions removes the right to further grievance rights. This is not true.

As we noted, the settlement announced June 22 was for job description wording only. This only means that members cannot challenge the specific wording of the generic job description. They may, however, still maintain their original ‘job description content’ grievance if they feel they were given the wrong description and see their duties more accurately reflected in a different generic description.

For many members the results of the classification exercise might satisfy their complaints and they may not wish to grieve further.

Other members may wish to continue on in the grievance procedure. For these members, the door remains open and the process will continue.

Given the positive change in attitude shown in recent months by the new CFIA President and her senior management, we can expect that further progress on the PI Review will be made in a constructive, non-adversarial and more timely manner.

To that end, management has told us that more detailed information can be expected in the near future. However one thing to keep in mind is that the CFIA has a requirement to process cheques resulting from the recent tentative agreement within a strict time period. Dealing with this up-front will also avoid duplication of work for anyone whose pay rate has changed through the classification process.

Our June ‘Rand’ campaign winner is…

(Posted August 1, 2007)

Congratulations to Michelle Thompson! Michelle is the latest monthly winner in our campaign to sign up ‘Rands’, dues-paying co-workers who, for one reason or another, have yet to sign a union card.

Michelle is a newly-signed-up member of Local 30048, which represents our Canadian Food Inspection Agency members in Lethbridge, Alberta.

Her name also joins those of all Rands who sign membership cards by December 31 in becoming eligible for our year-end grand prize – two round-trip tickets to anywhere in Canada that Air Canada flies, or $1,000 in cash.