Your National Executive was back in Ottawa last week for the National Labour Management Committee meeting (NLMC) after a summer break. Locals and regions have been very active over the summer months hosting events meant to start the conversations on our upcoming negotiations. Last week’s agenda was very busy as we finalized our preparations for our upcoming tour to gather demands from the field beginning September 6th in all institutions across the country.
The gathering of the demands tour began last week in many locals across the country. Your presence is essential to make your voice heard on what you want in your next contract. Very few unions in the country engage at this level with their members. Your local, regional, and even national representatives will attend your general membership meetings to discuss your demands and the future of our next contract. During last week’s NLMC meeting, we asked CSC to be ready by December to exchange our respective demands for the Global Agreement.
We wish to thank all members for their participation in our Respect Campaign during the spring, your efforts have made a significant difference at the labour management table.
Here are some of the topics we covered last week during our labour management meetings.
Training
We made our position clear on the employer’s wish to amend our National Training Standards to a three-year cycle for Chemical Agents, PSRT, and dynamic security. The CSC wishes to bring us in line with other law enforcement agencies and we argued that we are nothing like other law enforcement agencies given our incident statistics. We argue that our training certainly needs amendments but amending the frequency could have effects on the Health and Safety of our members. We also made our position clear on the employer’s wish to introduce simulated firearms training. We informed the employer that simulated firearms should never replace “live fire” exercise and should only be used in addition to our current training.
Deployment Standards and FTE Funding
Local consultation, regarding our new operational realities given the elimination of segregation, was finalized by all affected locals in early months of summer. The regional reviews were completed by the end of July and the National Subcommittee met in mid-August to have a broader discussion on the required changes to CD-004 and our deployment standards given the findings from each affected site. There were some key trends established which will see funding diverted to Outside Hospital Escorts, Observation (843 watch), Max 96 bed units, SIU escorts and Meta’s. Work is still ongoing to finalize the results, but we thank the locals for their work in putting forward their
local business cases on extra funding requirements. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to speak to your local representatives.
Deployment
Consultation has taken place with the National Executive on a new version of the Deployment HR Bulletin. This bulletin will now reflect both inter and intra-regional deployments into one process. It also allows for deployment rights of our DDH group as well as CX3’s.
Pay System
We informed the employer that we have submitted a policy grievance on the employer’s process to recover debts owed to the crown over the 6-year time limit. During the summer, we published two flyers on the recovery of ESA’s and on the recovery of overpayments. We encourage you to read these flyers if you have been a victim of the Phoenix system. These situations may apply to you.
EAP
We have a new EAP service provider. LifeWorks has been available since June; however, the employer also continues its contract with Health Canada to ensure a smooth transition. You can reach LifeWorks at 1-855-709-2477. We continue to monitor this new provider and if ever you experience issues, please communicate with your local rep so that we can ensure correction.
Drug Interdiction
The two body scanners were installed in Bath (ONT) and Edmonton for Women (PRA). CSC told us that the office of the Minister of Public Safety is putting pressure on the office of the Minister of Justice to move forward more quickly with legislation requiring inmates to use this tool. CSC is also doing a quick analysis on the performance requirements of this tool and will soon move forward to purchase several other units.
Tools
The subcommittee working on a replacement glove has gathered two glove samples which are currently being tested in the field by some of our members. We expect
the results to follow in the coming months and the employer will then move into the procurement stage to provide our members with a glove that has needle stick resistance. A sample of a dual threat vest was also provided to the National Executive which, along with a dual threat purpose, also provides protection against ceramic weapons. The subcommittee continues its analysis on this tool.
Discipline
We continue to portray to the employer the two-tiered disciplinary system we are seeing in our locals. While the employer seems to overlook serious infractions made by management, they continue to jump at every opportunity to investigate our members
any time a use of force is reported. We will continue to provide situations of bias to the commissioner on this issue.
Finally, we hope that everyone has had a break to decompress over the summer months, and we look forward to seeing you in the fall!
Your National Executive