On October 18, 2017, Union President Jason Godin and CSN union advisor Michel Bouchard met with Ms Sandra Hasssan and Ms Yaprak Baltacioglu, respectively Treasury Board Assistant Deputy Minister and Secretary in order to make progress in our negotiations. The Treasury Board representatives professed the intention to negotiate in good faith at the next bargaining session that is scheduled from November 15 to 17. At this meeting, the employer also showed an opening relative to several important issues of this negotiation. On the Injury on Duty Leave file, the employer once again put the responsibility squarely on CSC. Overall, it was a meeting that we qualify as interesting, however proof of the employer’s discourse will be in the pudding
during the mid-November negotiation session.
The next day, October 19, the union negotiation committee met with CSC, within the Global Agreement negotiation framework. We tackled each of the remaining items on the table. We also re-opened the deployment issue, taking into account that Correctional Training Program (CTP) will no longer be at RCMP Depot. We agreed on maintaining the union’s interpretation for Injury on Duty Leave while the parties work through this issue jointly in an ad hoc joint committee. Despite the fact that we did not conclude new agreements with the Service, the attitude at the negotiation table leads us to believe that the next sessions will be more productive.
We have demonstrated remarkable patience during this negotiation. The ball is now in the employer’s court; it must table proposals that truly take into account our uniqueness in the next few weeks.
In solidarity, we will achieve our collective objectives.
Our unity continues to be the key!