Workforce Adjustment - Report for the 2018 AFS AFM

WORK FORCE ADJUSTMENT

Report for the 2018 AFS AFM

The AFS Group consults on Work Force Adjustment (WFA) situations at the local, regional and national level.  Our biggest WFA challenges in 2017 related to the employer’s so called Greater Toronto Area (GTA) Modernization initiative.  

Our WFA provisions are included in Appendix G of the AFS Collective Agreement.  In this appendix, Relocation of work unit is defined as “the authorized move of a work unit of any size to a place of duty beyond what, according to local custom, is normal commuting distance from the former work location and from the employee’s current residence.”

When the employer announced their intention to forcibly relocate over a thousand of our AFS members in our GTA CRA offices, they erroneously claimed that our WFA provisions did not apply.  However, given the increased commuting distances beyond a normal distance, our WFA provisions did apply and we accordingly filed WFA (and other) grievances. Following the filing of hundreds of grievances; petitions to the federal parliament; and other lobbying efforts; the employer reversed their plans to forcibly relocate our AFS members.

It should be noted that our PSAC UTE colleagues do not have the same collective agreement wording for Relocation of work unit in their WFA appendix.

I would like to personally thank Debi Daviau; Al Ravjiani; Shawn Gillis; our GTA AFS Presidents and stewards; our PIPSC staff in Toronto and HQ; and our AFS members for all of their support in stopping the GTA Modernization forced relocations. It really was a team effort!

Going forward, we must take the same activist approach to challenge any forced relocations of our AFS members whenever and wherever this occurs.

Respectfully submitted,

Doug Mason

AFS President

Phone: 519-859-7192

Email:  djmason.afsvfs@gmail.com