AGM Minutes, June 28, 2016
Present:
Yvonne Snaddon (President)
Faron Moses (Vice President)
Nuşin Brown (Secretary)
Ralph Leigh (Treasurer)
Bill Sukloff
Karina Bogdanova
Stan Buday
Judy Chow
Karla Yelland
Roy Philip
Stuart Ziegler
George Georgopoulos
Dean Corda
Andrea Agh
Daniel Robitaille
Michael Szuty
Jason Bullers
Denise Kabitsis
Keshav Samaroo
Glen Horenblas
Joanne Sangiuliano
Bill Armstrong
Liping Chung-Hun
Stephen Leung
Adam Balogh
Bernard Lakoseljac
Doug Powless
Paul Archibald
Rosemary Excell
Sean Connors
Daniel Jette
Jason McKinney
Kevin MacEwen
Mohamed Kassam
Thiru Ponnambalam
Tibor Gego
Opening: Welcome by Yvonne Snaddon at 6:15 pm.
The agenda was introduced. Faron made a motion to accept the agenda, Ralph seconded. Faron made a motion to accept the 2015 AGM minutes and Judy seconded.
Both motions were carried.
President’s Report - Yvonne Snaddon: The CS AGM took place on June 11, in Ottawa. The day before, on June 10th, there was a successful coordinated rally with 4 PIPSC groups: CS, AFS, AV and SP (with the SH AGM in Halifax and coordinated rally). Over 100 members attended and drew local and media attention to the PIPSC campaign, being “READY” to bargain fairly: to stop outsourcing, to promote sick leave, to preserve scientific integrity, to increase salaries, to promote tax fairness. Afterwards CS delegates received training on lobbying MPs, to educate them on the issues affecting the CS group. We need to let them know what issues affect us as a citizen and a government employee. We will be needing help here, stay tuned. The CS AGM reflected on: our success last year (national elections, engagement activities: Proud2b (winners posted on the CS site), TUIF shirts, as well as our needs this year (bargaining efforts, contracting out, anti-privatization, sick leave, lobbying campaigns, political action, member engagement), an address by Debi Daviau, PIPSC president as well as the guest speaker, Joel Hardin who shared the idea that everyday efforts to change society has a lot of power in history. That we need to seize grass roots activism to effect change, look at the successes of PIPSC and every Canadian’s efforts on October 19, 2015! The CS group is charged up and ready to work to protect and improve the lives of its members this upcoming year, let’s do it together.
Department CIOs met with Senior Leaders from SSC to discuss the potential impacts of changes to contracting out, as a result of bargaining and potential changes in a new collective agreement.
ROC will hold a meeting on June 29th\to decide about Fall events. Labor Day parade will happen as usual.
GTA Branch and Environment Branch will hold a joint picnic July 24th at Rennie Park.
Financial Report - Ralph Leigh: The current balance as of June 23, 2015 is XXX. We funded mobilization meetings, lunch and learn events and supported the GTA Branch family picnic.
Our 2016 allocation from PIPSC was XXX based on number of CS members and account balance at year end.
Karina made a motion to accept the financial report and Faron seconded. Motion was carried.
Stan Buday, CS Group President and Dean Corda: We’ve been in bargaining since October 2014. We handed our proposal February 2015. Questions were raised regarding how the short term disability plan would be administered and responses were not received. CS Group’s first priority is Outsourcing, not sick leave. It was decided that sick leave affecting all PIPSC employees would be bargained at a “central table” ; the CS representative is Pierre Touchette. PIPSC has 3 pillars, there has to be movement in those issues first.
1. Entire Short Term Disability to be paid at 100%
2. Keep sick leave negotiations within the Collective Agreement
3. Administration of an STD plan to remain within the Departments
Contacting out is our key issue for the CS group.
A survey was sent out to CS group members asking questions around the use of contractors at workplaces. Contractor numbers have increased up to 15% at some workplaces. Some of the contractors hired have been used to staff positions vacated as a result of WFA. There were questions about training and career opportunities. PIPSC extended the survey to the other bargaining groups. A key document, hot off the press on contracting out is here:
http://www.pipsc.ca/news-issues/outsourcing
“Programmed to Fail”. Feel free to share it, widely, print it off and drop it off in public places, share with your MP, neighbors, etc.
There will be a follow up to the survey. The new government is all about evidence; therefore, we will provide evidence about contracting. We want to make sure our work stays within our bargaining unit. Contractors are exiting with the corporate knowledge and not sharing the work back to CS employees and similarly, contractors may not have the corporate knowledge to successfully perform that CS employees are so capable of doing.
There was a request to change wording for volunteer day to another personal day which was denied. It was stated that there was a cost to it as people would be more inclined to take a “personal” day versus a “volunteer” day.
TB has been silent on a number of issues. We cannot negotiate essential services. If you are declared essential, you are supposed to do only the essential work. With bill C-4 it meant doing any work you were told.
Dates have not been scheduled for the next round of negotiations. Our last round was on June 20, see the latest CS Bytes #19 here:
http://www.csgroup.ca/CS/index.php/en/bargaining/342-20160621-csbytee
Elections - George Georgopoulos: There were 4 two year member at large positions available and the President position was up for election.
Judy Chow, Roy Philip, Yvonne Snaddon and Karla Yelland had positions up for election.
Judy, Roy and Karla were interested in member-at-large positions. No one was nominated from the floor. All executive members accepted the positions and were elected by acclamation. A fourth position is open that was unfilled, if you are interested in becoming an executive member, contact a current executive for information.
The only candidate for President was Yvonne. She was elected by acclamation..
Faron started his second year of service as Vice President.
Nuşin, Bill, Ralph, Karina and Stuart are in their 2nd year of their 2 year term.
Elections 2017 will require a ballot for Vice President and a ballot for 4 members at large if nothing changes in the body.
Ralph made a motion to close the elections, Faron seconded.
Roundtable: There was a question regarding renaming of CS to IT. Classification standards and education requirements are being reviewed.
The members of the AGM were polled on who was experiencing Phoenix/pay issues, a couple have or knew of students who were. They were advised to consult a steward, and check on the PIPSC website. In dire cases, PIPSC is offering up to $5,000 interest free loans for those people who qualify. See the website for details. Pay problems are arising when there is a change in pay actions such as returning to regular pay from an acting period or leave without pay etc.
Adjournment:
As President, Yvonne thanked everyone for attending the AGM. Yvonne made a motion to adjourn, Karina seconded. Meeting adjourned at 7:45 pm.