The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada

Location  Humani-T Cafe, Halifax, NS

Time: 4:30pm – 6:30pm

1)  Meeting was called to order at 4:45 pm by Jennifer Cantwell.


2)  Members in attendance:                 
Jenn Cantwell                      
Faye Cormier                       
James Carmichael                   
Lisa Hatcher     
Joan MacEachern

Regrets:
Susan Betournay
Karen MacIntyre
Heather Carr
Cheryl Morris
Angela Nabuurs
Sharon Winters        

3) Susan had provided a statement on our funds available.

4) Discussion of our AGM – time (month), venue and budget TB/finalized in early 2018.

5) Discussion with regards to a social event to get the membership out. A number of ideas were presented and it was agreed to confirm once quotes from venues were collected.

6) Roundtable:

All Departments – stewards have been approached by members with pay issues, stewards have helped and guided as much as possible

Service Canada – Similar workplace issues at multiple sites, including issues such as not enough bathrooms for employees (lineups for bathrooms), not enough kitchen/lunchroom spaces for employees on break/lunch times.

Also, Workplace 2.0 continues to pose challenges for employees, especially around noise levels.

VAC:

  1. Phoenix issues: not at the right pay scale and incorrect retro payments.  
  2. Security incidents not being reported to OSH committees as not considered OSH issues!   This contravenes Canada Labour Code. A meeting with the DG and stewards have been requested.  
  3. Deprofessionalization of work: having non-professionals performing health related adjudication, health professionals doing admin work (eg: writing their own adjudication letters) AND lack of consistent internal consultation, with an increase in external consultation with providers who have a financial conflict of interest

Minutes submitted by:  James Carmichael