RE Tentative Agreement Summary

Pay

You have not received a raise since 2017.

The Employer began this round of bargaining by offering only a 0.5% increase effective on October 1, 2020.

This deal offers a general economic increase of 7% to your pay through the life of the agreement:

Oct 1 2018 - increase to rates of pay: 2.0%

Oct 1 2019 - increase to rates of pay: 2.0%

Oct 1 2020 - increase to rates of pay: 1.5%

Oct 1 2021 - increase to rates of pay: 1.5%

In addition:

Oct 1 2018 – additional wage adjustments of

1.35% for HR members
1.0% for MA members
0.75% for SE-RES members
3.0% for SE-REM members
0.75% for DS members

Retroactive pay applies as of October 1, 2018.

Appendix A

Timely Conference Approvals

Time and time again we have heard from members about how difficult it is to receive a response from the employer on whether or not you’re allowed to attend a conference. This is especially frustrating as presenting at scientific conferences is part of your core work activities. Lastly, timely conference approval leads to reduced travel expenditures.

If you apply to go to a conference at least 90 calendar days before the abstract submission deadline or the registration deadline (whichever is earlier) the employer must respond to you with (either yes or no) no later than 14 calendar days before the abstract submission or registration deadline (whichever is earlier).

New Article 19.03(a)(iii)

Publications and Authorship

To clearly document the impact of your work and to ensure that you have access to all the tools you need to perform your work, we argued that that there needs to be explicit recognition of data sets as publications.

The employer has added “data sets” to the list of recognized publications in the collective agreement.

Article 7, Preamble

Membership Fees

After introducing the new language for the reimbursement of registration fees in the previous round, we argued that this amount should be increased.

The cap for reimbursement of membership fees to professional or scientific societies have increased from $1000 to $1500.

Article 22.03

Travelling Time

We believe the hardship felt by a member travelling outside their HQ and away from their permanent residence should be better compensated.

The employee is entitled to a maximum payment of 12 hours’ pay at the straight-time rate for additional travel time in excess of 7.5 hours period of work and travel, in any day. Or 15 hours’ pay at the straight-time rate when travelling beyond North America.

The same cap applies when the employee travels during a day of rest or on a designated paid holiday (DPH).

We were successful in increasing the twelve (12) hour cap to fifteen (15) hours’ pay at the straight-time rate in any day regardless of where the employee travels and applicable on a normal working day, a day of rest or a DPH.

Article 14.01

Bereavement Leave with Pay

You are entitled to seven days of Bereavement Leave with Pay following the death of a member of your immediate family.

We argued that the current definition of immediate family is too limited and the entitlement does not respond to the needs of all families.

The definition of immediate family has been broadened to include daughter-in-law and son-in-law and a person who stands in the place of a relative for the employee, whether or not there is any degree of consanguinity (blood relation) between such person and the employee.

The Bereavement Leave with Pay for a person who stands in the place of a relative whether or not there is a degree of consanguinity is limited to once in their career in the federal public administration.

Article 18.02

Leave without Pay for the care of immediate family

We argued that the current definition of immediate family is too limited and does not respond to the needs of all families.

The definition has been broadened to include a person who stands in the place of a relative for the employee, whether or not there is any degree of consanguinity between such person and the employee.

Article 18.11

Leave with Pay for Family-related responsibilities

We argued that the current definition of immediate family is too limited and does not respond to the needs of all families.

The definition has been broadened to include a person who stands in the place of a relative for the employee, whether or not there is any degree of consanguinity between such person and the employee.

Article 18.14

Career Development

Better access to career development is important to members who raised the concern that often they don’t know the basis on which the career development is authorized. Currently, there is no obligation for the employer to establish selection criteria for granting leave under career development.

Also, some researchers were obtaining resistance to obtaining full benefits while on developmental opportunities outside of the country, such as an exchange to a foreign laboratory.

It is now mandatory to establish selection criteria







We also explicitly put a reference that entitlements to the Foreign Service Directives may apply if your career development opportunity occurs outside of Canada.

Article 19.04(a)

Article 19.03(b)(v)

Use of employer facilities

Informing the members is important to us. Reasonable space on bulletin boards (including electronic bulletin boards, where available) is made available to PIPSC for the posting of official notices, in convenient locations determined by the Employer and the Institute.

With the open space concept, reduction of closed offices and shortage of meeting rooms, it is becoming harder for members to easily meet their PIPSC steward or staff representative in a confidential meeting space.

We have clarified that the bulletin boards include the employer’s bulletin boards. The employer retains the right to refuse the posting of any information which it considers adverse to its interests or to the interests of any of its representatives.

We were successful in negotiating the access to a readily available confidential environment or meeting space for members to meet with a PIPSC steward or staff in each work location.

Article 29.02 & new 29.04

Scientific Integrity Policy (SIP)and the Right to Speak

We were successful during the last round of negotiations to introduce in the collective agreement protection for scientific integrity or the Right to Speak via the development of departmental policies in consultation with PIPSC. We now need to ensure these policies are maintained and will be developed when the 10 RE or SP member threshold is reached.

The revised MOA reinforces the obligations of departments that have not yet developed their SIP and all departments to maintain their policy.

We also clarified that such policy shall be completed within eighteen (18) months after reaching the 10-member threshold, if they did not already have 10 SP/RE members.

Appendix E