The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
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AGM 2023

MONTREAL-CENTRE BRANCH

AFS MONTREAL SUB-GROUP

 

Procès-verbal / Minutes

FEBRUARY 16, 2023

 

 

Present:

√ Patrick Sioui - President                                                                         √ Angelina Argento

√ Michel Tobal - VP Montreal-Centre Branch                                      √ Steeve Sahakian

√ Luke McCrory - Treasurer                                                                      √ Ngatiré Djaibé              

√ Ronald Pétillon - VP AFS Montreal Sub-Group                                 √ John Monti

                          

Regrets: 

Total PIPSC members present: 35 participants (see attendance list at the end)

                      

  1. Opening of the AGM - Word of Welcome

Patrick Sioui welcomed the members and opened the meeting.

 

  1. Approval of Agenda:        

Moved by Ronald Pétillon, seconded by Martin Ratthé - Unanimous.

 

  1. Approval of the minutes of the 2021 General Assembly:

Motion to adopt the minutes of the 2021 AGM

Moved by Andrei Vitko, seconded by Damaso Contrera - Unanimous.

 

4. Report of the President

  • Montreal-Centre Branch
  • AFS Montreal Sub-Group - Patrick Sioui

For details, see end of the document, after the list of attendees

 

  1. Guest: Jennifer Carr. Patrick Sioui informed the assembly that unfortunately, Ms. Carr could not be present because she was sick.

6. Guest Frédéric Durso, ERO at the PIPSC Regional Office, Full-time VP at PIPSC addresses the AGM: Points raised:

  • Use of employer’s equipment and time theft.
  • Injury-on-duty in a telework context that raised many questions from the floor.
  1. Annual financial report and approval of the budget for the Montreal-Centre Branch:
    • Luke McCrory presented the Financial Statements of the Montreal-Centre Branch.
      • Heather Filiatrault moved to adopt the E/F of the Montreal-Centre Branch. Andrei Vitko seconded. The motion was accepted unanimously.
  • Mr. McCrory presented the 2023 budget for the Montreal-Centre Branch.
    • Ronald Pétillon moved to adopt the budget. Glenn Amzalagg seconded the motion. The motion was accepted unanimously.
  1. Annual Financial Report and Budget Approval for the AFS Montreal Sub-Group:
    • Mr. McCrory presented the Financial Statements of the AFS Montreal Sub-Group.
      • Jill Abrahms moved to adopt the E/F of the AFS Montreal Sub-Group. Mr. Amzalagg seconded the motion. The motion was accepted unanimously.
  • Mr. McCrory presented the 2023 budget of the Montreal VFS Sub-Group.
    • Ms. Heather Filiatrault moved to adopt the budget. Mr. Glenn Amzalagg seconded the motion. The motion was accepted unanimously.
  1. Guest Jean Couillard, Regional Representative: Mr. Sioui advised that Mr. Couillard was currently recovering from surgery and that he would be replacing Mr. Couillard during this time. Mr. Sioui spoke about the current PIPSC negotiations (see President’s Report - Negotiations section.

 

10. Election Report. The terms end on December 31, 2024, so there was no election this year. Mr. Sioui presented the executive of the Montreal-Centre Branch:

M. Patrick Sioui – Président

M. Michel Tobal - Vice-Président

M. Luke McCrory - Trésorier

Mme Angelina Argento – Membre

Mme Ngatiré Djaibé - Membre

M. Giovanni Monti - Membre

M. Ronald Pétion - Membre

M. Steeve Sahakian – Membre

 

11. Election Report. The terms end on December 31, 2024, so there was no election this year. Mr. Sioui presented the executive of the Montreal VFS Sub-Group:

M. Patrick Sioui – Président

M. Ronald Pétion - Vice-Président

M. Luke McCrory - Trésorier

Mme Angelina Argento – Membre

Mme Ngatiré Djaibé - Membre

M. Giovanni Monti - Membre

M. Steeve Sahakian – Membre

M. Michel Tobal - Membre

 

12. By-Laws: No changes to the bylaws of either the Montreal-Centre Branch or the AFS Montreal Sub-Group.

 

13. The guest, Pierre Potvin, Director of the Quebec Region, spoke for 20 minutes.

 

14. Mr. McCrory moved and Mr. Vitko seconded to adjourn the AGM. Carried unanimously.

 

LIST OF PARTICIPANTS AT THE JOINT AGM OF THE MONTREAL-CENTRE BRANCH AND THE AFS MONTREAL SUB-GROUP:

Amzallag, Gelen

Paquet, Julie

Abrahams, Jill

Contreras, Damaso

Ratthé, Martin

Paré, Gilles

Sararu, Alina

Kingsley, Penelope

Bill, Robert

Legault, Mathew

Filiatrault, Heather

Mazilu, Ramona

Dhayne, Laila

Azar, Gaby

Ndompetelo, Henri Kinkela

Yoakim, Marie-Lise

Patel, Sanjay

Vitko, Andrei

McCrory, Luke

Sioui, Patrick

Djaibé, Ngatiré

Tobal, Michel

Sahakian, Steeve

Giovanni, Monti

Pétion, Ronald

Potvin, Pierre

Argento, Angelina

Saint-Louis, Esther

Tao, Han

Durso, Frédéric

Norha, Jean-Claude

Lesiege, Réal

Zif, Rita

 

PRESIDENT’S REPORT

 

MESSAGE ON BILINGUALISM, CONFIDENTIALITY AND RECORDING THE MEETING

 

            Hello everyone.

 

            The year 2022 has been a busy one. Let’s go back in time. There was a lot of turnover in the Executive during 2022. We lost Ziaudinn Alamy who went to try his luck in the private sector. In addition, Heather Filiatrault is taking a break following a promotion (good work Heather). Carole Pronovost retired from the CRA. Julie Dalalihan and Pierre-Marc Fréchette transferred to other TSOs. That’s a lot of turnover. However, you will see when we approve the new Executive that we have great delegates ready to meet the challenges brought about by these resignations.

 

            At the beginning of the year, we worked on issues such as CCRED, Apollo XIII on return to work (I will come back to this), the 6992 leave situation and its application which has changed to reflect the Treasury Board (TB)’s position because although CRA is a separate employer, its management tends, as if by chance, to do exactly the same thing as the TB (I will come back to this). 

 

            We did a lot of consulting. I met with the TSO Director once a month, Luke McCrory met with the SR&ED AD, John Monti met with the BIQA AD, and I had to resume consultation with the Appeals AD following the departure of Pierre-Marc Fréchette, but another delegate will take over.

 

            The vaccination status of members kept us busy at the beginning of the year. However, there weren’t many grievances and representation by the EROs, especially in terms of accommodations. Masks are still required in the office, but this may change as Health Canada has just changed their recommendations.

 

          There has been and will be a lot of hiring in 2022 and 2023. The employer has created “On boarding” and offering the Institute 1 hour 15 minutes to talk about the union with new members. I’ve done a dozen or so presentations in 2022 and there will be more in 2023.

 

          I’ll talk about bargaining later this evening.

 

          The cases that have kept us busy are quite standard: Performance evaluation, Phoenix issues (much fewer), personality conflicts and PRAS.

 

          Regarding the return to the office. We worked extensively with the employer on a telecommuting approach with satellite offices and eConcierge. Commissioner Bob Hamilton’s announcement was a shock! You’ve probably read my resignation from the Apollo XIII committee following the announcement. I was not happy. We’ll keep a very close eye on the employer. What is known at this time is that EX ECs are back in the office 2 days a week. The MG06 managers will be back in the office shortly and employees at the end of March/beginning of April (on the road, training, sickness, vacation, half day or less, 40% in the month). A bad faith bargaining complaint was filed with the Labour Relations Board by the UTE in 2022 and by AFS Group through PIPSC last week because of this. 

 

          Regarding the mandatory use of the eConcierge application, we have been advising the employer, since May on several occasions, of technical problems (time format) and especially OL problems. I personally filed a complaint with OL in December, and others did as well. The employer is in violation of Part IV of the OL Act, paragraphs 24 to 33. We also emphasized the need for training. The department that manages eConcierge has met with us several times and made changes. You may have received the email earlier this week regarding the eConcierge training sessions In addition, this department hired two French-speaking people, including a linguist by chance, and established a pre-launch procedure as proposed by Michel Tobal. We’ll keep an eye on them too.

 

          We are consulted on all staffing processes, but for the external one, the employer (François Brunel, Raymonde Pelletier, Hubert Dubois contracted proofreader) preferred not to do so. For example, the MG05 process that just came out: the employer consulted all the local presidents and we were able to make our recommendations. Some were applied and some were not. I’ve said it many times, it’s the nature of the consultation. We provide an opinion and clear recommendations, but at the end of the day, the employer decides. Be careful when the employer says it has consulted with the union. This is usually true, but it doesn’t mean that we agreed with the decision.

 

          I will end my report with a great victory and an excellent example of good union-management relations, the external process AU02 to AU04 #58108879. Since this is an external process, members who could apply had no recourse. The appeal was therefore the grievance. This is the first time that we have had staffing grievances (around 15 including 7 in Montreal). We criticized the CRA for not being transparent (not wanting to give us any information about the evaluation of the experience) and that the process was really not clear. We were asking the employer to re-evaluate the candidates in a transparent manner and reinstate them to the pool. All of them have been reintegrated into the pool. The employer, on its own initiative, set aside the KornFerry results and reinstated the candidates eliminated from the process with this test. In addition, they considered the experience on an ongoing basis, re-evaluated the candidates, re-integrated them into the pool, etc... Nice win here and collaboration with the employer.

 

          At the Branch level, as we were still in virtual for most of the year, Branch activities were limited. We started meeting in person again in December. We participated in the Audit and Investigations Christmas parties and did visibility. In addition, we have several projects for 2023 such as a newsletter, and visibility activities. We participated in the Steward Council as well as the Regional Council for the Quebec Region and also had a lot of turnover during the year.

 

          The Montreal-Centre Branch is working on a series of Lunch & Learn meetings on various topics such as the new EWSP, harassment and violence in the workplace, Phoenix (replacement), bargaining, etc. If there are any topics you would like us to address, please let us know.

 

Never forget that you are the union! We can’t do anything if you don’t get involved!

 

          Regarding bargaining: We have begun bargaining in 2022 and cannot use the employer’s email to keep you informed of the next steps and hence the need for your involvement in this bargaining process and the importance of providing us, on a voluntary basis, with your personal email addresses.

 

Here are some of our demands:

  1. Telework provisions in the collective agreement
  2. Reimbursement of expenses and time for the employer’s requirement to provide a medical certificate
  3. Use of employer email
  4. Sexual Harassment will become just Harassment
  5. Bilingualism bonus increased from $800 to $2,500

 

As we are still in the early stages of the process, this is the information I can share so far.

 

For your information, here is an agreement between NavCan and the PIPSC. You’ll find that there is a rather general article on telecommuting, but it’s a step forward and we’ll try to capitalize on it.

 

Wages, duration and allowances

Effective retroactively to January 1st, 2021, all rates increase by 3%

Effective retroactively to January 1st, 2022, all rates increase by 3%

Effective retroactively to January 1st, 2023, all rates increase by 3%

Three-year agreement, expiring December 31st, 2023

New on-the-job instruction premium of $8,25/ hour for all time spe curant employees.

 

ARTICLE 31 TELEWORK 

31.01 Approval for a Telework arrangement shall be on a case by case basis and in consideration of the nature of the work provided by the employee. It is conceded that due to the nature of the work performed by some of the employees covered by this agreement that such an arrangement may not be possible. Every reasonable effort will be made to accommodate an employee’s telework request.

 

 

 

 

 

Published on 13 March 2023