The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
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Dear RE member,

Your RE Bargaining Team is pleased to announce that on June 7, 2019 they signed a tentative agreement to finish this round of collective bargaining. The Bargaining Team would like to thank all members for their support during this round of bargaining. We believe we have reached the best deal possible in what has been a challenging round of negotiations.

There are four centerpieces to this tentative agreement. The first piece is the benefits achieved at the Central Table, such as economic increases linked with the cost of living; a new clause dealing with penalties associated with late implementation of the collective agreement; improvement to a number of family related leave such as Parental Leave and Allowance; the breakthrough we achieved with the Domestic Violence Leave; an MOU on the use of gender inclusive language in the collective agreement; and, MOU on Harassment. The second piece is the improvements achieved specifically for the RE Group, such as an additional wage adjustments; deadlines for management to respond to conference attendance requests in a timely manner; the expansion of the definition of family, and the recognition of data sets in the definition of publications. The third piece is securing the work done for Employee Wellness Support Program. Finally, the fourth piece addresses the terms for transition into the collective agreements for our new members from the RCMP.

This agreement must now be ratified by the RE membership. An electronic vote will be held in order to ratify this agreement.  All regular members in good standing will receive the voting instructions by email. The voting will be open for a period beginning July 8, 2019 and closing at 12:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time on July 22, 2019.  Please ensure your membership information is up to date.

Important Information:

French and English telephone town halls will be held on July 4th, 2019 to answer questions from the membership regarding the proposed amendments to the collective agreement. Members will receive a separate communication with the times of the town hall(s) and call-in instructions if required. In addition, lunch and learn activities will be organized in various workplace locations.

You will find all the information below. It is important that you take the time to review everything prior to voting and prior to asking questions to the Bargaining Team.

Please review the attached documents:

A Yes vote means: You are accepting all of the changes proposed in the tentative agreement. Those changes will take place at the date of the signing (except as otherwise noted) and the employer will have a period varying between 180 and 560 days to implement them (this includes any retro pay).

A No vote means: You reject the tentative agreement and instruct the Bargaining Team to take additional measures, up to and including job action or taking the necessary steps to be in a legal strike position.

The Bargaining Team unanimously recommends the acceptance of this tentative agreement.

In Solidarity,

Your RE Bargaining Team

Published on 2 July 2019