78th QRC - Lennoxville Branch

2018 Annual Report, Lennoxville Branch

The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada

Executive:

Martin Lessard, President, Steward

Mélissa Duplessis, Vice-President

Dominic Poulin-Laprade, Secretary-Treasurer

Mélanie Borduas, Regular Member

Stewards:

Guylaine Talbot, Pierre Lacasse, Danyel Bueno Dalto, Martin Lessard

Number of members: 36

President’s Report

1. Union-Management Consultations

• Two local unionmanagement consultations (April 25 and October 4)
• Two regional joint unionmanagement consultations (June 14 and December 19)

The main subjects discussed were as follows:

i) Conferences and travel: Lack of flexibility / conferences refused

The Union indicated that the call for conference participation was made early last year. Based on the information available right now, there is not enough money to meet the needs for the upcoming fiscal year. We would like the Branch to issue a second call in May to update the requests in order to reduce off-cycle requests. It was agreed that, in the next fiscal year, Management would send the schedule of calls and the principles used by senior management. Senior management will be made aware of this concern so that two calls might be made, one in November and another in May or June, in order to cut down on the number of off-cycle requests (for action by the DRDT).

A number of conferences were refused.  However, no explanation was given to the researchers concerned. The Union would like to know if Management intends to give a fuller explanation of why the conferences were refused. Management explained that there are guiding principles for such types of requests. It was agreed that additional information would be sent to the researchers in that regard (see attached: STB TRAVEL DECISION CRITERIA.PDF).

ON THE NEXT MEETING’S AGENDA

Restriction on travel and science outreach

The criteria for approving the participation of researchers and graduate students in scientific conferences and other events to which they have been invited are once again more restrictive, which means Management is refusing a larger number of requests.  Participation by researchers and students in scientific conferences clearly has a significant impact on AAFC research outreach.  So it is hard to understand the Branch’s position: [TRANSLATION: our Branch has established that the number of conferences granted for the 2018-2019 fiscal year will be two, ONE Canadian/US conference and ONE international conference. This directive is in effect immediately and must be applied when making decisions to approve off-cycle travel (email received from Anne Vallée on April 30, 2018 - Subject: IMPORTANT - Nouveaux critères de décision pour les voyages / IMPORTANT: New Travel Decision Criteria).

Furthermore, in order to avoid having the researchers get frustrated and to recognize their contribution to the advancement of research, would it not be a good idea for the Branch to show a little more flexibility in its decisions?

ii) PRP Program:  

The Union would like employees hired under this program and their supervisors to be informed of the end date of the program. Management indicated that the PRP contracts stipulate that the program duration is two and a half years and that it will not be extended.  

It was agreed that clarification on the sunset clause would be made at the regional union-management meeting.

iii) Miramichi Pay Centre – Phoenix Problems

A number of employees are still having pay problems related to Phoenix.

The Union asked that Management increase its efforts and continue to appeal to the authorities for more assistance. It is becoming critical that additional resources be requested to resolve the pay problems as soon as possible.

How many people are on the team? Did they receive Phoenix-compatible hardware and full access to Phoenix?  

ANSWER: Seven people are currently working on the Pay-Transfert team. Two people have full access to Phoenix and another person is waiting for the equipment to be able to access it. The other Pay-Transfert employees can only view Phoenix.

ON THE NEXT MEETING’S AGENDA

iv) Evaluation of letters of intent from the last call for research proposals

Several researchers were surprised by the answer they received because the reasons given for refusing their proposal were summed up in a single sentence and were in no way related to the above-mentioned evaluation criteria.  Furthermore, it is impossible to understand how the proposals deemed “worthwhile” were evaluated for all of the criteria because no final score was given.  

Therefore, there was clearly a procedural problem in evaluating the letters of intent because the evaluation committee’s decision does not take into account the criteria described in the documents made available to the researchers during the call for proposals, and a single comment that had nothing to do with the criteria was sufficient to exclude a number of proposals in the process.

We also feel that the scientific integrity principles and guidelines were not followed during the letter of intent evaluation.

QUESTIONS:

• Can the STB senior management explain why the process and criteria stated in the call for letters of intent were not adhered to?
• What does the STB senior management plan to do to address the situation?
• What does the STB senior management plan to do to avoid similar situations that go against Appendix E of the RE (Research) Group collective agreement and Appendix D of the SP (Applied Science and Patent Examination) Group collective agreement?

v) Other activities:

• PIPSC/PSAC Lunch and Learn: Presentation by Dr. Serge Marquis entitled “Du plaisir et du sens dans la vie de tous les jours (pleasure and meaning in everyday life)”. Hear his presentation at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzfx88RAg1s

• Regional Council (May 4 and 5, 2018)
• Méchoui des employés (May 30, 2018)
• Lunch – Skewers on the BBQ (June 20, 2018)

Prepared by: Martin Lessard Date: December 18, 2018
President, Lennoxville Branch