The House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Finance launched its pre-budget 2020 consultations. As we have done in the past, PIPSC submitted a series of recommendations to make the next budget work for government employees. From ensuring the Phoenix replacement is brought in smoothly, to monitoring research metrics, we all win when large-scale projects are planned ahead and costed out. We invite you to read our 11 recommendations for Budget 2020.
Due to the upcoming federal election, there will be limited time to prepare Budget 2020. We expect the next government will not rush through the process and do the right thing by listening to Canada’s unions - our recommendations have been crafted to help the government avoid some of the costly errors made in the past.
In the coming weeks, PIPSC will be launching our federal election toolkit that will enable members to learn what candidates support our priorities. We will be encouraging all Canadians to elect a government that protects public services and respects the people who provide them.
In the latter part of 2020, the CS classification will become the IT classification.
We have been working with the Treasury Board to ensure the new Information Technology (IT) classification will reflect professional IT work and the current environment in which you work.
As of August 27, 2019, Phoenix compensation days should be in your leave bank.
If you worked at least one day in 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19 and were paid by Phoenix, you are entitled to compensation. You should have received two days of leave for 2016-17 and one day of paid leave for each year of the subsequent fiscal years.
You will also receive a compensation day for 2019-2020 after the end of this fiscal year.
If you believe an error was made in applying the compensation days to your leave bank please contact your department's human resources team. You should have an email from your department with this contact information.
Retired and former employees, as well as estates of deceased employees will be able to make a claim to receive the cash equivalent of the leave days. This process will be available in the coming weeks.
We are working now to ensure this deal is extended to members who work for the House of Commons and the Senate. These members have not yet received compensation days.
Individual cases of Phoenix errors continue to be treated and employees will still receive the pay they are owed. An expanded claims process for financial losses that were caused due to Phoenix will be released in the coming weeks. There will also be a simplified process for resolving more serious damages caused by Phoenix.
Now, more than ever, workers must come together and take a stand for a living minimum wage, safe work conditions, adequate health benefits and a secure retirement.
We have had a big year of wins at the bargaining table, advancement on Phoenix and real progress on protecting our sick leave.
PIPSC members are celebrating our collective strength in Calgary, Ottawa, and Vancouver.
Medicare, minimum wage and parental leave were won thanks to working people across Canada. This is why every year on Labour Day, Canada’s unions celebrate working people as we all continue our work to improve the lives of all Canadians.
Unions across Canada are welcoming you to Labour Day events, parades and picnics.
Unions across Canada have joined together to call for a national child care plan.
We are calling the federal government to make affordable high-quality early learning and child care available to all families. This will grow our economy, promote gender equality, increase women’s labour force participation and enhance children’s well-being.
National child care is a tried and tested policy that is long overdue in Canada.
All children – regardless of where they live, their ability, family circumstance or culture – deserve access to affordable high-quality child care.
Child care in Canada is underfunded, too expensive and hard to find. The financial burden on families and the losses to our economy are too great to ignore – we need child care for all, now!
Congratulations to all the bargaining teams that have worked so hard on these deals. Thank you to all the members across the country who supported their teams and helped make these deals possible.
Because of the Phoenix pay system’s inability to implement changes in a timely manner, the new collective agreements will take up to 180 days to implement. Members of the above groups will receive $400 in compensation for the delay.
Some groups, including the CS Group continue their important bargaining work. Learn where your group stands by visiting your group page.
The Department of Employment and Social Development is considering amending the labour code to provide menstruation products in federal workplaces. This would benefit about 480,000 public service workers.
Currently, under Part II of the Canadian Labour Code an employer is required to provide supplies including toilet paper, soap, warm water and a means to dry hands. This proposed change would add pads and tampons to this list.
Menstruation products are a basic necessity and essential to the health of women and people that menstruate. We responded to the federal government’s notice of intent and made clear that we support having a variety of menstrual products available in federally regulated and federal government workplaces.
We agree that menstrual products such as pads and tampons are essential to the health of Canadians, allowing them to participate fully in the workforce and society. Including menstrual products in workplaces is a concrete action that the federal government can take to move toward gender equity. Providing these supplies will decrease the menstruation stigma that is pervasive in our society and support better health outcomes.
It will take 18 to 24 months to complete the regulatory process of changing the Canada Labour Code, well beyond the federal election expected this October. This decision will be made by the next parliament.
Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) recently announced the creation of the Nursing Services Response Centre (NSRC), an important initiative aimed at addressing key issues faced by PIPSC nursing professionals working in remote regions of the country, including:
Recruitment and retention
Isolation
Safety
Workload
Connectivity
The need to introduce innovative solutions to these problems, which have impacted the delivery of health services to remote northern communities, has been recognized for some time. Beginning in the spring of 2018, a series of joint employer/union consultations were held with hundreds of our members at some 75 work sites across Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and Québec. ISC Consultation Team Co-President Ginette Tardif has been instrumental in this process of gathering feedback from front-line nurses and in the development of an effective plan to better assist them.
The current multi-tiered support system is based on a number of separate departmental resources, each of which uses a different set of processes and procedures. Response times and service standards are those of the traditional federal government workplace and have little in common with the realities of Northern Canada. In addition, the transition from Health Canada to ISC has had an adverse effect on the timeliness of support available to nurses in remote regions, exacerbating an already difficult situation.
In contrast, beginning this fall the NSRC will take its first steps towards ultimately offering a virtual, “single window” approach to providing nurses with a range of integrated, dedicated services and resources. Substantial enhancements will progressively be made to critical areas such as technical support, security, patient safety, receiving/triage, staffing, procurement, business support, training and the wellness of staff.
Nurses need the right tools to provide quality health care services in Canada’s remote communities. The creation of the Centre is an important step forward in this regard and an excellent example of what can be achieved when the Employer takes the time to work with our union and our members towards a common goal.
After studying computer science at UQAC and UQAM, Jean-Philippe did his internships at the Canadian Meteorological Centre (CMC). “My internship assignments were interesting to me. But it's not meteorology that interests me as much as visualizing future scenarios,” says Jean-Philippe. The transfer of his knowledge and training in a feld with direct application for society attracted Jean-Philippe, who quickly found a job at the CMC after his internships in 1998.
With the CMC’s Environmental Emergency Response Section, Jean-Philippe helps develop sophisticated models that simulate the spread of hazardous materials on a given scale and location – in a city, a region or even across the planet. "Using supercomputers, we can access a large volume of data. This is extremely exciting,” says Jean-Philippe. "The Canadian Meteorological Centre is there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We gather data in real time from around the world – and even from space."
"Every day, I take the science developed by research and translate it into something useful for first responders," says the programmer analyst. Forest fires, chemical fires, toxic leaks, nuclear incidents, volcanic ash. Jean-Philippe helps scientists predict how hazardous materials can spread under various atmospheric and geographical conditions. For example, wind can play an important role in moving materials through the atmosphere and determining what areas will be affected.
And, in recent years, Jean-Philippe and his colleagues have been developing aquatic modeling capabilities, for events such as oil spills in water. "This knowledge is essential," says Jean-Philippe: “It is important for the protection of people and the environment. These various simulations provide advice to emergency response services so they can make the right decisions to deal with a variety of dangerous situations." Air currents, ocean currents, buildings and topography – Jean-Philippe must consider each of these elements in the scenarios he simulates. "We have modeled almost anything that can disperse in the air, even butterflies!" laughs Jean-Philippe.
The ultimate goal is to acquire as much information as possible to improve the quality of forecasts and make the simulations as accurate as possible. “I am especially proud of my work because I am making a real hands-on contribution to the protection of the environment and to the safety of Canadians.
Parliament has risen and MPs are back in their home ridings — we are getting closer to the next federal election. With fixed election dates, we can expect Election Day to be Monday October 21, 2019.
