PIPSC and the CFIA have spent the past year collaborating on new job descriptions for our members in the Scientific Regulatory (SR) classification. This comes after a 2018 Memorandum of Agreement to review all job descriptions by way of a joint committee within one year.
Last summer, we surveyed a randomly selected sample of SR members. Their feedback totalled more than one million words about the diverse aspects of their work. This was in addition to data collected from member forums, grievance campaigns and online feedback.
In the fall, SR members volunteered to meet with PIPSC staff to review some of this data. Based on this feedback, we provided CFIA management with hundreds of pages of comments on its proposed job descriptions. Management reviewed our comments and sat down with us to develop new wording.
How job descriptions are written affects how jobs are classified – and how much they pay. That’s why we’re working hard to make sure these job descriptions accurately reflect our members’ important contributions to the CFIA.
Once the agreements are finalized, we’ll reach out to our volunteers to review the wording. Management will also conduct its own validation process.
We’ve almost reached an agreement in principle with CFIA management on several job descriptions. We hope to meet with management again in March to come to an agreement on the remaining job descriptions.
After the job descriptions are approved by both PIPSC and management, the CFIA will review them to determine how they’ll be classified. While federal labour law restricts our involvement in this process, we will continue to advocate for a fair and appropriate classification for all our members.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact compensation@pipsc.ca.
We thank our members for their immense contribution to this process. We will provide updates on our progress in the coming weeks.