Fighting for a Better Deal.
The PIPSC Central Table Bargaining Team held our third meeting with Treasury Board representatives on April 11 to 13, 2023. The Central Table negotiations aim to bargain common language to be integrated into group collective agreements, ensuring consistency and fairness, while Group tables negotiate specific language around pay and working conditions for each of the occupational groups represented by PIPSC.
This three-day bargaining session took place against a backdrop of the Public Service Alliance of Canada announcing their members had overwhelmingly voted in favour of a strike. PIPSC groups are not in a strike position but the looming possibility of pressure tactics across the country was on everyone’s mind. We support our PSAC colleagues’ right to strike for pay that progresses with inflation, for the ability to telework, and for contracts that dismantle barriers to the participation and success of equity-seeking groups. At the Central Table we kept making a clear and forceful case on including telework language, on greening the collective agreement, on increased transparency and accountability in management decisions and on removing barriers to equitable participation of all our members in the workplace.
We had fulsome and cordial discussions, heard from an expert in greening government from the Treasury Board Secretariat, and have been clear about our priorities, but are still waiting on concrete action from across the table. What we need now from the employer is a TBS mandate to make a deal, transparency on all TBS proposals and some actual contract language that reflects the areas of common interest. With that we can move forward and make government work better for our members as well as for all Canadians.
The next Central Table bargaining dates are scheduled for May 23 to 25, 2023.
In solidarity,
Your Central Table Bargaining Team
