Statistics Canada Branch AGM - Tuesday 31 October 2017
Simon Goldberg Conference Room,
RH Coats Building, Statistics Canada
Minutes
The 2017 PISPC NCR Statistics Canada Branch AGM was attended by 86 members – see attached attendance sheets.
Robert Hébert chaired the meeting.
1. Approval of the Agenda
Moved by Mary Religa, seconded by Tony Goddard, the agenda was accepted.
2. Introduction of the current Branch Executive
Robert introduced the members of the current executive
Robert Hébert, President
Greg Bell, Vice-President
Eric Hortop, Treasurer
Harold Mantel, Secretary
Kathleen Emberson
Tony Goddard
John Meier
Jack Singleton
Marc Thomson
Don Whiting
3. Review of minutes from the 2016 AGM
Moved by Harold Mantel, seconded by Brad Thomas, the minutes of the 2016 AGM were accepted.
4. Business Arising from the minutes of the 2016 AGM
There was no business arising from the minutes.
5. Elections for Branch Executive
Harold Mantel conducted the election as the appointed Branch Elections Officer for the 2017 election. Some nominations, as noted below, were submitted and accepted by email before the AGM.
The terms of Greg Bell, Harold Mantel, John Meier and Kathleen Emberson continue to 2018. Eric Hortop’s term as member-at-large also continues to 2018; however, his appointment as treasurer, following Brad Thomas’s resignation on retirement, ends as of this election. All other positions were open for nomination.
- President (two year term)
- Robert Hébert was nominated in advance by Don Whiting, seconded by John Meier. Robert accepted the nomination.
As there were no more nominations for President, Robert was acclaimed.
- Treasurer (two year term)
- Eric Hortop was nominated in advance by Robert Hébert, seconded by Kathleen Emberson. Eric accepted the nomination
As there were no more nominations for Treasurer, Eric was acclaimed. Note that this opened up a one-year position for member-at-large as Eric is now unable to serve the second year of his term.
- Members-at-large – there were up to four two-year positions and one one-year position as Branch executive members-at-large available to be filled.
- two-year terms
- Don Whiting was nominated by in advance by Robert Hébert, seconded by Tony Goddard. Don accepted the nomination.
- Marc Thomson was nominated by in advance by Robert Hébert, seconded by Tony Goddard. Marc accepted the nomination.
- Tony Goddard was nominated by in advance by Robert Hébert, seconded by Greg Bell. Tony accepted the nomination.
- Jack Singleton was nominated by Robert Hébert, seconded by Eric Hortop. Jack accepted the nomination.
- one-year term
- There were no nominations for a one-year term.
As there were no more nominations for member-at-large, all were acclaimed.
6. Report of the Treasurer – presented by Eric Hortop
Eric first presented his financial report for the 2016 and an interim report for the 2017 calendar years, followed by a budget for 2018 – see Appendices A, B and C.
Motion: moved by Eric Hortop, seconded by Robert Bowie-Reid, that the 2016 Financial Report be received – carried
Motion: moved by Eric Hortop, seconded by Brad Thomas, that the 2018 Budget be accepted– carried
7. Report of the Branch President– presented by Robert Hébert
Once again this year I would like to begin by thanking the Branch Executive for their hard work throughout the year.
As far as union work is concerned we three major challenges this year: the signing of several collective agreements, the many failures of the Phoenix payroll system and Bill C-27.
I will not talk about the signing of collective agreements. This is handled by the bargaining units, i. e. your groups and sub-groups.
As for Phoenix, a lot has been said already. I won’t dwell on it for long. We worked with the other unions to distribute “Fix Phoenix” buttons. Unlike other buttons in the past, these were very popular. We know that there is still a lot to be done before Phoenix runs properly.
For those who you who don’t know, Bill C-27 is a bill that would move pensions in the federal sector from defined benefit to targeted benefits, i.e. banks, telecommunications companies, transportation companies and crown corporations. Who does it affect? Crown corporations include Canada Post, Radio-Canada, the National Capital Commission, the National Arts Centre and many others. What does it really mean for you? In a defined benefit plan, you know exactly how much your pension will be from one year to the next: you can plan for the future on solid grounds. A targeted benefit plan is exactly what it means: we will try to give you that amount. If the fund in which the contributions are invested does not perform as expected, a decision is to be made: do we increase workers’ contributions or reduce retirees’ benefits? So, there is uncertainty about our retirement income and it gets difficult to plan for the future. Why should we worry, since it applies to the federal sector and not to the federal public service? We know that if this legislation passes, it will not be long before they apply it to the Public Service. We ran a postcard campaign to let the MPs, cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister know our opposition to the Bill. I think the campaign was successful: more and more MPs are now speaking out against the Bill.
I would certainly like to thank all of you who participated in the events we organized this year,also all who showed up every time at our rallies and sent postcards. I really appreciate it.
Finally, I will tell you this same thing every year: The union is not me, the Branch Executive or the Stewards. The union is all of us and we can shape it the way we want to. So, please, feel free to share your opinions.
Thank You.
8. Social Committee Report – presented by Greg Bell
Report on social activities:
- I’d like to talk about the social activities organized by the Statistics Canada Branch this year.
- We held 2 major events
- A Sugar Shack Brunch. We had good weather. Participants had the opportunity to visit the grounds in a horse-drawn cart after the traditional meal. Overall feedback was positive and participants said the food was good. However, some people had to wait a little bit before they received their meals. It was a good opportunity to sample maple toffee and chat with other members and families.
- In September we held the Branch’s Annual BBQ. About 440 people came this year. The weather was fine but a little too hot for some, as summer had arrived late. For the first time the line up for tickets was shorter than the one for the meal. Maybe some people got their tickets in advance. Or maybe it took longer to prepare the meals.
- Events in the future:
- We have not yet started working on next year’s events, however we plan to have a BBQ again, plus another event that could be a bowling night, a sugar shack meal, a skating day or any other outing we had in the past.
- We always welcome new ideas and extra help from members, whether it’s just for a single event or for each event we put on. We would also entertain ideas if someone has contacts for an exciting event that we could organize – for example if your uncle was the general manager of the Senators and you had his support to organize an event to skate with the senators players, we would definitely entertain these sorts of ideas.
- You never know what sorts of contacts that people might have to be able to carry out some exciting activities, so all this to say, we are open to ideas.
- I’d like to close in thanking all the members of the executive who participated in various capacities over the course of the year, whether it was by buying door prizes, setting up and taking down tables for the BBQ, establishing contracts with food vendors, coordinating and booking the sugar shack facilities, organizing volunteers and their roles for each event, or directing traffic and helping the members (you) find your way around each event. I’d also like to thank the members of the executive for openly and honestly answering all the concerns of the members at these sorts of events. These events serve as a good opportunity to chat with the executive on issues that concern you in an informal manner. Whether it be Phoenix pay issues, the potential changes to your retirement and pension plans or just a casual question about a specific provision in your collective agreement, I fully recommend you use these sorts of events to informally chat with your stewards and other members of the executive.
10. Presentation on Consultation – by Tony Goddard, President of the PIPSC StatCan Consultation Team
First, I would like to thank Robert and the Branch Executive for this opportunity to talk to the PIPSC members at STATCAN. I’m going to keep this very short so we can get to the door prizes.
For those of you who do not know me, and maybe for some you who do, let me introduce myself. Some of you may see me wandering the corridors of Stats as an employee, some see me as the CS Sub-Group President and come to me about CS issues, some see me as a PIPSC Steward and come to me when you have an issue with how your Collective Agreement is being applied to you. And you are all correct … I wear several PIPSC hats, including one or two that I have not mentioned here.
The hat I am wearing today is that of President of the National Consultation Team for Statistics Canada. Sounds impressive? Well it is actually just another way that I work for you, the PIPSC members at Statistics Canada. As such, I represent all PIPSC members at all Statistics Canada locations across Canada. That includes all CS, RE, AV and SP members in the NCR and all the Regional Offices.
At this point I would like to mention that I don’t and can’t do all the consultation at STATCAN all by myself. You have a dedicated team of PIPSC Stewards who have stepped forward to represent you on the various Labour Management committees (ask all stewards to please stand)these are the people in your workplace that go to bat for you.(Let’s have a hand for these volunteers)
So now, what is consultation? Labour-management consultation is a forum where issues can be discussed in an effort to develop and maintain good union/management relations. The requirement to consult with the bargaining agents comes from the Public Service Labour Relations Act, the Canadian Labour Code and various Collective Agreements and Treasury Board directives.
Some of our meetings include:
- Workplace Committee for Occupational Health and Safety
- Policy Committee for Occupational Health and Safety
- HR Labour Management Consultation Committee (all bargaining agents and the DG of HR with all of her Directors)
- Labour Management Operations Consultation Committee
AND, if issues are not solved to our satisfaction at one of these meetings, we meet with the Chief Statistician and all of the ACS at least 3 times a year to discuss and attempt to resolve issues at the highest level within Statistics Canada.
OK – so what are we doing for you now?
For the RE and SP Groups, part of your new Collective Agreement includes a Memorandum Of Agreement for each department with more than 10 RE/SP members to develop a Policy and Directives on Scientific Integrity in consultation with PIPSC representatives. Members of the science based Groups have already drafted a template for each Department to use and are now moving forward to meet with the Treasury Board Secretariat and the Science and Technology Integration Board to develop a plan for moving forward. This will include, eventually, setting up a steering committee at Statistics Canada to integrate the proposed model policy into a STATCAN specific policy and directive. (Target date: Dec 2018).
For the CS Community – one of the prime bargaining topics during the last round of negotiations was contracting out of CS jobs. We managed to improve the language in our Collective Agreement and now we are moving forward with an action plan. The staff at PIPSC are monitoring the Departments and will flag any contract tendered for IT services. If we feel it may violate our new contract language, we will contact the tendering department and give them the opportunity to justify the tender … if we are not satisfied, we will be filing grievances. We are starting with the 12 worst offenders(we are not in this list)but will be expanding to include all Departments and Agencies.
I have asked for both of these items to be on the LMCC meeting agenda for December and will then have the opportunity to discuss the issues with the Chief Statistician and the ACS’s.
We are also closely monitoring the development and rollout of the new Modern Flexible Workplace Initiative. If you have any concerns with how the new workplace will affect you and how you work … please let a steward know so we can try to address these concerns with the MOD Team. We are hearing a lot of positive things from this implementation team, but we want to make sure it’s not all lip-service and that they are actually taking our members’ concerns into consideration.
To wrap up; how many of you heard about the study out of the UK where Canada’s Public Service has been declared the best in the world? PIPSC has taken advantage of the study results and built an awareness campaign around it. We have leveraged the survey by stating “Canada’s public Service is the best in the world. Let’s keep it that way. ”You should all be getting a publication in the mail in the near future that highlights the proud work of 6 PIPSC members. The information is also available on You Tube, Facebook ads and bus shelter ads … or you can visit action.pipsc.ca to view it yourself. As part of the campaign, we have placed the ad on every bus shelter along Wellington and used a targeted Facebook ad campaign that focusses on the Parliament Precinct.
So remember that you have support from PIPSC in and out of the workplace … and that you are the best in the world at what you do.
Thank you – if you have any questions I will happily try to answer.
11. Other Business
There was no other business
12. Door Prize Draw
There were four door prizes, $25 gift cards for various local businesses. The winners were: Pamela Ford, Piotr Biernot, Qiuliang Tang, and Evgenia Samuylova.
11. Adjournment
Moved by Tony Goddard, seconded by Robert Hébert, the meeting was adjourned.