February 26, 2008
PSAC and Compensation Officers blast the employer for lack of action on classification issues
The PSAC and representatives from the Compensation Community have appeared again before a House of Commons Committee to explain to Members of Parliament why the government will continue to have trouble paying federal public sector workers on time and accurately.
Our appearance before the Committee took place February 5, 2008, and the presentation and questions focused on issues of service delivery and the classification of Compensation Advisors.
As you will know from past updates, the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates (OGGO) has been actively studying issues affecting the federal government compensation system. Their study of the issue began when Members of Parliament started hearing from federal employees who were having trouble getting paid on time.
On December 12, 2007, the Committee invited presentations from officials of the Canadian Public Service Agency (CPSA), which is responsible for ensuring the federal government has the capacity to deliver compensation services. These officials told the Committee that they are successfully working at addressing the problems MPs have been hearing about. We reported on that meeting in a bulletin early January.
In our February 5th presentation, we told a very different story. Appearing together were Patty Ducharme (PSAC National Executive Vice-President) and three representatives from the Compensation Community (Jill Ronan, Michael Brandimore, and Diane Melançon). In our presentations and responses to questions from MPs, we indicated that the employer's efforts to improve the compensation system are failing, and that further action is needed to address the problem, particularly in the area of classification of the Compensation Advisor function.
A full copy of the minutes and evidence is available on the Parliamentary Internet site.
The presentations focused on the following points:
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Members of the Compensation Community emphasized the need to address the classification issue. They stressed that unless this issue is addressed, the ability to retain fully skilled Compensation Advisors and newly recruited Compensation Trainees will become increasingly difficult and will have a direct impact on the ability of departments to provide employees of the federal public service with timely payments of their compensation benefits.
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Patty Ducharme highlighted the same issues and stressed that Compensation Advisors should not have to wait until the PA group classification is complete before addressing the Compensation Advisors. Sister Ducharme cited the PSAC AS Roundtable Report recommendation to reclassify Compensation Advisors to AS 04 immediately.
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In regards to the questions about technological improvements, both the Compensation representatives and the PSAC representatives argued that there will be no easy technical solutions to manage the 70,000 rules and regulations in relation to compensation pay and benefits. While technical solutions can help, they are no replacement for trained and available Compensation Advisors. Furthermore, the Pay Modernization Project talked about by the Employer has yet to be approved let alone developed.
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The salary differences between Separate Employers (such as CSIS) and Treasury Board Compensation Advisors was also highlighted. We argued that these differences cannot be ignored because they have different classification systems.
During questions, we were asked by Members of Parliament what we wanted the Standing Committee to do for us. Our response was that we require the influence of the Standing Committee to have our employer deal with the issue of classification of the Compensation Advisors and the retention issues that face our community today. As you will read in the minutes, the Standing Committee passed a motion to have the representatives from CPSA appear before their Committee again and we sincerely hope that results in a resolution finally being initiated.
Activists from the Compensation Community want to thank all PSAC members who have shown support for the work that has been taking place to address the issues facing this group of members, and to recognize the commitment and dedication of the Compensation Advisors who continue to provide excellent services in what has been a very long and difficult initiative to improve compensation services throughout the Public Service. Members from this community are encouraged to remain a part of the process through involvement in your union and through continued lobbying.
AS Compensation Advisors are also encouraged to get involved in mobilization work around collective bargaining for the Program and Administration (PA) bargaining unit. Issues of pay relatively are a key issue for the entire table. Sign up to receive regular bargaining bulletins for the PA group, or visit the PSAC web site for news and information.
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Date Modified : 2008/02/26
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