Union Update

February 27 to March 24, 2006

Acrobat format

In this issue:

• Unions meet to strategize around responses to privatization
• Important Changes to the Public Service Health Care Plan
• Bargaining Update
• PSAC Convention 2006 - What's on the agenda?
• Sunday Forum: Delegates to discuss social justice and political action

Unions meet to strategize around responses to privatization

From March 14 to 16, the Public Services International (PSI) and its Canadian affiliates brought together close to 90 union leaders, staff and activists from the United States, the United Kingdom, Norway, South Africa, Belize and Canada to share experiences and strategies from their respective campaigns against privatization.

PSAC is affiliated to PSI and played a lead role in organizing this event. National President Nycole Turmel opened and closed the conference with NUPGE President James Clancy.

To provide a non-labour perspective and highlight the broader implications of privatization, Greg Palast, an award-winning investigative journalist and author , delivered the keynote address. One of his key messages was that privatization posed a threat to democracy, and therefore the unions' resistance to privatization goes beyond protecting their members' jobs and quality public service.

Four leading activists from four unions presented case studies to pave the way for further exchanges of ideas and experiences in smaller workshop groups.

The Canadian-based case studies included the Canadian Union of Public Employees' Water Watch Campaign and the B.C. Government Employees Union's anti-Alternative Service Delivery campaign. The CUPE presentation highlighted strategies for engaging communities in the fight against privatization, and BCGEU shared some media advertising strategies for gaining public support.

The American Federation of Teachers shared their strategies for lobbying for legislation that would place barriers to privatization. U.K.-based UNISON stressed coalition building and the need for research that will provide hard evidence that “privatization does not deliver the goods.”

The workshops that followed the four case studies produced more ideas and strategies, but the common points raised were the importance of creating alliances and more systematic sharing of information and strategies among unions across sectors, regions, and national boundaries.

To elaborate on these points, six union leaders sat as panelists on the final day of the conference to give their views on fighting new forms of privatization, becoming more proactive in that fight and building coalitions in the struggle. The need to educate union members and the public to recognize that privatization is part of a global neo-liberal agenda and that to resist it means to stand for social equality and economic justice is among the noteworthy views raised on the panel.

The final hours of the conference was punctuated by the wrap-up of the moderators that included the re-affirmation that at the core of our response to privatization is the fight for labour rights.

The PSI will distribute a report of the conference proceedings in a few months. It will be posted on the PSAC web site.

Important Changes to the Public Service Health Care Plan

The National Joint Council announced that an agreement on the Public Service Health Care Plan (PSHCP) has been reached between representatives of the bargaining agents of the National Joint Council, the Federal Superannuates National Association and the Treasury Board Secretariat. The Public Service Health Care Plan provides health care benefits and services to over 500,000 members and their dependants.

The new terms of the five-year agreement of the PSHCP will come into effect April 1, 2006 , and will mark the first major changes in benefits under the Plan in over a decade.

The agreement introduces:

• increased financial assistance for members who face high prescription drug costs;
• coordination of benefits for couples where both spouses are members of the PSHCP;
• increased flexibility in the payment of contributions for members on leave without pay;
• increased coverage for vision care to $275;
• increased coverage for hearing aids to $1000 every five years;
• increased out-of province coverage for members and other modifications to benefits and services under the Plan.

In addition, the agreement provides for the introduction of a pay-direct drug card that will eliminate the need for plan members to pay for their prescription drugs up-front and seek reimbursement later. The card will be introduced in 2008.

For pensioners, the agreement provides for a monthly contribution increase of $5.70 for single coverage and $12.14 for family coverage for the next five years, which essentially restores the historical funding ratio of 75% from the employer and 25% from pensioners.

Additional information on benefit changes will be provided to members as soon as possible.

Bargaining Update

• PSAC members working at the Ekati diamond mine rejected the last offer they received from the BHP Billiton Company. The offer was put forward on February 9, 2006 , and a ratification vote was conducted between February 13 and 24 resulting in 71% of the voters rejecting the offer. A strike vote was held in January. The main issues still unresolved are wages and seniority.

• The PSAC and the management at La Société du Vieux-Port de Montréal asked for conciliation in order to reach a collective agreement. Negotiations began November 2005. Several non-monetary clauses were resolved but the employer refused to improve the wage offer, calling for wage increases of 2%, 1.75%, 1.75%, 1.75% and 2% over five years. The union is demanding 4.5% a year for three years. In 2003, workers staged a legal 48-hour strike to protest the slowness of negotiations, which had dragged on for more than 18 months.

• At MDS Nordion in Kanata , the company cancelled negotiations without notice and applied for conciliation. The same day, the company informed the negotiating team of its decision, blaming the lack of progress during the last meetings. The PSAC members held a strategy committee meeting to determine the actions they will take in the next few weeks. As part of the next steps in the process, the parties must also negotiate a Maintenance of Activities (essential services) agreement.

• PSAC members working at SNPF Valcartier, Quebec , ratified a new collective agreement.

PSAC Convention 2006

What's on the agenda?

After six years at the helm, Nycole Turmel steps down from the position as PSAC National President. Elections are scheduled to take place on the last day of convention for the positions of National President, National Executive Vice-President (NEVP) and the alternate NEVP.

Delegates are in for a full week and more when they arrive in Toronto for the PSAC's triennial convention. Even before the convention starts, many delegates will be attending component executive and caucus meetings. While the convention's opening ceremonies are scheduled on Monday, May 1, participants will have already put in a full day on Sunday with regional and component caucuses and a pre-convention forum.

Before the convention is called to order Monday morning, first-time delegates will have a special orientation session to help them navigate the rules and procedures that make a convention an event like no other. Much of the first morning's session is taken up with official greetings and procedural motions such as adopting the agenda and the rules of order, highlighted by the National President's address to convention. Once the afternoon session opens, the convention gets down to the business of dealing with the resolutions that have been sent to convention after being reviewed by one of four Committees. Delegates will actually discuss and vote on the Committees' recommendations on the resolutions.

Debate on resolutions continues throughout the convention week. On Tuesday afternoon, time will be devoted to a human rights forum. Later in the day, the members running for national office will face the delegates during an all-candidates' meeting. Canadian Labour Congress President Ken Georgetti will open the Wednesday afternoon session with his address. Elections are scheduled to take place on Friday morning for the positions of National President, National Executive Vice-President (NEVP), both full-time positions, and the alternate NEVP. Debate on resolutions will continue between ballots. The newly elected officers will take their oath of office before the convention closes. As a result of a change to the PSAC Constitution made at the last convention, the union's Regional Executive Vice-Presidents are no longer elected at the triennial national convention. They were elected to a three-year term at regional conventions that took place in 2005.

Sunday Forum:
Delegates to discuss social justice and political action

At the 2003 triennial convention, delegates adopted a long-term plan of action to make globalization and the defence of quality public services a standing priority for the union. On Sunday, April 30, the union will hold a pre-convention forum to discuss political action and social justice in the context of our union's involvement in the anti-globalization struggle and the fight to maintain quality public services in Canada and around the world. The forum will provide an opportunity to debate the actions we need to take to protect and defend public services and to protect labour and human rights nationally and internationally.

Opening the discussion will be a panel, moderated by Hassan Yussuf, Secretary-Treasurer of the Canadian Labour Congress. He is also a Vice-President of ORIT, the American hemispheric organization of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. Speakers will include Ottawa mayoralty candidate Alex Munter, who was a driving force during the fight for equal marriage rights in Canada , President of the British Columbia Federation of Labour Jim Sinclair, Bloc Québécois MP Carole Lavallée and NDP Member of Parliament Olivia Chow, who was the first Asian woman elected on the Toronto city council. She was voted best City Councilor seven times by the readers of NOW magazine in Toronto . The PSAC, as an affiliate of the Public Service International (PSI), supports the Public Services International's Quality Public Services campaign. Promoting an alternative to privatization, the PSI campaign calls for government investment in quality public services through adequate financing, improved accountability, better jobs and accessible, affordable and relevant services.