Updates

The 2017 PSAC NATIONAL EQUITY CONFERENCES will be held March 24 to 28, 2017 at the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel.

This event offers delegates the opportunity to participate in one or more of the five equity conferences.  In addition, space exists to explore common human rights issues and areas of intersectionality.

We encourage you to personally inform the members and activists in your Locals and Committees to ensure they are made aware of these conferences. Bulletin boards may not always be accessible and additional outreach is very important.

Sisters and Brothers,

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for sending a letter to Minister Judy Foote letting her know how the Phoenix pay system is adversely affecting you. So far, the Minister has received more than 2,000 letters and we have been reviewing your comments very closely.   

We want you to know that our union is doing everything in its power to ensure the new pay system is fixed immediately so you get paid on time.

PSAC, along with other federal government unions representing thousands of federal government employees filed a Notice of Application with the Federal Court today.

The unions are seeking a court order directing the Respondent to implement a pay administration system that meets its obligations under theFAA and the Directive on Terms and Conditions of Employment.

The federal government is responsible for paying public service workers on time for the work they do. The unions are demanding that the federal government meet its legal duty to provide timely and accurate pay for public service employees.

PSAC/UTE members who work at the Canada Revenue Agency voted to support their bargaining team’s recommendation and reject a settlement that their union reached with the CRA in April. This now places the workers in a legal strike position.

“After more than four years of frustration, we want to negotiate a fair agreement,” said Bob Campbell, National President of the Union of Taxation Employees, a component of PSAC. “We urge the CRA to join us at the table and negotiate a contract that is fair to our hardworking members.”

Today on National Aboriginal Day, the Public of Service Alliance of Canada has partnered with the community of Grassy Narrows to launch a campaign demanding safe drinking water in First Nations communities. 

“Access to clean and safe water is a basic human right,” says Robyn Benson, National President of PSAC. “It’s appalling that in 2016, so many First Nations communities are forced to boil their water or drink from a bottle.”

The #ThirstyforJustice campaign video was developed in collaboration with an award-winning documentary filmmaker and focuses on the community of Grassy Narrows. 

The river water has been contaminated by mercury for over 40 years and the tap water is not safe to drink. Grassy Narrows is only one of more than 100 First Nations communities that do not have access to safe water for drinking, cooking and bathing. 

The threatened closure of at least two child care centres located in federal buildings and serving public service employees as well as other families put a spotlight on PSAC’s child care bargaining demand in contract talks today with the federal government’s Treasury Board.

“Treasury Board’s failure to properly implement its policy on workplace day care is putting centres at risk of closing and that’s a problem we want fixed in this round of bargaining,” said National President Robyn Benson.

The policy provides for child care centres to be set up in partnership with community child care organizations when a government department is willing to be a sponsor.  The centre is eligible for a rental subsidy as long as a significant portion of the day care spaces are filled by the children of federal government employees.