“They informed us that they weren’t budging on their position,” said Réjean Amyotte, Assistant Regional Vice-President for Ontario and a member of the Statistical Survey Operations Regional Office Bargaining Team.
Last week, after the employer indicated that they would not move on some key demands, the bargaining team decided to declare an impasse and seek arbitration.
Amyotte says that the employer was not receptive to the bargaining team’s proposals regarding scheduling and wage parity with other federal public servants.
Based on the present collective agreement, the employer has complete latitude on scheduling hours of work. “There are times when people with more years of experience are working fewer hours in a month than people who were hired six months ago,” says Amyotte. The bargaining team is working to ensure that seniority is recognized when assigning work.
“For years, this bargaining team has wanted and attempted to reach parity with comparable workplaces,” says Amyotte. The union believes that interviewers should be paid at the CR3 level and senior interviewers at the CR5 level. The bargaining team also wants to ensure that Statistics Canada accurately records pensionable hours.
Despite having filed for arbitration, the bargaining team is still open to meet and negotiate should the employer decide to address our members’ concerns.
SSO Regional Office employees work for Statistics Canada in offices across the country. They collect vital information for national surveys, mostly through telephone interviews.
For more information on this round of bargaining, please consult this PSAC update. For the most up-to-date information, please consult the SSO Bargaining section of the PSAC website.