News - November 2011                         Previous Month         Following Month

Headlines of the current month's news items are listed immediately below. Click on the headline of your choice to see the entire text of the article.

Work moving ahead on CFIA’s gender-neutral classification standard

Timely fact sheet on pensions joins our KeyInfo line-up

Work moving ahead on CFIA’s gender-neutral classification standard

(Posted November 24, 2011)

Agriculture Union members at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency can be excused for thinking they have been waiting forever for the employer to honour its commitment to implement a gender-neutral classification system following adoption of the July 12, 2000 pay equity settlement agreement.

Other separate employers, such as the Canada Revenue Agency, were quick off the mark in creating and implementing a new classification standard for their employees in 2002. Treasury Board has devised various new systems, although with no implementation.

CFIA, however, is just getting around to this long-overdue process. And that’s thanks in large part to our CFIA members, many of whom in the fall of 2009 filed grievances and wrote their Members of Parliament to protest the employer’s failure to act.

The Treasury Board standards used by the CFIA to value the work carried out by our members are extremely old and horrifically out of date. Take a look at the dates that standards were last implemented for the following classification groups:
           • AS in 1956;
           • GS and GT in 1969;
           • CR in 1976;
           • SI in 1987;
           • GL and IS in 1988; and
           • PM in 1990.

Obviously, no knowledgeable person can argue that work performance requirements in today’s technologically-advanced workplace have stood still for decades. Yet, only one new standard for our members has been developed by CFIA in recent years – that for the PI to EG conversion.

Thanks to the action taken by our members, the employer agreed in 2009 to union-management consultation to address the gender-neutral classification standard issue. Two meetings of a steering group took place in 2010. A decision was then made to strike a working group comprised of Marlene O’Neil from the Agriculture Union and Bob Lamoureux, PSAC Classification Advisor.

The working group met twice this year, most recently in October. It is currently reviewing demographic information and providing input for a CFIA work plan that will in turn launch a new gender-neutral classification standard or system for our members. We anticipate this work plan, once finalized by the employer, will be submitted to senior management for implementation.

Creating a new classification standard to measure and value the work in a gender neutral way is not an easy task. It will take still more time and the patience shown by our CFIA members is truly appreciated. The Agriculture Union will continue to consult so long as these consultations are meaningful and produce results. However, as the employer has now begun to consult, we are hopeful to see real progress.

In the meantime, we encourage our Locals and members to continue to maintain their grievances concerning a gender neutral classification system in abeyance while these union and management consultations continue.

However, this does not negate our CFIA members’ rights to the correct implementation of current job descriptions or classification review as may apply using the old standards relied on by the employer.

Timely fact sheet on pensions joins our KeyInfo line-up

(Posted November 23, 2011)

Retirement. For many Agriculture Union members, that’s a goal that’s coming much sooner than later.

So, in a timely move, we’ve added a topic entitled Pensions and Pensionable Benefits to our KeyInfo line-up. This popular information kit contains a series of union fact sheets of use to both Local Executive officers and the membership in general.

If you’d like a peek right away, you can read our new fact sheet on pensions HERE. Of course, along with 26 other highly-useful topics it’s always available on our KeyInfo Web site page.