2017/08/09
Today, August 9, 2017, Canada Post tabled a global offer to the Public Service Alliance of Canada/Union of Postal Communications Employees (PSAC/UPCE).
The offer includes a lump sum payment of $500, if a new collective agreement is reached by November 2, 2017. It also includes a 1.25% wage increase in Years 1 and 2 and 1.5% increase in Years 3 and 4.
Highlights of the offer are captured in this mailer, which has been mailed to the homes of employees represented by PSAC/UPCE.
For more information, read the full offer. Our goal is to reach an agreement that is competitive and fair for employees while meeting our business challenges and the needs of our customers. The offer is designed to secure a timely resolution to negotiations.
The collective agreement expired on August 31, 2016 but will continue to apply as per the terms of the Canada Labour Code.
We will continue to keep you informed of key developments through your team leaders and head office communications.
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I would like to know when the union plans to ask it members to vote on the offer posted by Canada Post? We are nearing November and my fear is that we will have a worse contract if we go past the expiry date. What is wrong with the offer? Why are we not voting.
Are we even going to get an opportunity to vote on this tabled offer? There are only a few weeks left before it expires. Why the hold up?
take it and run!!!!
D mentioned that CPC would surplus and then rehire at lower rate of pay. This is not legal – to delete a position the work content has to either be totally eliminated or enough of the work migrated to other functions – as is the case with computers, which take a lot of administrative work away from PSAC to the original user (APOC/MGT)
Where is a counter proposal?
UPCE are not going slow they are practically at a dead stop. Please get to the table. This is dragging on long enough.
Buy some woollies folks because it looks like we’re going to need them over the winter.
You have to be joking. You must not be a surplus employee. Maybe after the contract is signed you may find yourself in a different situation (and become surplus yourself) and feel this global offer was not as great as you once thought it was. This offer is an insult to our intelligence.
Sign this proposal and all aboard the surplus train…This is the classic look at the shiny object in this hand…While the real damage is done with the other…PSAC is doing the right thing by going slow…Hmm maybe this will still be going on when CUPW’s contract is up…
Yes, PSAC positions are in decline and the reason is sitting on your desk.
I learned to type on a manual type writer. Then an electric, then a correcting electric. Then word processors and now…..every step along the way I saw what was coming, went to school and learned. I did not wait for anyone to pay for it or teach me. PSAC certainly did not do anything in negotiations to recognize the impact of technology and focus on the training & Development of their members.
Unless a job has a purpose of its own, like in HR, PC&R, Training, IT etc. it is being eliminated because technology has made it redundant. There is very little need for administrative support in the field. Executives continue to require it but due to the nature of the work those positions are excluded.
Any employee should be able to go to a career section, pick a job and level, find out the requirements, go to eLearning and start taking the courses. APOC insisted on this for their membership and got it. Why? Because they are strategic in their approach, they see ways to work co-operatively with the employer and to add value.
Someone actually commented that the corporation wants to be able to hire and fire who they want to. Of course they do, it is their right to manage.
Would you like to own a company and have someone else tell you who to or not to hire? How would you like it if you had an employee who wasn’t doing their job and you had to continue to employ them? Of course not.
Are there bad managers out there? Yes. That is why we have legislation (Human Rights; Labour Code) The labour movement is an integral part of maintaining balance. If it was all left up to big business we would still be in work houses with the doors bolted, the Rockefellers and the like did not suddenly say lets help everyone out and give them safe working conditions, a reasonable work week, vacations etc.
We have what we have because others’ fought for it. Because of it we should be grateful to those who walked the picket lines, some even paid with their lives. This gratitude should be expressed in working hard and taking responsibility for ourselves and our work quality.
If the labour movement should have stayed true to its roots and taken a global approach to improving working conditions around the world. Instead they became a “big business” themselves. They made ridiculous demands and protected mediocre members.
Seems to me that CPC is trying to slowly get rid of UPCE as cutting job security would give them total control of hiring, firing etc. Also, if you are you are surplus, you might even lose your current level of pay. Imagine most positions being put as surplus, then they hire at a lower rate of pay.
Careful what you wish for people
Hard to believe that in a 248pg “Global Offer” there was neither room or desire to post details on the Transition Support Payment other than…
The employee will receive a transition support payment in an amount
determined according to the schedule of payments
defined by the Corporation. The Corporation will notify
the Alliance before making any changes to this schedule.
Where does this schedule reside and how are we to make an educated decision on the reasonableness of this portion of the offer without seeing it?
Canada Post is not going under now or anytime soon. No this is certainly not the seventies and thank goodness. The seventies were a time marketed by high inflation rates, high unemployment rates and high interest rates both of which ultimately reached double digits numbers by the end of the decade. Oil prices were through the roof, gasoline line ups were common place, stock markets were a mess and economies were either slow or with no growth. Government bonds were all the rage. Luckily we now invest in stocks, real estate and other investments as interest rates have plummeted and bonds have gone out of favor. The world has changed and we have changed with it. Fortunately for all of us old and not so old posties, companies still need to mail out their bills and send out advertising mail and well parcels have grown tremendously thanks to ecommerce, a word not know in the seventies. We have woken up as has Canada Post and realized to survive is to change and adapt. Lettermail volumes have started to plateau and the decline is not as sharp which now allows us greater time to concentrate on other revenue streams. There is no need to make drastic turns in our course one way or another but to instead look, listen and learn.
If you look at the demographics of the UPCE/PSAC component of the entire CPC workforce you will see that attrition will take care of any small insignificant problem that we may have with regard to needing to eliminate job security. Out of an approximately 64,000 total work force at CPC only 2% are UPCE/PSAC members or approximately 1,280 employees. Out of the 1,280 UPCE/PSAC members there are approximately 5.5% of them declared surplus which equates to approximately 70 members.
Out of those approximately 70 surplus members how many of them are actually on long term unpaid leaves, off the financial books? Let us guess that approximately 25% of them are so that leaves us with 52 surplus employees who while they are not in their substantive positions they are still preforming work each day at CPC. If we were to further guess that the average wage of these 52 members is at an A5 level/maximum or approximately $65,000 per year. Then we can say that we are paying 52 surplus employees a total combined compensation of $3,280,000 million dollars a year. If we then go a step further and say that while they were working they were actually only working at an A3 level which is approximately $55,000 annually. We could conclude that there is potentially a $520,000 a year cost to carry these surplus employees.
Now let’s take a look at the overall impact on our solvency that this cost might bring to bear on CPC. In 2016 Canada Post had gross revenues of approximately 7,880,000,000 billion. If we divide our revenues into our problem number of $520,000 we come up with a .00659%. In whose world is that a statistically significant problem? If we round up the number to an expense of .007% on our total revenues how much money can CPC afford to throw at eliminating it. Come on people this is worse than the saying “tripping over the dollars to save the pennies”. If this is the type of executive that CPC is hiring today then we have greater problems than declining lettermail volumes and the creative ideas required to replace those revenue streams.
Why the hard-line approach in negotiations towards the smallest bargaining unit, why UPCE, why now?
At the end of the day CPC wants the job done effectively and professionally.
Yes we have lost positions to contracting out but I do ask, why is contracting out the better option? Is it the lack of flexibility to hire strictly on merit, the inability to release someone who is not doing their job? The length of time it takes to fill a position? How much did these things contribute to those decisions? Many companies who played the contract out tune are now returning to establishing new call centers, why? Because they can’t get the quality and depth of service that employees invested in their company will give them. If you have a job now that is vulnerable to being contracted out, please do it well, please do whatever you need to do to improve yourself. Don’t depend on CPC, don’t depend on PSAC make yourself the most marketable commodity you can.
PSAC should have been on CPC about establishing training and development, career paths, leveraging eLearning and making participation in these courses mandatory for membership to keep their skills at top level.
There is too much “sense of entitlement” and not enough hard work, taking responsibility for one self and being active in managing one’s career.
The jobs are going to the cities, not just CPC but everywhere. It is a fact of life at this time. We are not just competing with Canada but on the world stage, technology rules folks. Companies go where the talent goes and that is urban centers.
Next week just as an experiment try to find a job that pays the wage and benefits that CPC is offering. Just go on line and give it a try…..
Job Security? What job security will there be if CPC goes under? Don’t think it can’t happen because it can. This is a very different world that in the seventies when these types of clauses were the rage in bargaining.
Yes they are seeking concessions but require the flexibility for solvency. The 40 km stipulation is too limiting. Depending on the details there are options for those declared surplus and they may be generous? Not enough detail to judge.
As a personal aside, the best job security is doing a great job and keeping your skill level high through continued education so you can weather whatever life throws at you,
I too don’t quite understand why our bargaining team is only available to meet once a month or bi-monthly, what’s with that??? The global offer, is just that, a global offer and it will not get any better!! I have seen these offers come and our union exec think they can do better and we end up with less. Take the offer to the membership and let them vote! Let the cards fall where they lay, our union is dwindling in numbers, we don’t have leg to stand on anymore with negotiation scare tactics (ie strike), and they know it, reason for the global offer we got. Let us vote, your counter offer will just waste time and be ignored , and reduce the global offer. LET US VOTE!!!!!!
Some observations.
No more Appendix M, i.e. meaningful UPCE job creation. Now “contracting out” will be the new order of the day. The corporation has demanded the right to “post (jobs) internally and externally at the same time” as they are considering internal candidates/surplus employees for a vacant position. Sounds like a real recipe to “streamline the staffing process” alright, right out the door. Let me see, who I want to pick for the position as opposed to who should contractually receive it. I guess they call this the new ‘buffet approach’ to staffing. This must go hand in hand with the new professionalized HR industry standard monikers that have just come out like, Business Partner, Generalist, and Specialist and so on. Just remember if you are surplus now or become surplus in the future good luck in ever being resolved back to your substantive position or like.
As the company continues to push to centralize and ultimately contract-out our positions, I can see all regional jobs being made surplus in the very near future and moved to locations like either Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal or Vancouver. Say goodbye to UPCE. You don’t even have to worry about demands such as “final offer selection” and just say hello to lower paying, non-unionized, transient positions in major urban centres. If you still don’t think things could get worse take read of the Appendix D changes proposed by the corporation and yes they can get worse. The New Job Evaluation Plan will mean that a new “Job Evaluation Plan Manual” would be created, amended and applied by the corporation unilaterally, unchecked by any former collaborative committee between the parties. Merging classifications, blending job duties, homogenizing job descriptions, downgrading positions until there are perhaps as few as three levels left in UPCE. An UPCE-1, UPCE-2 and UPCE-3 position or no UPCE at all.
Most of the changes proposed by the corporation as you read through what was our former collective agreement makes it look more like a slash and burn exercise rather than an amendment here, a change there, the back and forth feel of the usual collective bargaining process; you win some and you lose some. No, this instead feels more like the strong arming of a perceived submissive predominantly female represented union by an overwhelming male dominated senior executive. What makes this observation all the more poignant is the fact that Appendix D starts off with the whole “free of gender bias” and “not to discriminate against any employee or group of employees in the bargaining unit” in accordance with Canadian Human Rights Act.
Sign quickly, don’t read for comprehension, let Management take care of the ‘fine’ print, and the Corporation will pay you a HUGE $500 non-pensionable lump-sum payment which equates to $11.50 a pay after tax for the next year or put another way a visit to Tim’s for a coffee and a donut once a week for the next year. Enjoy!
I think did offer can be fair however if you notice that we have not received any pay increase for the last 3 years and everything went up such pension, our benefits gone up and other inflations that occurred.
Please note also since minimum wages are going up enormously in 2018 and 2019 will increase the inflation enormously
so I think the wage that we get paid will have no impact regardless to 1.25 each year and then 1.5.
I think we should be over 2% each year and forget that lump sum
Let’s do some math. We have not had a contract for almost a year. Since our union is not available until September, I’ll use a year. So 365 days in a year less 11 stats and 52 week ends (104 days) equals 250 available days for negotiation for which PSAC has been available 14 days. That is only 5.6% of all available time.
What would PSAC be saying to us if CPC was only available for 14 days?
Bargaining team?
Canada Post is proposing to take away your job security and you’re thanking them?
The red circling clause is still in play so that provides someone who is forward and upward moving with a cushion to transition to the larger centre which is essential for a serious career. It is likely the smaller centers where efficiencies will be realized which is why the 40 km limit needs to be addressed with these changes. Depending on the full details: what relocation includes and what the formula is for the transition payments this is a very fair way to treat your employees. Possibly even generous but those details are needed.. I am totally in favour of final offer arbitration, it is a fair and unbiased approach to collective bargaining without damaging the business. Get us those final details and let’s vote! UPCE has been dragging their feet long enough!
Thank you CPC pretty good offer – hopefully everyone agrees
I consider this offer to be fair at first glance. The avoidance of a disruption or rumours of a disruption are in every one’s best interest. We all lose if Canada Post loses market share. The Corporation needs to continue in growth to protect all our futures, whether employed or retired.
However, there are some areas where the changes are too vague for one to make a fully informed decision. I refer to the Job Security clause and specifically the addressing of surplus employees. 1. Taking a transfer to a location beyond the 40 kms is a really bad deal because you must accept a position below the current classification WITHOUT salary protection or red-circling for two years or be laid off. So if you are willing to relocate (most likely to a higher priced living standard market) you could end up in a very bad financial situation by being forced to demote. 2. In the case of taking one of the other two options for a payment the total # of weeks per year being offered needs to be defined and not left so vague. After all the corporation gets to chose which positions are declared surplus, which puts them in total control and able to reap permanent benefits, just suggesting to be more up front with full disclosure on all the options so we can decide if we want to indicate to PSAC whether we want the deal or not.
Thank you Canada Post!! Let’s vote yes to this offer!!