PSAC-NCR recently filed for conciliation for its bargaining unit at Communications Security Establishment (CSE) as negotiations between the Union Bargaining team and CSE Management reached impasse on June 28th, more than five months after bargaining commenced.
From the outset of negotiations, the union bargaining team sought improvements to key provisions in the collective agreement, including some that the union has fought to address in previous rounds. Instead of finding a resolution to these long standing issues, the Employer, based on TB mandate, rejected our proposals for:
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fair wage increases,
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full rolling in of Market Allowance (MA) into salaries,
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improvements to vacation leave,
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parental leave extension,
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renewing incentives for compensation advisors,
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and expanding family related responsibility leave.
In addition, the Employer’s offer tied the CSE agreement to the set of offers negotiated between TBS and other bargaining agents, as opposed to addressing our own proposals. Further, we were offered less than what every other TBS agreement has obtained so far in this round of negotiations.
Although TBS finally agreed to a long-standing demand of PSAC, which is to roll the MA into salary, the Employer’s proposal would be a significant monetary loss to our members. The offer did not include applying the 2% wage increase to MA in the first and second years or the 1% market adjustment in the second year to the MA and salary.
The Union bargaining team made a counter-proposal, which sought to address all outstanding issues, and was quickly rejected by CSE / TBS.
“Bargaining at CSE has come to a standstill. After a hopeful round of negotiations, Management came with a final offer that ignored most of our discussions and did not meet the needs of our members. We presented a counter offer that would have met the majority of issues facing our members; however, it was turned down,” states Michael Carlos, bargaining team member.
Because of the government’s unwillingness to address our issues and concerns, we have declared impasse and filed for conciliation, and are proceeding to a Public Interest Commission (PIC) as outlined in legislation. We have added our voice at CSE to the 140,000 other PSAC members across the country demanding better and fairer terms during this round of bargaining.