AMAPCEO OPENING STATEMENT - OPS BARGAINING
February 18, 2014
As
you look across the table at the AMAPCEO bargaining team, any of you
who were here in previous rounds of bargaining -- and there may not be
many of you -- would see profound changes from previous years.
The
team is much larger than in previous years. It has been selected from a
broader elected group of members. It reflects the many different
constituencies of the AMAPCEO membership. The new Chair, Dianne
Colville, is a regular member on leave from her OPS job in order to
participate in bargaining.
There
are more AMAPCEO staff involved in the bargaining process than ever
before. There are significantly more resources devoted to bargaining,
both here and away from the table. In fact, away from the table, both
AMAPCEO activists and ordinary members have been involved in an enhanced
mobilization campaign since the Fall, and you can expect to see
activities being stepped up as required in the coming weeks.
These
changes can easily be seen and observed. What lies behind these changes
and what is likely not as visible to you -- but what is, of course,
more important -- is the changed attitude, approach and commitment of
both AMAPCEO, and its membership, in this round of bargaining.
First,
AMAPCEO’s long-standing policy on essential services negotiations is
dead. No longer does AMAPCEO or its members believe that essential
services negotiations should be avoided altogether or deferred as long
as possible because industrial relations strife is something our members
are not interested in and will have to be foisted on them by the
Employer. Our members have learned that sanctions and the threat of
sanctions is the only thing the civil service as an employer is
responsive to. As a result, we have moved essential services
negotiations along as quickly as possible, and in fact we have now
reached an agreement.
Second, in the past you would not have expected AMAPCEO to ever apply for conciliation. That expectation should be long gone.
Third,
unlike the last round of bargaining, AMAPCEO is not asking for an
assurance of a set period of time for bargaining before there will be an
application by the Employer for conciliation. Indeed, we now have our
own time frame for negotiations, and it is not long. If there is going
to be a debate in this province in the coming weeks on public services,
our members will want to be able to have their say, and they will want
to be sure that they will be in a legal position to be heard, loud and
clear. And everyone who doesn’t know, should know, that we have the
funds and the resources to make our voices heard in the public arena as
well as through membership action.
We should be
clear about the cause of these changes: in a word it is the conduct of
the government, both its negotiators and its principals, since 2008.
From
the overt effort to destroy AMAPCEO in the summer of 2008 in the so
called “modernization consultations”, to the deception and bad faith in
the 2009 round of negotiations as found by the Ontario Labour Relations
Board, through to the bullying, and gross political interference with
the concluded arrangements and understandings already made at this table
in 2012 – not to mention the overall unfairness of what transpired in
the 2012 bargaining – through all of this, our members and the AMAPCEO
leadership have learned many lessons.
After we
began the last round of bargaining, you demanded concessions based on an
agreement you said you had reached with OECTA, which you said would
become the model for all the collective agreements with teachers and for
the broader public sector. You insisted on an OECTA type model for the
OPS agreement.
After weeks of trying to come up
with some form of understanding, an agreement in principle on a savings
target, as a key component of an ultimate agreement, was reached by the
parties. In retrospect, even that Agreement – and the government
imposed savings target it included -- would have turned out to be unfair
to AMAPCEO employees, because of what later occurred in your
negotiations with other unions.
But, at least
that agreement would not have left the bad taste in our member’s mouths
of what did occur, when the officials in Dalton McGuinty’s office
directed the government negotiators to go back on their commitments to
AMAPCEO, and directed them to bully their way to a resolution.
The
OECTA deal, about which you talked to us so much, turned out to be a
mere mirage -- a shadow of what you purported it was, and a shadow of
the template you said it would become. In subsequent weeks and months
after concluding the agreement with us, the government systematically
backed further and further away from the OECTA agreement, in agreements
struck with OSSTF, both before and even more so after the initial deal
with them was rejected in their ratification process, then with CUPE,
and of course with ETFO. And then -- with other OPS unions.
The
only thing that really remained was the elimination of the sick pay
gratuity, something that OPS employees had long since ceased to have and
which had no application to our members. What’s more, the previous
system of 20 accumulating sick days a year for teachers was replaced
with a more generous 11 days at 100 per cent and the remainder (prior to
long term disability ) at 90 per cent, far more generous than the
AMAPCEO collective agreement in place at the time, not to mention the
current one.
Other so-called components of the
savings target were also reduced or eliminated. The three days off
without pay to pay for grid movement was effectively cut down to one for
all non-teacher bargaining units and likely one for most teachers (as
compared to the AMAPCEO fifteen and a half!).
And
OECTA got the benefit of every retreat, based on their “me too” clause
with the government, a clause you refused to give to us. And let’s not
forget, shall we, the priority hiring provisions OECTA and the unions
obtained, the job security provisions that CUPE and ETFO obtained, and
the restoration of the 2% wage increase on September 1, 2014 to
elementary teachers which ETFO had lost as compared to the other
teachers’ unions because of the 2008-12 negotiations.
What
the last agreement with AMAPCEO showed, as compared to all the
subsequent teacher and other education unions, and the OPSEU and other
OPS agreements, was that AMAPCEO employees paid a price that no one else
paid. For their part, OPSEU employees did not have to do anything
comparable. Where is the fairness in that? And this after they got a 3%
wage increase in 2012 which AMAPCEO members were deprived of. And what
about the OPPA deal, providing for an automatic 8.75% increase this
year, following two years of no across the board increases. Will you be
proposing that same adjustment to AMAPCEO members, given that we not
only agreed to two years of 0% across the board increases, but also to a
savings target the amount of which no other OPS or BPS employees have
absorbed?
You should not be surprised that all
of this has left a strong residue of bitterness, disappointment and
anger in the AMAPCEO membership. Everyone who fell 3% behind OPSEU
because you rewarded them with a 3% increase in 2012 but did not give it
to AMAPCEO members, is angry. Everyone who lost merit pay of .5% per
year, and who now has to wait so unreasonably long to get to their
salary maximum, is disappointed. Everyone whose salary has been capped
at unreasonably low maximums, is bitter. And everyone who was red
circled or who lost headroom and P4P without equitable provisions being
made for them in the future, is angry.
We
recognize that the political environment in 2012 drew unwanted attention
to pay for performance bonuses. We suggest, however, that the
elimination of this provision is bad human resource policy and challenge
the Employer to work with AMAPCEO to develop a mechanism to incent and
reward employees who are at the top of their salary range.
Now
let’s talk about the burning issue: all AMAPCEO members are angry about
the unfairness and arbitrariness of being required to give up COC days
and other time off provisions for no good reason. In fact, AMAPCEO
members are livid about the credit reductions and suspension of COC days
when no one else did anything comparable. In 2013, each of our regular
members spent 9.5 days at work when they would have normally been
spending with their loved ones or enjoying time free from work. Our
fixed term members forfeited 9.5 days of pay that they would have
normally used to pay for their necessities in life. Every FXT employee
who had to give unpaid days off or money when they did not get even get
COC days is angry. Did any OPSEU employee have to give up anything? And
then, in 2014, there is the value of an additional 6 days/credits that
every AMAPCEO member is supposed to forfeit.
The
savings target and paid time off work lost by our members seriously
affected them but so too did the lack of any across the board increase.
In this period, inflation increased by 2.4% according to the Ontario
CPI, which lowered the living standards of our members. And of course
the CPI does not really reflect the real cost of living increases in the
price of housing. Since so many of our members live in the GTA and
other urban centers, the increase in housing prices in recent years and
even since the second quarter of 2012, seriously impacts on the ability
of our members to house themselves and their families. Since AMAPCEO
salaries were frozen in the second quarter of 2012, home prices in
Toronto have increased by 9.5% according to the Teranet National Bank
index and for Ottawa and Hamilton, the corresponding figures are 2.9%
and 11.2% respectively.
Given all of this, the
AMAPCEO membership has told us loudly and clearly that they will not
stand for it any longer. They have learned that they need to be more
active if they are to resist employer concessions and achieve fair and
reasonable protections and improvements for themselves.
Put
simply, there is no tolerance for any of the Employer conduct we have
seen recently, including in the last round of bargaining. If this
conduct continues and there is no redress for the past, there will be
repercussions and consequences. We do not pretend to think you are
unaware of the anger many of our members have directed to the union
leadership on some of these issues. It would be a mistake, however, to
think that our members’ anger is pointing away from you. Our members
have been waiting for the moment to be able to hold you accountable.
That moment has arrived.
The AMAPCEO priorities in this round of bargaining are straightforward. There will be no concessions at this table.
There will be no moving backward on job security or pensions or benefits or contract language.
What
has been unfairly taken will be restored. And improvements and
protections that AMAPCEO members deserve will be negotiated. Our members
expect the following:
- the 3% increases which you gave OPSEU in 2012 and denied us, and additional real wage increases in this agreement;
- equitable future treatment for red circled employees and those who have lost headroom in JE;
- improved
work/life flexibility, staring first with restoration of all of the COC
days and any other credits given up in 2013 and 2014 for all employees;
- improvements to paramedical coverage that are long overdue;
- fair treatment for our Fixed Term employees.
Obviously, we also have numerous other important issues which we will insist be dealt with.
Your
principals should understand who we are and what we do. Every time a
Minister rises in the Legislature to answer a question, or faces a horde
of media reporters, AMAPCEO members have worked hard behind the scenes
to make sure that Minister is prepared with the facts and information
he/she needs to respond.
The hundreds upon
hundreds of meetings, conferences, and round-table discussions that take
place each year between different levels of government and between
ministry officials and stakeholders are successful because of AMAPCEO
members.
Behind every piece of government
legislation and regulation, behind every government decision, task
force, report, policy, program, speech, news release, briefing note,
jurisdictional scan, option paper and slide deck, are AMAPCEO members.
Behind all the systems that allow government to operate and administer
programs, that allow government to regulate and be accountable for the
money it provides to its public and private sector partners, behind all
of the machinery of government and behind the delivery of services,
there are AMAPCEO members performing critical functions.
AMAPCEO
members may not be the public face of government, but we know how
valuable and necessary we are to those that are. And the Employer knows
the impact our absence, either physically or in mindfulness, would have.
There is one additional message we have for your principals.
We
do recognize that there is a new government at Queen’s Park since the
last negotiation. We recognize that there is a different accountability
and political responsibility for what occurred in the past. Perhaps,
just perhaps, there is a different view in government of a possible
different future relationship with this bargaining unit membership than
has been the case in the recent past. We remain hopeful that your 11th
hour delay to our start date was not indicative of continued difficult
labour relations, and that, as you stated, the delay will not prejudice
the parties’ ability to work expeditiously towards achieving an
agreement.
From the earliest days of this new
administration we have tried to make the principals in the new
government understand the bitterness and anger that exists in our
membership, the impact all of this has had on morale, and urged upon
them ways to fix things long before now. Thus far, your principals have
refused to do so. Perhaps they took the civil service advice to not
react, or to wait until bargaining, which if true was an ill-advised
decision because much of the goodwill which you could have garnered has
been squandered and dissipated by the refusal to make obviously fair and
necessary changes up until now.
However, if
your political principals want to do business on a new footing, and if
they are ready to be fair and even handed, then we are prepared to be a
reasonable partner for a different relationship and for progress and for
change. The ball, however, is clearly in their court, and we have few
reservoirs of patience. If today and in the days to come the government
negotiators persist in their same old messages, their same old style,
and their same old tactics, we will not hesitate to draw the obvious
conclusions.
Thank
you James for allowing me space on your blog to talk about an issue of mutual
interest. 
