The PIPSC annual general meeting was held in Ottawa on November 18 and 19. Three delegates from CRPEG joined 455 others from the various unions represented by PIPSC to vote on by-law amendments and resolutions, and to hear from the PIPSC president.
The Hon. Scott Brison, Treasury Board president, a guest speaker at this year’s AGM, spoke about the benefits of unions and promoted a fair and balanced approach to negotiations with unions and employers on equal footing. He highlighted the return to evidence based decision making under the new government, where the work of government scientists was central to decision making. For those who are interested, his speech was recorded and is available on the PIPSC website:
(http://www.pipsc.ca/portal/page/portal/website/news/events/agm/2016/brison-agm)
Debi Daviau, our PIPSC president, followed Mr. Brison with the opening address of the AGM. She highlighted the numerous changes under the new government; the repealing of the anti-union legislation C377 and C525, as well as a partial repeal of the legacy C4, which affected health and safety provisions, human rights protection, and collective bargaining rights of federal workers. PIPSC’s areas of focus for the coming year were introduced: to improve bargaining, to stop outsourcing, to preserve scientific integrity, to promote tax fairness, and to defend pensions. It was during this part of her address that she chose to highlight CRPEG’s fight to ensure a fair pension for CRL employees.
“On pensions, we continue to fight on a number of fronts. We are supporting our New Brunswick members in their fight against the provincial government’s move from a Defined Benefit pension plan to a Shared Risk Plan. At Chalk River, we are mounting a campaign to retain the pension provisions of our members which have been undermined in the wake of a public private partnership.”
Further details of the opening address and the presidents speaking notes are available on the PIPSC website: (http://www.pipsc.ca/portal/page/portal/website/news/events/agm/2016/address)
The rest of the two days were by and large filled with by-law amendments and resolutions. Full details of
all the proposed by-law amendments and resolutions, along with the results of delegate voting, are
available on the PIPSC website:
(http://www.pipsc.ca/portal/page/portal/website/news/events/agm/2016/resolutions).
The one item in particular that will be of interest to all members, which was discussed at CRPEG’s own AGM in October, is the PIPSC proposal to increase our monthly dues by $10 per month. The dues increase will become effective starting January 2017. The justification for this dues increase is explained on the attached PIPSC brochures(f4variancereport.en duesincreasehandout.en) , but can be summarized thusly: Dues have not kept pace with the rate of inflation, and in the absence of an increase, the institutes reserve funds will be exhausted by the end of 2017. This motion, put forward by the PIPSC board of directors, was carried with a vote of 218 for and 155 against. The CRPEG executive encourages you to review the attached documents, and forward any questions to the executive.