This is the final reminder that tomorrow, Wednesday (2017 March 8) is the date of the ratification meeting at the Lion’s Hall in Chalk River. The doors will open at 5pm and the meeting will commence at 5:30 pm.

Attached is the summary of the changes for the tentative agreement for you to review. It is worth mentioning again that the vote is whether to accept the whole package of changes, or not.  When considering the changes to the collective agreement, you will have to decide whether the changes as a whole will benefit you, OR, if there are specific items you do not agree with. If you disagree with specific items in the agreement, are they enough to reject the whole agreement and send the negotiating team back to the bargaining table.

If you have questions about the summary, we ask that you please hold those questions until the meeting. This will allow everyone the benefit from hearing all the questions, and their answers.

If you haven’t let us know already if you are attending (via the voting buttons on the email bulletin 2017 March 1) then can you please RSVP.

For those of you new to the area the Chalk River Lion’s Hall is  11 Kellett St. It’s the first left after the lights in Chalk River. The Lion’s Hall is close to the Fire Department and so we would also to remind people to respect the no parking signs at the Fire Department.

This is a reminder that next Wednesday (2017 March 8) is the date of the ratification meeting at the Lion’s Hall in Chalk River. The doors will open at 5pmand the meeting will commence at 5:30 pm. We will be providing a light snack and drinks.

There have been requests to see the agreement ahead of the meeting. However, due to the nature of the bargaining process this is not possible. The current tentative agreement, like the last one, represents a series of changes to the current collective agreement. Each change has been signed off by the company and union. Then the total sum of the changes to the collective agreement was analysed and signed off by the company and union. These proposed changes are not legally binding until you, the members, ratify the changes.

We are putting together a summary of these changes that we will send out at least 24 hrs prior to the meeting for you to review. Remember that the vote is whether to accept the whole package of changes, or not.  When considering the changes to the collective agreement, you will have to decide whether the changes as a whole will benefit you, OR, if there are items you do not agree with, are they enough to reject the whole agreement and go back to the bargaining table.

If you have questions about the summary when it arrives, we ask that you please hold those questions until the meeting. This will allow everyone the benefit from hearing all the questions, and their answers.

To give us an idea how many will be attending the vote we are asking that you use the voting buttons in the email to indicate “Yes” (you will attend) or “No” (you will not attend).

Forwarded on behalf of the PEO

***

PEO Algonquin Chapter invites you to its 2017 Annual General Meeting (AGM) to be held at the Bear’s Den,

33177 Highway 17, Deep River, on 2017 March 01. Doors open at 5:45 p.m., and the AGM starts at 6:15 p.m.

as a breakaway session. All members are invited to the AGM at no charge. The Evening Program includes a buffet dinner ($20 each for member and a guest), with speaker Ken McFarlane, P.Eng., Chief Design Engineer for SNOLAB. Registration is required in advance. Please register by 2017 February 24, noon, by calling Uditha Senaratne (Deep River) at 613-584-3311 X 45198, Aneesh John (Chalk River) at 613-584-3311 X 43480, or email peoalgon@cnl.ca. More details are contained in the bulletin on myCNL.

http://www.cnwc-cctn.ca/fr/posts/decembre-2016-bulletin-cctn/

As everyone is probably well aware by now, there are work groups on site that have implemented a 4×10 schedule for work. With no contract language to administer this type of schedule we have been using our existing language. On 2016 December 22 the executive signed a memorandum of understanding with the company to better manage this new schedule.

From the feedback surrounding this topic, the Executive understand that there are members who look forward to a 4×10 schedule and those who have concerns about it so we’d like to highlight the following points from the agreement;

• This MOU is for Facilities Decommissioning, Waste Management and Environmental Remediation and Waste Operations currently. Any other departments or branches shall be discussed and agreed by the Union before implementing
• For the term of the MOU, only those that volunteer to work a 4×10 schedule will do so
• Hours of work are 7-5:30 with a 30 minute unpaid lunch Monday to Thursday
• Vacation leave has been converted to hours
• Other than marriage leave for other leave plans a day refers to a 10 h day
• To convert the annual hours to 2080h/year (work week is now 40 h not 37.5) employees basic salary is increased by 6.67% to the nearest $100.
• Employees working under this MOU will have their salary range adjusted to allow for the 6.67% increase so that no promotions or progressions will occur as a result of the conversion to a 40 h week.

We’d recommend everyone review the MOU. Certainly if this affects you directly, read it carefully and please contact the executive or a steward if you have any questions.

As we all head to into the holiday shutdown (for a much deserved break) the Executive, on behalf of themselves and the stewards, would like to invite you to say hi, and have a cup of coffee and doughnut with us.

We’ll be at the following locations Thursday, December 22nd

CRL Cafeteria -7:00 – 9:00

JL Gray Cafeteria – 9:00-10:30

Morrison gymnasium – 7:30-9:00

Keys Lunchroom – 10:00-10:30

At this time, we’d also like to take this opportunity wish a safe and wonderful holiday season to you and your family. In the spirit of well wishes, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

On behalf of the Canadian Nuclear Workers Council we’re forwarding their June newsletter. To save your inbox space we’ve included links to the newsletter rather than send it as an attachment.

The links to the English and French editions are below:

http://www.cnwc-cctn.ca/posts/december-2016-cnwc-newsletter/

As you know we are in negotiations. One of the items we are discussing is the responsibility of Section Heads and whether they are being recognized appropriately. Early in our discussion it was recognized that what section heads do and how they are recognized varied greatly with the small amount of experiences in the negotiating teams. It would be extremely helpful to the process if you would take a couple of minutes and answer the following questions:

1. Are you a Section Head?

2. Where do you work in the organization? R&D, Operations, Decomissioning…

3. How did you become a Section Head? Volunteer? Voluntold? Applied to a posted position?

4. What is the range of duties you perform as the Section Head in your Branch? More detail the better.

5. How does that differ from your colleagues or those you supervise?

6. What expectations with respect to Section Head are you given by your manager, in terms of work

performed, levels of authority and your accountability?

7. Are your contributions recognized for an enhanced level of service or accountability as Section

Head, and in what manner are those contributions recognized?

We will be grouping the information and removing any identifying references before anything is shared with the company negotiating team. You can respond to this email or if you prefer, you can respond to our external email, negotiate@crpeg.ca. Thank you for your input.

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.

In September CNL migrated the information residing with MyHR to Oracle. As with any migration of data there can be hiccups. We encourage you to review your details in oracle for accuracy of the information.

If there are any inconsistencies with the information in Oracle you should contact your Labour Relations

Associate immediately (HR).

Some members have brought forward issues around the approval of banked time. Specifically:

•Accumulation of banked time limited to 2.5 hours per week

•Allowed to bank time for the 3.5 days for the Christmas shutdown only

•Unreasonable denial of banked time requests

The CRPEG Executive is asking anyone who has had any issues with banked time requests to please let us know at your earliest convenience. If you have any concerns about using the Company e-mail system you can respond to Jonathan’s personal e-mail address: jfitzpat@pipsc.ca . To ensure confidentiality, any issues raised will be brought to the Company at the Division level.

Members are reminded that there have been no changes to the banked time provisions.

That is:

Members may elect to accumulate extra hours on a straight time basis to a maximum of seventy five hours

for day workers and 4 shifts for shift workers. The accumulation of extra hours must be on productive work with the prior approval of management. Opportunities to accumulate banked time will not be unreasonably denied.