ATLANTIC REGIONAL PRESIDENT S REPORT

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RESIDENT

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RESENTED TO THE

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ATIONAL

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SSEMBLY

In May of 2010, I was honoured to leave Vancouver as the new Regional President of the Atlantic region. Along with the new Regional Vice-President (RVP), Robert Leblanc, and the rest of the Regional Executive, we returned to the Atlantic region looking forward to the next three years of our mandate. From the beginning of our mandate, we have attempted to build upon the region’s solidarity and were confident that we would succeed.

The first few months were very hectic as I had to experience a lot of firsts: my first National Labour-Management Committee (NLMC), first Regional Labour-Labour-Management Committee (RLMC) as president, first negotiation session and the first time I got to work inside a medium-security jail and a women offenders institution. Having spent my whole career working in a max, I thought it was necessary for me to work at least one day in uniform in these types of institutions. It was really an interesting couple of days and let’s just put it this way, I will not be looking to transfer to either of these institutions!

Labour relations in the Atlantic region have been very tough over the last three years. Although we have managed to have our eight RLMCs a year, we did not accomplish much. There is little to no communication with the Regional Deputy Commissioner (RDC) and the Assistant Deputy Commissioner, Institutional Operations, thus making issues very hard to settle. I found myself taking very minor issues to the national table for discussion with the Commissioner. The local presidents also felt the pressure of poor labour relations, which has a lot to do with the micro-management style of our RDC not allowing wardens to manage their institutions.

The Regional Executive has seen some changes over the last few years. Sandra Bulmer took over from Olivia Tynes as Nova’s Local President while Olivia was on maternity leave. Olivia returned in November 2012. Joel Banks did not reoffer as Local President of Atlantic Institution and the position was filled by Wade Jardine in the spring of 2012. Peter Kent took over as Local President of Dorchester as Dave Bishop decided to resign from his position in January 2013. Jeff Wilkins and Wayne Hale continue as Local Presidents of Springhill and Westmorland, respectively.

We also had two changes of regional status of women representatives. Marilyn Estey temporarily filled in for Nancy Manderville and at the last status of women meeting, Amy Logan was chosen to sit at the regional table for the next mandate. Our Regional Grievance Coordinator continues to be Derrick Cormier. Derrick has been at the regional table longer than anyone else; his knowledge and expertise are invaluable.

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Training continues to be a priority for RVP Robert Leblanc as the need is expressed by local executives and members. We have had great participation from all sites as people seem to be interested in the union, motivated to learn and get involved. All regional training is facilitated by the CSN advisors, namely Marie-Pier Dupuis-Langis, John Mancini, Jack Haller and Lyle Stewart, assisted by our UCCO-SACC-CSN members.

CSN

I would like to introduce Mr. Jack Haller to those of you who have not had the opportunity to meet him. We welcomed Jack Haller to our team in January 2012 as the Atlantic region’s first full-time advisor. His position was added to the budget at the last CSN convention. With this, we had to say farewell to John Mancini who has been a part-time advisor in the region from the very beginning. We hope fishing and retirement treat you well John.

I have to mention Ginette Gauvin, whose title is office assistant, but we continue to refer to her as the heart and soul of the Atlantic regional office. We continue to hope that Ginette will obtain official full-time status sooner rather than later as we believe that the requirement and work load has been proven over more than three years.

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Return to Work

Although meetings are held regularly at the institutions, they have been very limited regionally. There has not been a regional meeting since the spring of 2012. Approximately 10% of our members are off on some type of leave and the employer shows little interest in getting them back to work.

Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

We walked away from this committee due to the contract being given to Health Canada. Our members have had horrible experiences with this department and it is unacceptable that Correctional Service Canada (CSC) has taken this route. We are however still very proud of our members who

Regional Joint Occupational Health and Safety

A couple of changes have occurred in this committee. Olivia Tynes was our representative until she went on maternity leave, then Pierre Leblanc took over for a while until it was handed over to Brian Hedd, member at Dorchester. Brian continues to sit on this committee and dedicates a lot of his time, ensuring that all locals are on the same page and attends their local meetings.

Office of Crisis Management

We continue to be a part of this committee and it seems to be utilized by our members.

Construction

Four of the five institutions are seeing some type of expansion. Nova has finally received a Sally Port, an enclosed principal entrance. Also, a 14-bed minimum housing unit outside their perimeter is scheduled to be built this year. Springhill received two new units, Westmorland is building a new housing unit and Atlantic received one unit. Our inmate population has begun to rise and therefore we anticipate incidents to increase over the next several years.

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Negotiation and Mobilization

Once again, negotiations are taking a very long time and the Atlantic region will stay the course as we fight for what we deserve. We have had good turn outs for the national mobilization events and this has given a lot of members exposure to these types of activities. Our members were happy to get out and see Pierre Mallette during the national tour.

I have to mention three mobilization actions that I was very proud to be a part of: Project Harper, the uniform march in Ottawa and the Presidents’ Tour. To see 500 members gather in Calgary to pound pavement, then out again to do that a couple months later for our uniform march in Ottawa with 600 members was impressive. It was a first for me for both events and I want to send my appreciation to all the organizers as it was a tremendous amount of work. Finally, for Pierre to get in a motorhome and travel across the country for five weeks away from his family to visit all 52 institutions and the members was a sign of solidarity and dignity that no one will be able to take from us. We were happy to kick off the tour in the Maritimes and I can say that our region was a huge success along with the rest of the tour across the country. It will be talked about for years to come.

EAP

Unfortunately, I have nothing good to report about EAP. All the hard work of my predecessors, Paul Harrigan and Darrell Martin, has been thrown out the window by CSC. As I began this committee, long time EAP coordinator Jean-Yves Lecompte retired from CSC. There were no meetings scheduled and no work being done at the national level until they finally hired a national coordinator in 2012. There were lots of disappointments in attempting to set up meetings at the NLMC. Since this time, we have had one meeting in Ottawa and one conference call. The big issue on the table is to have a national contract. It once again comes down to money with CSC and not the welfare of their staff. We use EAP more than any other group and need to have trust in the process. The National Executive Committee is against Health Canada providing the service to our members and at the time of writing this report, we are waiting for EXCOM to make a decision on who will get the contract. We have been looking across North America on how other organizations run their EAP program. More research may be needed in this area in the near future.

Schedules

First, I would like to thank Jason Godin for handing this wonderful committee over to myself and Amanda in 2010. A lesson learned: when the committees are being given out, never go for a washroom break!

You would think that the schedule issues we’ve experienced in the past would have diminished over the last three years given the fact that Appendix K was negotiated in the last contract and the Scheduling and Deployment System (SDS) has being in place for a while, but obviously, this is not the case. We have argued and fought for the fundamental rights of our members across the country, which were clearly negotiated in our contract. With the new deployment numbers coming out and many institutional schedules having to change in some way, CSC thought that it would be a good time to try and put their own rules in place.

An example is going back to 8.5- and 12.75-hour shifts. This would have changed every schedule in the country and all of them would have lost rest days. This was an issue that was resolved at a bilateral meeting in Cornwall with Don Head and he agreed with us that we should be able to keep the 9- and 12.75-hour shift as long as we worked our hours. Of course, we average a 40-hour work week so we agreed. Another issue that had to be taken to Don Head was the dreaded two days and two nights on the 12-hour shift. The management side of the committee wanted to go DDHNN with a full day off in between. I remember this meeting. Mr. Head got up and wrote down on the board that in order for this shift to be allowed, we would have to work DDNN. I remember looking at Amanda in disbelief

There are many more issues that have arisen in the last three years and I could write 10 pages on each and every debate we had. I feel that this is a very important committee that affects each and every member working a variable hour schedule. It is a very time consuming committee as there are always issues going on at some institution across the country. Over the last three years, we won most of the battles that helped improve the schedules for our members. With that being said, many issues remain, such as self schedules and/or overlap.

I want to thank Amanda McQuaid for joining me on the National Scheduling Committee. I would also like to send a thank you out to Gilbert Soucy who continues to be a big help to us in the Québec region. And to each and every one of you that are involved at the institutional level, a big thank you for your cooperation and understanding of the process.

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It’s been a real pleasure to be Regional President over the last three years. We have had many ups and downs in the region but we have become a very solid Regional Executive and I am truly proud of the people sitting on it. Although we are very limited on what we deal with as far as managers, we continue to fight the fight that our members want us to. We continue to hope for a mentality change in the management side and hopefully we will see that in the next three years.

Finally, to the members of the National Executive Committee, thank you for the last three years. You are not only co-workers, but you all have become very good friends of mine. At times, we have spent more time together than I have spent with my family, but you have no choice and you have made that time away from home a lot more enjoyable. To Pierre Mallette, thank you for being such a good leader. The dedication and support that you have shown to the Atlantic region will not be forgotten. You will be missed and you will never be forgotten. To Pierre Dumont, thank you for your dedication over the last number of years. You will always be a friend of mine and I look forward to do a few bike runs together. I wish you both the best as you proceed towards retirement and I hope to be able to join you in three years. Even though we will miss a couple of big players, there is no doubt in my mind that we, the new National Executive Committee, will be just as tight and knowledgeable as we continue to take care of business over the next three years.

In closing, I have enjoyed the ups and downs of the last three years so much I am going to stick it out for another term, and can only set the expectations higher for us as a union.

I hope you all take some time to enjoy the Atlantic region! Thanks,

Doug White