News - June 2008
The headlines for news items published during this month are listed immediately below. Click on the headline of your choice to see the entire text of the article.
SPECIAL: USGE 2008 Triennial National Convention Updates
‘Black Thursday’ for New Brunswick parole members
Our ‘virtual’ USGE Triennial National Convention – It’s the next best thing to being there!
CSC mental health symposium echoes USGE call for training and support for staff dealing with inmates and parolees
Good news as Chiefs of Administration Services’ pay equity complaint is finally settled
Postponed USGE-RCMP ‘visitations’ held in Yellowknife and Terrace
New Kamloops RCMP Local Executive
USGE welcomes appointment of Don Head as new Commissioner of Corrections
Corner Brook RCMP members lend support to negotiations team
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‘Black Thursday’ for New Brunswick parole members
June 19 was ‘Black Thursday’ in New Brunswick as members of USGE Local 60074 marked a full year since the expiry of the current collective agreement.
By wearing black to work, our parole community members showed their solidarity with the PSAC bargaining teams now in negotiations with Treasury Board. Stickers were distributed, along with pamphlets showing their distain for the ridiculous wage offer tabled by the employer’s negotiation team.
The photo above shows our members who work at the Saint John Parole Office and Parrtown Community Correctional Centre, both of which are housed in the same building.
The Local’s members at the Bathurst Parole Office also took part in the protest.
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Our ‘virtual’ USGE Triennial National Convention – It’s the next best thing to being there!
The USGE 14th Triennial National Convention kicks off early afternoon next Tuesday, June 24, in Edmonton, Alberta. Our Locals have each elected delegates to this, the most important event on our union calendar.
That doesn’t mean, however, that the rest of our members can’t follow Convention activities and decisions. We’ll be posting updates with photos and capsule comments once or twice a day, depending on whether Convention proceedings run a half- or full-day.
We’re aiming to post our Web reports over the noon-hour and at the end of the afternoon. Our first report will be available at the end of next Tuesday afternoon.
So, check them out and stay up-to-date as our National Convention unfolds!
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CSC mental health symposium echoes USGE call for training and support for staff dealing with inmates and parolees
The mental health of Canada’s inmate population has a very clear and direct impact on the physical safety and psychological stress of both institution-based and community-based USGE members working for Correctional Service of Canada.
So our Union was quick to take up the offer to attend a two-day CSC mental health symposium in late May. In fact, the USGE had the largest delegation of any of the unions with CSC membership.
The symposium, titled ‘Advancing Solutions to Offender Mental Health’, saw experts from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia address some 75 participants.
A number of the speakers spoke to the need to increase inmate accountability and the employment and employability of offenders – both issues which the USGE succeeded in having addressed prominently in last year’s report of the Independent Review Panel on CSC reform established by the Conservative government.
Many of the issues and concerns noted by the experts mirrored those identified and raised by our Union with the employer:
• Given the high incidence of mental illness among the incarcerated,
CSC needs to implement a consistent mental health strategy linked
to such community resources as hospitals, mental health
practitioners and health and housing authorities.
• There is a failure to put into practice policies and recommendations
decided on at higher organizational levels.
• Effective mental health screening programs within institutions,
linked to the to the development of treatment plans, are needed to
determine whether an offender need be referred to a practitioner.
• Many judges base their sentencing decisions on the mistaken belief
CSC has programs and staff in place to treat offenders with mental
illness.
• CSC pay scales make the recruitment and retention of good
psychologists and psychiatrists difficult.
• There is a need to challenge current practices, such as an
excessive reliance on segregation, and ‘think outside the box’.
• Parole Officers need both a lower caseload and training related to
supervising clients with mental health issues.
Correctional Service Canada should be commended for having sponsored this two-day event. However, training opportunities, or the lack of them, have been an ongoing irritant for USGE members at CSC.
The new Commissioner of Corrections will hopefully move to address the important issues raised by the USGE and echoed by the symposium speakers.
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Good news as Chiefs of Administration Services’ pay equity complaint is finally settled
It’s been a long road, but Chiefs of Administration at Correctional Service Canada Institutions across the country have finally seen their pay equity complaint settled.
The complaint was filed with the Canadian Human Rights Commission a number of years ago, after a classification grievance failed to deal with the wage discrepancies.
Individual CAS members involved in the complaint will be receiving official notification of the settlement particulars. However, under the terms of the Memorandum of Agreement reached between the employer and our bargaining agent, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, these details are confidential and may not be further disclosed.
Much credit for this outcome must go to our CAS members, who never wavered in their long fight for justice.
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Postponed USGE-RCMP ‘visitations’ held in Yellowknife and Terrace
Stops in Yellowknife and Terrace, B.C., unavoidably postponed during last year’s USGE-RCMP ‘visitations’, were held the first week in June.
Held every three years, these coast-to-coast sessions by USGE and management labour relations staff are a valuable opportunity for our RCMP and Canada Firearms members to come together to discuss workplace issues and air concerns in a less formal setting than official union-management consultation meetings.
However, the logistics of travelling these great distances, combined with availability and scheduling issues, sometimes mean that meetings have to be postponed.
The USGE committed to returning this spring to locations missed last year. Making good on that promise, successful meetings were held June 4 in Yellowknife and on June 5 in Terrace.
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New Kamloops RCMP Local Executive
USGE Local 20069, representing our RCMP members in the Kamloops District of interior British Columbia, elected a new executive at their June 6 Annual General Meeting.
Local President Pat Campbell was good enough to send the National Office a photo of the following newly-elected executive members (from left to right): Norma Guthrie - Vice-President/Treasurer (Kamloops District Office); Barbara Anne Clark - Shop Steward (Merritt Traffic Services); Pat Campbell - President (Kamloops District Office); and Marika Tasaka - Secretary (T'Kumlups Rural Detachment).
The last person in the photo is Phil Carrière, USGE Regional Vice-President for our RCMP members in B.C. and Yukon. Phil was on hand to swear-in the new executive.
Note that the executive members are wearing stickers supporting our PSAC bargaining teams in their current negotiations with Treasury Board.
Congratulations to each of these Local 20069 members on their successful election!
(We welcome the opportunity to publish photos of all USGE Local activities on our Web site. Just e-mail them to the National Office, along with all pertinent information, requesting they be sent to our Webmaster for posting.)
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USGE welcomes appointment of Don Head as new Commissioner of Corrections
The USGE has welcomed as “an extremely positive development” the appointment of Don Head as new CSC Commissioner of Corrections effective June 27. The announcement was made by the Prime Minister’s office on June 6.
Head, whose career in corrections spans three decades, has held the post of Senior Deputy Commissioner since March 2005. His appointment is the most important development within Correctional Service Canada since an Independent Review Panel, established by the Conservative government, called late last year for badly-needed reforms at CSC.
USGE National President John Edmunds wished current Commissioner of Corrections Keith Coulter a healthy and enjoyable retirement. Looking ahead, Edmunds noted that he and Head have a highly professional and productive rapport.
“Don has spent his working life inside the corrections system,” he noted. “He understands the need for action on the issues of concern to our CSC members: staffing, training, health and safety, proper classification of Institutions and tandem visits by parole officers to offenders’ residences.
“This appointment is more than a breath of fresh air. It opens the door to a real wind of change in the management and practices of the CSC. Should the new Commissioner move forward with reforms that meet the concerns of frontline CSC employees, he can count on the full support of the USGE.”
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Corner Brook RCMP members lend support to negotiations team
Our RCMP members on the other side of Newfoundland Island were also active in supporting our bargaining teams on last May 21’s Mobilization Day. The photo below shows our members of Local 90051 in Corner Brook.
That’s Local President Donna Davis at the right, beside a uniformed co-worker, then Secretary Patti Skinner, Steward Pat Pike and another co-worker.
Sisters Davis and Skinner can be seen discussing just how hard the negotiating teams have been working to secure a decent collective agreement for USGE members.
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