Feb. 1, 2007

Local 232 
General Membership Meeting

Tuesday Feb. 13, 2007 - 12:00 pm

1 Stone Road Complex, Guelph

Tribunal Boardroom 1st Floor (behind the Security Desk)

Agenda: Election of Delegates and Alternates to the Regional Meeting (Mar 24)
         and Convention (Apr 19 to 23)

Light Lunch Provided

January 15, 2007

Successor rights back in effect for Crown employees

After a 10-year fight and last-year’s province-wide “same rights” campaign, OPSEU members in the OPS have finally won back successor rights for Crown employees.

“This is a big victory for the thousands of OPSEU members who signed ‘same rights’ postcards, distributed flyers, buttons and mugs at work, and lobbied their MPPs,” said Eric Morin, OPSEU co-chair of the Central Enforcement and Renewal Committee.

The result is stronger protection for members whose jobs are transferred out of the OPS to another employer. Successor rights ensure that members can move with their work – and take their collective agreement, seniority, pay and benefits and their union with them. These rights were stripped from Crown employees by the Harris Tories in 1995.

For more details -

Dec. 15, 2006

Casselman to step down as OPSEU President in 2007

Leah Casselman has decided not to seek re-election as president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union next year.

Casselman, 52, has piloted the 115,000-member union for more than 11 years through the most turbulent period of public-sector downsizing and reorganization in Ontario history. She will remain as president until the union elects a new president at its annual Convention in April.

For more details -

Dec. 1, 2006

New MERCs must accept the “challenge to lead,” CERC chair says

OPSEU members elected to sit on Ministry Enforcement and Renewal Committees must accept the “challenge to lead,” Eric Morin says.

The OPSEU chair of the Central Enforcement and Renewal Committee made the comments last weekend at the OPS Divisional meetings in Toronto.

“We can influence the direction in the OPS over the next two years and beyond,” Morin told delegates. “We can be the masters of our own destiny. But this can only be accomplished if we accept the challenge and seize control to lead.”

Held every two years, “the Divisionals” offer union training to over 500 OPSEU activists in the OPS. Delegates get a chance to meet with co-workers from across the province.

The election of MERC members is a key purpose of the Divisionals.

Most MERCs have three or four members, depending on the ministry. They typically meet four times a year with employer representatives from their ministry.

MERCs are responsible for monitoring changes in their ministries that impact on OPSEU members and working with the employer to solve workplace problems as they arise.

Enforcing the collective agreement and defending the work members do are also key to the work of MERC members.

The new MERCs elected on Saturday need to be more pro-active in dealing with the employer, Morin said.

“We spend far too much time responding to their unilateral disclosures [about workplace changes] when we should be in bilateral talks or bargaining to reduce the need for disclosures,” he said. “We spend too much time dealing with process and procedure while important issues lay in waiting.

“We need to support our demands at the MERC tables with campaigns, political action, and creative bargaining,” Morin said. He pointed to the “Same rights” campaign to restore successor rights to Crown employees and the “Save the MNR” campaign to restore funding to the Ministry of Natural Resources as two areas where member action was making a difference.

OPSEU president Leah Casselman agreed.

“The MNR campaign is having an impact. It is gaining support. Member morale is rising. Even managers are onside with the campaign,” she said.

She urged the leadership in other ministries to fight budget cuts in the same way.

“Cuts are happening in all ministries,” Casselman said. “If we had the same kind of campaign in every ministry of the OPS, in an election year, this government would be tripping over itself trying to figure out how to get us to stop. Without the pressure of our opposition, though, the Liberals are just going to keep doing what they’re doing.”

For a complete listing of the OPSEU Ministry Enforcement and Renewal Committees -

Nov 16, 2006

Save the MNR Campaign

When you think of Ontario, what comes to mind?

For many of us, Ontario means the Canadian Shield. It means forests and lakes. It means fish and wildlife. It means NATURE.

The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources is responsible for managing and protecting the natural world in Ontario on behalf of all its citizens. Yet in the last 15 years, the MNR has seen this crucial work slashed.

The Ontario Public Service Employees Union represents over 4,300 MNR employees. We are devoted to restoring and rebuilding the MNR so it can once again do the job that Ontarians want and expect it to do. With a provincial budget on the horizon and a provincial election set for Oct. 4, 2007, now is the time.

The MNR budget

The overall budget of the Ministry in 2006-07 is 24 per cent lower, in real terms, than it was in 1992-93. The budget for the actual work of the Ministry (not counting transfers to industry and other outside organizations) is 31 per cent lower. In 2006-07, the MNR’s budget not counting transfers fell by more than 5 per cent in real terms. This latest cut has had severe effects in many areas.

Conservation officers

Fewer Conservation Officers

In 1992 there were 257 uniformed Conservation Officers on the job in the field in Ontario. As of July 2006, there were 173 uniformed COs in the field and another 26 COs focused on special investigations, for a total of 199 officers. There are now 84 fewer COs doing basic enforcement in the field (down 31 per cent since 1992) and 58 fewer officers involved in enforcement overall (down 23 per cent).

 

For more information on the Save the MNR Campaign -

News Release Day of Action -

Nov. 3, 2006

Liberals table bill on successor rights, “whistle-blower” protection for Crown employees

Three years after promising to restore successor rights to Crown employees, the McGuinty Liberals have finally tabled a bill in the Legislature to do it.

Gerry Phillips, Minister of Government Services, rose in the Legislature yesterday to introduce the Public Service of Ontario Statute Law Amendment Act. If passed (and there is no reason to think it won’t be) the new law will give Crown employees the same rights already enjoyed by other Ontario workers.

So-called “successor rights” give unionized workers whose work is sold or transferred to a new employer the legal right to move with their jobs with their union and their collective agreement intact.

For more information

Oct. 12, 2006

Mediator’s report on classification grievances expected by year end Committee tackles 6,000 grievances

A mediator’s report on the classification grievances of OPSEU members in the OPS should be ready by the end of 2006, union members on the Joint System Subcommittee (JSSC) say.

In the last round of contract talks, the union and the employer agreed to give a mediator one year to work with the parties to help clear up close to 6,000 classification grievances, most of them from several years ago. The JSSC got to work on the backlog last November.

For more information

Sept. 6, 2006

Local 232 
General Membership Meeting

Thurs. Sept. 21, 2006 - 5:30 pm

Appetizers 5:00 pm

OPSEU (meeting room) 291 Woodlawn Rd Guelph

Agenda: Election of Delegates and Alternates to the OPS Divisionals Nov 25/26

Aug. 25, 2006

Members, managers will test new job evaluation system

200 OPSEU members to take part

For the last six months, a joint OPSEU/employer committee has been working away on a new job evaluation system for OPSEU jobs in the OPS. The committee is now asking for help to test its draft plan.

For more information

Aug. 15, 2006

Rates rise for meals and mileage

OPSEU members who travel as part of their jobs in the Ontario Public Service are getting an increase in the rates they receive for meals and vehicle expenses.

After months of lobbying by OPSEU members at the ministry level and centrally, the employer has agreed to increase rates as follows:

• Effective Aug. 14, 2006, OPSEU members will get up to 40 cents a kilometre in southern Ontario and up to 41 cents a kilometre in the north when they use their own vehicle for business purposes. The rate is reduced on a sliding scale as the number of kilometres driven increases (see chart).
  
  New kilometric rates Effective
  Aug. 14, 2006
   

Kilometres driven	Southern Ont.	Northern Ont.
0-4,000 km	40 cents/km	41 cents/km
4,001-10,700 km	35 cents/km	36 cents/km
10,701-24,000 km	29 cents/km	30 cents/km
Over 24,000 km	24 cents/km	25 cents/km

• Effective Sept. 1, 2006, meals will be reimbursed at these rates:
  
  $8.75 for breakfast;
  $11.25 for lunch; and
  $20.00 for dinner.

Members must submit receipts to be reimbursed for meals. To view the full text of the agreement between Management Board of Cabinet and OPSEU, visit - file link.
 

Aug. 3, 2006
 

Grievance award “huge victory” for court reporters
A Grievance Settlement Board (GSB) award issued recently on the work of court reporters is being hailed as a huge victory for both court reporters and OPSEU.

The issue was the preparation and certification of court transcripts. Since the 1980s, this work was excluded from the duties of court reporters. As a result, the transcript work was contracted out to court reporters for a fee. This, said Attorney General MERC chair Julie Weber, meant that a sizable portion of a court reporter’s job was never recognized as part of their “official” work.

For more information

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