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COLLECTIVE BARGAINING COMMITTEE'S MESSAGE ON ARBITRATION
December 2, 2002
As expressed by many members, the  arbitral award was disappointing due to its failure to address many of the issues that the Association put before the Board. The negotiating team, collective bargaining committee and APSFA staff put enormous effort into this round of bargaining and the arbitral brief. We had hoped that the Employer would recognize the professional contribution made by our membership, the requirement for higher education with the revised standard, the implementation and ongoing responsibilities brought on by modern comptrollership, implementation of FIS and the significant responsibility for the proper stewardship of public funds. The President's message provides an excellent summary of the situation.
Over the past three rounds, we have tried both negotiation and arbitration. As members can see, we put together an impressive arbitral brief which captured all of our concerns and needs. Despite these efforts, the results were disappointing. Therefore, to prepare for the next round, input from the membership is required and the following has or will be taking place:
Meetings will be held in major centres across the country (some have already taken place) attended by the President and the Treasurer to solicit membership input.
The President has met with the Secretary of the Treasury Board to discuss what should be done to improve the state of the Financial Management Community and requesting that more focus and funding be provided for community development and new professional development initiatives.
There are issues with classification and APSFA will take a major role to address this. Classification reform is on our agenda as there is an urgent need to review the Financial Management Group's Classification as our work is undervalued especially in the regions.
More focus must be placed on excellence of our Community and the value we provide to our Employer. We need to be more vocal about the value we add as financial managers as it is not well understood by senior management.
We need to have a progressive approach to collective bargaining, have ongoing communications with the membership and involve members in the process. To many, it is becoming increasingly obvious that arbitration is not the best solution to address our salary and professional demands. The pros and cons of arbitration need to be well understood so we can make an informed decision on this process.
Financial Officers are dedicated and loyal employees find it difficult to take job action during the collective bargaining process. However, for the benefit of the Community, we all have a role to play by ensuring that all articles of our collective agreement are respected by the Employer. For example, as per the collective agreement you have the right to claim overtime for overtime hours worked. A written record of the time needed to accomplish our duties is very important. The lack of accurate data on overtime seriously weakens our position at the table. We also encourage you to express your concerns about the financial community to your Directors and Director Generals of Finance as they are responsible for departmental financial management and realize how valuable financial officers are to their organizations; senior management provides input on the community and its concerns to the Treasury Board Secretariat.
We need your input and your help to improve the Financial Management Community. Please let us know what actions you want your fellow members and the Association to take. If you would like to receive future communications electronically, please provide the Association with your current email address if you have not already done so.
The Collective Bargaining Committee
- Andrew Francis
- Arjun Patil
- Don Caldwell
- Donna Gueret
- Gene Szabo
- Harry Barber
- John Leduc
- Jonathan Hood
- Lucia Stachurski
- Milt Isaacs
- Robert Loiselle
- Ross Christian
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