Open Letter to Stephen Owen and Reg Alcock

December 15, 2003  

Dear Minister Owen and Treasury Board President Alcock:

              I am writing to both of you since it remains unclear as to who within government is responsible for the public service. If I understand correctly, the Minister of Public Works and Government Services now has responsibility for “collective bargaining and other staff relations activities”, while the Treasury Board and thus its President remains the “employer” of federal public sector workers.

               It has been three days since you were sworn into the Cabinet, and since I wrote to you about the status of negotiations between the government of Canada and some 90,000 Public Service Alliance of Canada members employed directly by the government of Canada.

              Over the last three days, it has become clear that the reorganization of government and particularly the decision to amalgamate a number of government and agency operations into the Canada Border Services Agency is being implemented with undue haste, and in violation of the collective agreements of Agency employees who the PSAC is privileged to represent.

              We have been advised that the government, and at least two of its agencies, transmitted letters to workers late in the day on Friday, December 12, 2003 advising the said workers that they are transferred from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA) to the newly-created Canada Border Services Agency effective December 12, 2003.   These letters represent a violation of the collective agreements that the PSAC has with the CFIA and the CCRA.

              We are currently in the process of preparing the documents necessary to challenge your government's actions before the Public Service Staff Relations Board and, if necessary, the courts.

              Given the highly questionable legality of your government's actions, and the negative impact that they are having on the lives of literally thousands of your government's workforce, I am urgently requesting that you take a step back, suspend the transfers, and engage in a proper consultative process designed to protect the acquired rights of federal and agency workers during the reorganization of government services.

Sincerely,

Nycole Turmel
National President  

c.c.         CCRA and CFIA Ministers and officials
              Minister of Public Safety and Emergency preparedness
              and Alain Jolicoeur, President of the Canada Border Services                Agency, Rob Wright