bout de papier, Vol. 27, No. 2 (2013) — Spring 2013 // Printemps 2013, p. 4
In mid-March, the 1,350 members of the Foreign Service occupational group voted 82% in favour of job action to bolster our position at the bargaining table. Nearly 75% of members cast a ballot. This follows a year and a half of contract talks plagued by impasse and delay. By the time negotiations broke off in January 2013, the Treasury Board’s pay position had not moved one inch since the launch of negotiations in August 2011.
For any public service union, such a turnout and mandate would be remarkable. Under current fiscal and political circumstances — and given our group’s vocation to analyze key players and motivations in any negotiation, assess levers and options, and pursue an achievable course of action — this mandate is nothing short of overwhelming.
Le service extérieur est en situation de grève légale depuis le 2 avril et, le même jour, nous avons amorcé des mesures de pression au travail, d’abord sous la forme de « piquets d’information électroniques — des réponses courriel automatiques avisant les contacts de la rupture des négociations collectives et offrant des excuses pour tout retard dans la prestation de services. La grève du zèle a suivi une semaine plus tard, les agents FS refusant de travailler des heures supplémentaires, de vérifier leurs BlackBerry en dehors des heures d’affaires, de remplacer leurs gestionnaires ou d’exercer des tâches qui ne figurent pas dans leurs descriptions de travail.
De nouvelles mesures viendront s’ajouter au cours des prochaines semaines, avec des conséquences de plus en plus graves — jusqu’au refus de services inclusivement, s’il le faut — si le Conseil du Trésor ne revient pas à la table pour une franche discussion sur nos revendications raisonnables auxquelles il fait la sourde oreille depuis longtemps.
The key issue at stake is simple: equal pay for equal work. Foreign Service officers are subjected to a series of unfair and demoralizing wage gaps at all four levels of our pay scale compared to other federal professionals performing similar or identical work. The latter include economists, commerce officers, policy analysts, and lawyers. Often these employees work right
next to us in neighbouring cubicles. Gaps range from a minimum of $3,000 at the
FS-03 level all the way up to $14,000 per year for FS-02s. We were prevented from addressing them in the last round of bargaining in 2009 when the Government circumvented collective bargaining and imposed wages through legislation.
The FS group is simply looking to catch up to what these workers have been granted in their own contract negotiations with Treasury Board. While some of these gaps are recent, others have persisted for eight years and long predate not only current fiscal circumstances but even the current Government. The result is that, over the last few years, diplomats are cumulatively out of pocket thousands — and in some cases, tens of thousands — of dollars compared to their professional colleagues.
Parallèlement, ces autres travailleurs et travailleuses n’ont pas à relever les mêmes défis que nous. Nos familles doivent régulièrement déménager, nos enfants doivent constamment changer d’écoles, nos conjoints et conjointes doivent quitter leur emploi, nous risquons notre sécurité et notre santé dans des environnements dangereux et nous ratons un nombre incalculable d’anniversaires de naissance et autres moments précieux avec notre famille et nos amis pendant que nous vivons, des mois et des années durant, dans des zones de guerre et de catastrophe.
Foreign Service officers recognize that in these tough economic times, everyone must do their part. Diplomats are no exception. But we have done our part. We have accepted the Government’s two key demands: wage increases of 1.5% per year (well below average national wage growth and inflation) and the elimination of severance pay on retirement and resignation (in effect a 2% annual pay cut).
In exchange, we have simply asked that the maximum pay at each level of the FS group be lifted one increment in the third and final year of the contract — except at the FS-02 level, where the gap is so large ($14,000) that it would require three additional increments, one in each year of the contract. The total bill for these adjustments would be less than 2.5% of the total FS payroll by the third and most expensive year.
I sometimes hear that job action is unbecoming of a diplomat — that we are dedicated professionals who are here to get the job done, regardless of the hardship endured. We do this out of a sense of calling, not for the money. Well, PAFSO has learned through the years that this principled but passive approach simply makes us a doormat for cost containment. This happened in the 1990s, when diplomats became the worst-paid professionals in the public service. And we are on a slippery slope seeing this again.
En recourant a des moyens de pression au travail, nous ne tentons pas d’embarrasser le gouvernement ou de lancer des campagnes publiques contre le Conseil des ministres. Nous avons simplement pour objectif d’amener le Conseil du Trésor a reconnaitre la valeur réelle du travail de haute qualité que nous accomplissons, souvent dans des circonstances difficiles, pour atteindre les priorités internationales du gouvernement. Et nous voulons qu’il convienne qu’en toute justice — valeur canadienne fondamentale que nos membres défendent chaque jour — notre rémunération doit être au moins égale à celle des fonctionnaires qui exercent les mêmes tâches à Ottawa.
After eight years of seeing the can kicked down the road by our employer, the Foreign Service has declared resoundingly that the time has come to insist on a fair deal. Canada’s face and frontline abroad deserves nothing less.
Tim Edwards was elected President of PAFSO in October 2011.
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Originally published in / Publié à l’origine dans bout de papier, Vol. 27, No. 2 (2013) — Spring 2013 // Printemps 2013, p. 4. Read the rest of this issue / Lire le reste de ce numéro →
