Our PSAC-CIU Bargaining Team for the FB group met with Treasury Board/CBSA the week of February 24 to continue negotiations for a new collective agreement. 

Despite comments recently made by CBSA’s national president about the need for ‘culture change’ and ‘less jargon’, our bargaining team saw no evidence of this at the bargaining table.

According to the report recently issued by the Office of the Auditor General, harassment is a problem at CBSA. The agency has publicly acknowledged this to be true. While the union has made proposals to enhance the collective agreement and has suggested changes that would protect members against abuse of authority and harassment, management has to date opposed the union’s proposed changes. This is unacceptable.

The language used in the proposals that aim to protect CIU members against CBSA management in the context of discipline reflects what has been agreed to by other employers. 

Our fight regarding the wearing of name tags continues. We questioned the CBSA requirement that names must appear on the tags as opposed to a number. PSAC also brought this issue before the Occupational Health and Safety Tribunal last week.   

It’s time CBSA put its money where its mouth is on these issues and treated our members with respect.

CIU National President Jean-Pierre Fortin met with minister Bill Blair this week and raised (among other things) the need for 25-and-out pension reform for FBs and the timely resolution of outstanding grievances.  At the bargaining table, the FB team also spoke to the union’s proposals on these matters and to other issues such as medical certificate reimbursement, leave with income averaging and contracting out protections.  On the latter issue, the union has filed a bad faith bargaining charge with the Federal Public Service Labour Relations Board over the contracting out of certain BSO escort duties at Pearson Airport in Toronto. We will uphold our rights.

We return to the table the week of March 9. We’ll be sure to provide updates as things progress. To review the package of proposals that we tabled and those of the employer, go to: psacunion.ca/fb