The arbitration panel that was struck to address disputed outstanding proposals in the new collective agreement for Statistics Survey Operations (SSO) members has rendered its binding decision. 

While the ruling does not meet all the demands of PSAC’s bargaining team for SSO members, it includes important gains that can be developed in future rounds of negotiations. These include:  

• An expanded definition of family to include more diverse family structures and arrangements, and match gains made at core public administration units in the last round;  

• The five-year agreement renewal includes the PSAC pattern set in the previous round: 2.8% (2018), 2.2% (2019) and 1.5% (2020). The two extra years (2021 and 2022) each include 1.5% as interim payments. If the Program and Administrative Services (PA) bargaining team is successful in negotiating better rates, SSO members will receive the difference for these two years; 

• A 5% market adjustment, which brings us closer to closing the wage gap for SSO members when compared to their counterparts in the core public administration. 

A final copy of the new collective agreement will be provided to SSO members once all updates have been integrated. As the new agreement does not expire until the end of 2023, we will have time to prepare more gains and improvements to put forward at the table at that time.