PSAC loses bid to protect Senate jobs

Layoffs as result of contracting out not prohibited

The Public Service Alliance of Canada has lost a bid to protect the jobs of about 100 support staff at the Senate of Canada from the impact of contracting out.

Though the Senate has no plan to contract out work currently done by the workers, the union had sought to add a clause to a new collective agreement covering its operational group that would have prohibited layoffs as the result of the contracting out of a function.

Most of the employees perform maintenance functions, with others working in committee support, mail and printing services, installations, transport and trades.

But in an arbitral award dated Oct. 10, a three-member panel of the Public Service Labour Relations Board accepted employer arguments that it lacked the jurisdiction to include the union’s proposed clause in the collective agreement, which will run from Oct. 1, 2011 to Sept. 30, 2014.

The Senate workers are covered by the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act, which prohibits affected employees from striking.

Though the parties were able to agree on most of the terms of the new collective agreement, six items were referred to the arbitration board for settlement.

The board held a hearing on the matter in Ottawa on July 19.

In an interview Friday, Edith Bramwell, co-ordinator of the PSAC’s representation section, called the PSLRB decision “unfortunate.”

She said a similar contracting - clause appears in the existing collective agreements of a Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada bargaining unit and a small independent bargaining unit. “We see no reason why our members shouldn’t have the same treatment,” she said.

The inclusion of the contracting-out clause in the Senate agreement would have established a useful precedent, Bramwell said.

Such protections are necessary, she said, because the current Conservative government “seems to feel that public-sector cuts bring some sort of benefit.”

The union disagrees. “Contracting out is not the magic wand with respect to savings that (Prime Minister Stephen) Harper would like us all to believe. It tends to cost money,” Bramwell said.

When work done by public servants is contracted out to private firms, “voters lose control and oversight over that work,” she said. “And often the private firms can’t do it in a way that’s nearly as cost-effective.”

Bramwell said PSAC is looking at its legal options following the PSLRB decision. Meanwhile, it will continue to press for inclusion of the clause in bargaining for other collective agreements.