Federal Public Service Compensation & Benefits

[PuckChaser]

You mean "years" right?

Can only prove the last year. We just haven't seen the paperwork from the other years yet.

 

[kev994]

I can't wait until the strike rolls around and all the newly appointed "essential employees" call in sick.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

I can't wait until the strike rolls around and all the newly appointed "essential employees" call in sick.

Must be careful with that,....it can be ruled as an illegal job action.

 

[kev994]

There's a bug going around. And besides, everyone needs to use their accumulated sick leave before they lose it.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I have to apologize; I honestly didn't intend to derail the thread, and my rant may well belong elsewhere.  The attack (and it's nothing less than that) on the public service is, for me, the last straw.  I defended the CPC before friends when it was almost impossible to do so.  Whether scandal A by one party is monetarily bigger or smaller than scandal B by another party is, in my eyes, irrelevant.  It's a lack of morals and responsibility.  Attacking the PS when you need to deflect attention away from something the politicians have done wrong is offensive to me.

Someone asked if I lived in Ontario; yes, outside Ottawa.  My disgust with politicians doesn't end at just the federal level; the provincial and local governments are equally as inept.  Our electricity rates have skyrocketed so much, and are expected to climb so much, that the public is simply stunned beyond being able to express outrage anymore. 

Getting back on topic:  If the government thinks that the sick leave program is being abused, then the means exist under the current construct to deal with abusers.  Poisoning the work environment with broad, thinly veiled accusations that the PS are a bunch of malingerers and frauds isn't the way to do business, I don't care who you are.

The problem, for the PS, broadly, is that it isn't just the CPC that thinks "that the PS are a bunch of malingerers and frauds;" that view is held by a significant huber of Canadians, likely even a majority of Canadians, i.e. the 20% who always vote Conservative, the next 15% who often vote Conservative and 20% more, above that who almost never vote Conservative but who share the CPC's views on the PS. That's why the Liberals will not be any help. The NDP are the unions' friends, in fact the NDP is the political voice of the PS unions, shouting: "we want more, More, MORE ... even if the value of what we do is less than clear."

I used to work hand in glove with a load of excellent, hard working, dedicated public servants ... most in the ENG and EX classifications. Many, I dare say all, could have earned more in the private sector and many people went back and forth between the private and public sectors, always saying that they got paid more for doing less in the private sector but the work in the public sector was more professionally satisfying. Amongst the more senior folks, pretty much everyone intended to do their last five working years in the private sector, to earn a good, big, solid lump of cash before retirement ... many did just that. Not surprisingly, to me, anyway, about as many went into (university) teaching or "think tank" work, both lower paid than even the federal public service but both immensely satisfying to many people.

I know there are a lot of good, even great people in the PS, I know many, possibly even most public servants are neither malingerers nor frauds ... but some are, and no one can deny that. And that "some," be they few are many, are just what the CPC needs in 2014 and 2015.

 

[George Wallace]

This "Slash and Burn" philosophy towards the PS has had a negative effect as well.  Where once you had several PS unionized people doing a job maintaining corporate knowledge and continuity, you now have one PS employee and twenty temporary 'contractors'.  Corporate knowledge is being restricted to fewer and fewer people to provide that continuity and corporate knowledge necessary that the Government doesn't have to reinvent the wheel every time a new project is implemented. 

 

[OldSolduer]

There's a bug going around. And besides, everyone needs to use their accumulated sick leave before they lose it.

My employer will demand a sick note, so that needs to be considered.

IMO using sick time "before they lose it" is immoral and unethical. You are stealing from your employer and the employer is the people.

 

[Edward Campbell]

This "Slash and Burn" philosophy towards the PS has had a negative effect as well.  Where once you had several PS unionized people doing a job maintaining corporate knowledge and continuity, you now have one PS employee and twenty temporary 'contractors'.  Corporate knowledge is being restricted to fewer and fewer people to provide that continuity and corporate knowledge necessary that the Government doesn't have to reinvent the wheel every time a new project is implemented.

But often, far too often, when the question is: "How do we do things better?" The "corporate knowledge" has only one answer: "We've always done it this way."

When I took my last job (after retiring from the CF) my Board of Directors/Executive Committee, my new employers, knew what it wanted us, the whole agency, to do ... our AIM was clear and correct. The Board also understood that our existing structure and methods of work had, pretty much, reached their peak in efficiency and effectiveness but they were inadequate. My job was to come in and change the organization and its culture so that we could accomplish the aim without increasing our costs. It was a relatively simple operation, but it was painful ... hard to accomplish because, eventually, I had to replace a lot of good, loyal, hard working people with new people who could and would do new things in new ways. Our own "corporate knowledge" actually worked against us. We needed to reinvent the wheel ... and, sometimes, more often than we may think, so do governments.

 

[George Wallace]

But often, far too often, when the question is: "How do we do things better?" The "corporate knowledge" has only one answer: "We've always done it this way."

When I took my last job (after retiring from the CF) my Board of Directors/Executive Committee, my new employers, knew what it wanted us, the whole agency, to do ... our AIM was clear and correct. The Board also understood that our existing structure and methods of work had, pretty much, reached their peak in efficiency and effectiveness but they were inadequate. My job was to come in and change the organization and its culture so that we could accomplish the aim without increasing our costs. It was a relatively simple operation, but it was painful ... hard to accomplish because, eventually, I had to replace a lot of good, loyal, hard working people with new people who could and would do new things in new ways. Our own "corporate knowledge" actually worked against us. We needed to reinvent the wheel ... and, sometimes, more often than we may think, so do governments.

There are Pros and Cons to it of course.  Change may be stifled or slow in coming, but the operations continue.  With temporary 'contractors' there is no continuity.  Often there is no record kept of what they have done to achieve the goal of the project they were hired to work on.  It is a philosophy where someone is hired to work on a project and on completion of their term they simply 'throw the keys' to someone else and let them figure out what was done.  If a problem or glitch arises, who knows how to fix it or find the cause? 



 

 

[McG]

Benefits won’t be lost, Clement tells public servants
Kathryn May, OTTAWA CITIZEN
26 January 2014

OTTAWA — Treasury Board President Tony Clement said his plan for a new short-term disability scheme for Canada’s public servants won’t claw back benefits but rather replace them with an improved system that will ensure those who fall ill get the time and care needed to get better and back to work.

Clement weighed in with his position as federal unions signed a historic pledge to reject any clawbacks of existing sick leave and disability benefits as the two sides gear up for a watershed round of collective bargaining.

“Our government intends to introduce short- and long-term disability plans that will help public servants get healthy and get back to work. We are committed to providing public servants with the best care possible,” Clement said in an email.

The pledge marks the first time in nearly 50 years that unions agreed to present a common bargaining strategy when each begins talks with government as their contracts expire over the next year. All but one of the 17 unions has signed the pledge. The holdout, the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers that represents 7,500 prison guards, is still consulting its members.

“Let’s hope the minister is not being misleading. We are open to discussing positive changes but we are not interested in making any concessions,” said Chris Aylward, vice-president of the giant Public Service Alliance of Canada.

The much-anticipated negotiations will be closely watched. It parallels the run-up to the 2015 election and the Conservatives would like to have a deal when they hit the campaign trail that will show they are good economic managers who reined in overpaid and malingering bureaucrats.

Clearly, the union leaders have their backs against the wall. They’re walking into this round of bargaining with a new set of rules, legislated by Parliament last month, that diminished unions’ bargaining clout and significantly strengthened the hand of the government.

The big issue is accumulated sick leave and disability, a benefit public servants have enjoyed with few changes since collective bargaining was introduced in 1967.

Unions argue the passing of the new legislation was the final galvanizing push for them to work together and refuse clawbacks.

With the reforms, government can decide which unions can strike or go to arbitration to resolve any contract disputes. They also give the government the exclusive right to decide which workers are essential and can’t strike. The changes also reduce the independence of arbitrators and ensure they base their awards on the government’s budgetary priorities.

The unions will still negotiate separately and make decisions in all other areas of bargaining independently in the interests of their members, but they pledged to negotiate with a “common” strategy on sick leave. They vowed not to consider concessions unless given something of similar value to employees in return. They also want the government to present the business case defending a new short-term disability plan and why the existing sick leave and disability regime can’t be fixed.


Under traditional rules of bargaining, the unions would have been in a relatively strong bargaining position. Sick leave is a big concession and unions would want something in return to give it up. The new rules, however, effectively jettison that give-and-take.

The first contracts to expire are those for the chargehands working at National Defence’s dockyards in Halifax and federal lawyers working at the Justice department. Both unions have filed formal notice to bargain, which set the wheels in motion for the controversial round to begin.

Treasury Board has also appointed a new senior bureaucrat to oversee negotiations, Manon Brassard, will take over as the assistant deputy minister of compensation and labour relations on Feb. 3.

Last week, some 200 delegates from Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada met in Ottawa to develop its bargaining strategy. PSAC is holding a similar meeting in February.

The unions represent a broad range of workers from clerks and electricians to scientists and diplomats., They often have similar positions on bargaining issues, but have never taken such a public and formalized stand with a signed “solidarity statement,” said Daniel Boulet of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

“I don’t ever recall a situation when the government politicized bargaining to this extent, which is what drove the unions to get together on a common front. I can’t think of another government so willing to throw their employees under the bus.”

Many unions felt blindsided in the last round of bargaining when they lost severance pay. In that case, the government struck a deal with PSAC to give up severance for a 0.75-per-cent raise and, as the largest union, the deal set the precedent for the rest.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/entertainment/Benefits+lost+Clement+tells+public+servants/9432555/story.html

This is definitely an improved message from the government, and I agree with it.  The current sick leave system provides an excess that can be abused by a few late in their careers while it fails to provide adequately for those new in the PS.  If the unions don’t want to engage in positive discussion on  a new system, they will be throwing new employees under the bus for the sake of the few with seniority who would abuse the system.  To reciprocate, the government will need to ensure it lives up to the promises in the article and that the new system is not a Trojan horse reduction.

 

[Nemo888]

Hmmmm, exactly the same messaging they used when they introduced the New Veterans Charter. The NVC did save a lot of taxpayer money.

 

[Occam]

To reciprocate, the government will need to ensure it lives up to the promises in the article and that the new system is not a Trojan horse reduction.

I agree.  Unfortunately, I trust this government about as far as I could throw them - for the reason that Nemo888 mentioned. 

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Having seen up front and personal their planning and attention to detail, I don't really consider them competent enough to carry out such a task without creating all sort of other problems.

 

[The Bread Guy]

From a new report out of the Parliamentary Budget Office:

- The average sick leave of 18.26 days reported by Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) includes time missed due to workplace injuries and unpaid sick leave.  The average number of paid sick days taken by public servants in the core public administration (CPA) was reported at 11.52 days per year in 2011-2012.

- Consistent with the methodology used by the Government of Canada, the PBO assumed the CPA rate of sick leave for calculating the salary paid for sick leave for the federal public service (FPS).

- PBO estimates the salary paid for sick days in the FPS at $871 million in 2011-2012, approximately 68% higher than the estimate for 2001-2002 after accounting for inflationary factors. Growth in the size of the FPS, wages and the number of paid sick days all materially contributed to the increase in salary dollars paid for time lost.

- Data obtained from individual CPA departments demonstrates significant variance between organizations in the use of sick leave. The PBO will undertake further analysis to determine the materiality of these differences.

- The sick leave data published by the TBS reflects data obtained from the CPA. According to Statistics Canada data, CPA includes approximately 76% of FPS employees, and 41% of the federal workforce.

From CTV.ca:

....  Parliamentary Budget Officer Jean-Denis Frechette said on CTV’s Power Play Thursday that a Statistics Canada report found little difference when comparing public-sector sick leave to similar demographics within the private sector.

“You have more unions, you have more women as well, and you have an older population (in the public sector),” Frechette said. “For those three factors, (Statistics Canada) found that the difference is only 1.1 days of sick leave.” ....

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Not suprising,........a few years ago the Ontario Govt. put out a report about how much sick time Correctional Officers were using.
They used it during negotiations,..............we all made good bonus coin when we easily met all their [they thought] 'unattainable' sick numbers during the next 3 years.

 

[McG]

Again, the government seems to be saying the right things and pointing to the real problem: lack of coverage at the front end of a career and exploitable waste at the back end.

Sick leave policy for public servants outdated: Treasury Board President
Aly Thomson
The Ottawa Citizen
08 February 2014

Treasury Board Minister Tony Clement says changes he has in mind for changing sick leave policy for public servants would tackle shortcomings with the outdated current setup such as addressing long term health issues like mental illness.

Clement said he's proposing a format that would include five to seven sick days a year, a short term disability leave of a week to six months and long term leave for more than six months. The changes would also eliminate bankable sick days, he said.

Speaking at a provincial Progressive Conservative conference in Nova Scotia, Clement said the proposed changes are fair and would do more to address things like mental illness than the current system does.

"(The) 40-year-old sick leave system we have now really does not appropriately highlight some of the other factors that are now acknowledged, like mental health issues... whereas 40 years ago they might have been stigmatized," said Clement in an interview, adding that mental illness currently accounts for nearly half of all sick leave.

Clement said the average public servant retires with 111 banked sick days. But some younger or new public employees do not have enough accumulated sick days to deal with a catastrophic illness, he said.

"We have employees who run out of their sick days and then have to go on (employment insurance) to help pay the bills," Clement told the crowd of Tories at a Halifax hotel. "I don't think that's a good system for them, in fact, I think it's an immoral system."

The changes will be discussed over the next year as part of negotiations with 17 public sector unions, said Clement.

One of those unions, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, accused Clement of having plans to contract out sick leave policy.

"When the Minister refers to a short-term disability plan, he means contracting out the management of the sick leave system to a third-party administrator; where caseloads are managed for profit, pushing employees back to work as quickly as possible," said PSAC president Robyn Benson in an email Saturday.

Earlier this week, the parliamentary budget office said public servants take an average of 11.5 paid sick days a year, compared with 18 days reported by Clement.

The report said Clement's number includes time missed due to workplace injuries and unpaid sick leave.

It estimated the salary paid for sick days amounted to $871 million in 2011-12, about 68 per cent higher than the estimate 10 years prior, which includes inflation.

But the report said growth in the size of the public service, wages and number of paid sick days available all contributed to the doubling of sick-leave costs in the last decade and the use of sick leave between departments varies significantly.

The governing Conservatives, who are tabling a budget next week, say they are taking aim at the public service in their efforts to balance the books in 2015.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/Clement+proposes+changes+sick+leave+public+sector/9486121/story.html

 

[Edward Campbell]

This is, as such reports so often are, a case of different organizations (or even individuals) using different accounting standards to measure similar ~ but not exactly the same ~ things.

    Has the use (but only maybe abuse) of 'sick leave,' generally, increased in the civil service over the past decades? Yes!

    Do federal civil servants take more sick leave than private sector employees, in general? Yes!

    Do civil servants take a lot more sick leave then private sector employees?  :dunno: (You cannot manage what you cannot measure.)

    Is 'civil service bashing' a good election tactic? YES!!! (Canadians, in general, believe that civil servants are overpaid and under worked.)

         

          It doesn't matter what public sector works really do; this is what the
          general public thinks they do.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Other than clerical staff the PS does not generally pay the going rate, but did offer stability, pensions in lieu of. We are having a hellish time attracting ticketed Inspectors and the current discussions are scuttling those recruiting efforts, because why would anyone join an organization that your own bosses are targeting for less money?

 

[Brad Sallows]

>because why would anyone join an organization that your own bosses are targeting for less money?

Obsession with cost reduction doesn't seem to have much adverse effect on hiring in my general area of work.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

It is a factor for us and I am hearing one of the points that comes up when people attempt to recruit industry specialist.