September 29, 2022
CATCA BULLETIN 2022-09
NATIONAL OFFICE
Your National Executive has had a very busy month. After concluding site visits at numerous places across the country, we were on the road again.
President, Nick von Schoenberg, was in New Brunswick to attend the Liberal Party caucus meeting in preparation for the upcoming session of Parliament. This included numerous meetings with ministers and MPs to raise CATCA concerns with government decision-makers and draw attention to the significant challenges we are facing in the workplace and as an ANS. Most notably, Nick met with the Transport, Labour, and Tourism Ministers and there are follow-up meetings planned.
That same week, EVP, Scott Loder, was in Washington to attend the ALPA Conference and raise our issues with people there. Discussions there with Transport Canada and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada on ways to improve aviation safety in our ANS will also be followed up on.
Meanwhile, several other members of the board, Chris Kenny, Andrew Worthington, and Jerry Brodt, attended CFS in Las Vegas. More on that is below.
This week, the CATCA executive was in Montreal for meetings with the IFATCA executive to explain our position regarding membership, discuss the next steps, and provide an opportunity for input by our long time IFATCA partners.
NEW SCHEDULING WORKGROUP
CATCA and Nav have finally managed to initiate a scheduling working group as per LOU 2019-05. The group is comprised of Benoit Vachon, Chris Kenny and Andrew Worthington for CATCA and Leanne Murphy, Robert Fleming, Luc Tremblay, Luanne Boszak and Samantha Robertson for NAV Canada. This work is long overdue, and we have made it clear that addressing scheduling is a priority for CATCA. The first meetings were held on August 25 and September 14. The workgroup aims to have weekly meetings so that recommendations or concepts can be proposed this Fall. The workgroup is not part of the collective bargaining but may inform that process. This work is long overdue and we are pressing to work quickly in order to produce some ideas.
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
Branch proposal meetings are complete. The initial meetings with the CATCA contract committee (Weeks of October 3, October 24, and November 28) in preparation for bargaining are next. In addition, background research and preparations are underway to support our team, including work on developing our position regarding an MOAA (Maintenance of Activities Agreement) with the employer. Five weeks of bargaining have been scheduled in the new year with the employer and an additional tentative week prior to contract expiry.
Historically, we usually go beyond the expiration of our contract in negotiations. Nevertheless, it is our desire to address our issues and achieve resolution and ratification in a reasonable timeframe.
Bargaining meetings with our members from Transport Canada have already occurred. We are waiting on dates to begin negotiations with the Treasury Board. Bargaining meetings with our members working for Serco in Goose Bay will also begin this week. The first meeting with the company in that negotiation is scheduled for the week of November 7.
FAM FLIGHTS
The resumption of the fam-flight program took place at CFS two weeks ago. It was a well-attended event with 12 CATCA members on an official fam, and those that went raved about the quality and professionalism of the conference. A big thanks to our NATCA friends for being gracious and generous hosts. The remainder of the fam-flight program is to resume in January 2023, and work is continuing to identify appropriate destinations.
GRIEVANCES
Numerous open grievance files are still being actively pursued with Nav, including grievances on the Nav National Leave policy and the ATCP reclassification. Both of these grievances are currently in arbitration. This, along with the discussions with Nav on implementing the Pay and Equity legislation have kept our legal team very busy.
Nevertheless, since the wait times on grievances have been unacceptable, your CATCA executive has been pressing hard to accelerate the process. We will allocate more resources as required to ensure the best and fastest resolutions for our members possible. We have also requested the inclusion of additional arbitrators on our list to help accelerate things. Two additional names have been proposed by CATCA and we are waiting on the company for approval.
CONVENTION RESOLUTIONS
Numerous resolutions emerged from the convention, including a referendum on our affiliation with Unifor, requesting funding for another RVP for the Prairie region, reworking our classification system, and posting an online digital seniority list on our CATCA website. CATCA has met with Unifor and discussed a tentative timeline and ideas about the process for a referendum. We aim for the referendum in the Spring of ’23 but are mindful of the potential conflict with the collective bargaining process. In any case, we have informed Unifor that it is our intention to complete this process expeditiously and discussions regarding how exactly to proceed are underway.
We have requested funding for another RVP and, after consideration, Nav has declined this request. This is extremely disappointing because we felt this position would have been highly beneficial to our members as well as to the company overall.
Nav has been advised that classification discussions are on our radar, and we expect some progress in this area soon. Andrew Worthington, RVP Pacific, has been charged with managing this file, and he is in the process of familiarizing himself with this complex material. The addition of our seniority list to our website should also be coming soon, as we are putting the finishing touches on that work.
On Behalf of the Executive Board;
Nick von Schoenberg Scott Loder
President Executive Vice President
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