Strike

[brihard]

Can employees be declared essential retroactively once a strike begins?

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Can employees be declared essential retroactively once a strike begins?

If both sides agree I'm sure it can,....but to be honest, why would the Union go for it? The whole idea is pressure on the employer, articles like this are pressure.
I can only speak for my strikes, if management came down to the line and said "possible situation where someone might get hurt" then we became CO's again and fixed THAT problem only......and promptly left after making sure the "not quite scab" managers they brought in from other ministries got an earful, or two.

 

[Remius]

I imagine that some management dropped the ball at designating what and who was essential.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

I imagine that some management dropped the ball at designating what and who was essential.

It's possible the local Managers tried and got shot down, but the next phone call is to 'Joe's HVAC" and start working out another plan.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

I know what it is. I just would have the latitude of strikers much more tightly limited, and not have public employee unions at all.

And to be truthful, this is not the worst idea in the world, except say Unions are OK, right to strike not. The issue I have with strikes,[ probably repeated this dozens of times here over the years, sorry] in the public service is that service can't just move to Mexico.

When a factory walks out the employer loses money, the employee's lose money, and the axe over everyone's head is that the work could move somewhere else and both sides lose everything. It behooves both sides to make an amicable deal.

When a public service worker walks out they will lose money, but they are almost 100% sure that the job is still there afterwards, the employer saves money but loses no income, and the work is never going to be sent to the Chinese Govt to look after.

 

[Furniture]

Then you read it wrong lad.

Employer should have those folks, NO MATTER WHAT RANK, into rooms around the area with food and mileage......then [what I said} THE EMPLOYER can fix the inconvenience that THEY did not plan for.

Interesting, you use a word to belittle me, and then don't even have the common curtesy to quote me so I get notified. Ties in intentionally using inflammatory statements for a reaction.

As to the second line, that's not how the CAF works, and any civilian working alongside the CAF knows that. The people up the chain failed the troops, and will likely continue to fail them because there is a "work around". My point still stands, this doesn't just make the CAF look bad, it makes the people on strike look bad as well.

 

[brihard]

Interesting, you use a word to belittle me, and then don't even have the common curtesy to quote me so I get notified. Ties in intentionally using inflammatory statements for a reaction.

As to the second line, that's not how the CAF works, and any civilian working alongside the CAF knows that. The people up the chain failed the troops, and will likely continue to fail them because there is a "work around". My point still stands, this doesn't just make the CAF look bad, it makes the people on strike look bad as well.

Do we have any information that any CAF member (versus DND or public works PS) is involved in any place in the chain of command/management for that facility?

 

[Halifax Tar]

Do we have any information that any CAF member (versus DND or public works PS) is involved in any place in the chain of command/management for that facility?

I can't say for sure but I am pretty confident that the heating plants in Halifax/Dartmouth are all civilian, they may belong to a larger CAF unit; say RPOPS ?

I can't imagine its much different anywhere else.

@dapaterson care to correct me ?

 

[Halifax Tar]

Interesting, you use a word to belittle me, and then don't even have the common curtesy to quote me so I get notified. Ties in intentionally using inflammatory statements for a reaction.

As to the second line, that's not how the CAF works, and any civilian working alongside the CAF knows that. The people up the chain failed the troops, and will likely continue to fail them because there is a "work around". My point still stands, this doesn't just make the CAF look bad, it makes the people on strike look bad as well.

Stay strong brother.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Interesting

Labour board flags 'irregularities,' low turnout in public service strike vote

Labour board flags 'irregularities,' low turnout in public service strike vote

OTTAWA — The federal labour board has found low turnout and irregularities of “significant concern” with the strike vote that led more than 100,000 public servants to walk off the job this week. The board found in a decision released Thursday that the Public Service Alliance of Canada failed to...

halifax.citynews.ca

More on the link.

 

[brihard]

Interesting

Labour board flags 'irregularities,' low turnout in public service strike vote

Labour board flags 'irregularities,' low turnout in public service strike vote

OTTAWA — The federal labour board has found low turnout and irregularities of “significant concern” with the strike vote that led more than 100,000 public servants to walk off the job this week. The board found in a decision released Thursday that the Public Service Alliance of Canada failed to...

halifax.citynews.ca

More on the link.

That’s an enjoyable bit of peeling back the curtain. BZ to the complainant for at least calling them on it, notwithstanding the board’s decision.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Interesting

Labour board flags 'irregularities,' low turnout in public service strike vote

Labour board flags 'irregularities,' low turnout in public service strike vote

OTTAWA — The federal labour board has found low turnout and irregularities of “significant concern” with the strike vote that led more than 100,000 public servants to walk off the job this week. The board found in a decision released Thursday that the Public Service Alliance of Canada failed to...

halifax.citynews.ca

More on the link.

Very interesting actually......again I can only speak for OPSEU, but they were very strict about how workplace votes went. More like a federal election, no pamphlets, no encouragement, and roving inspectors to make sure things were done right.
If even half of these allegations that I got to see on another means have any merit, then there is very justifiable concerns.

If I was ruling, PSAC would need to do another vote.

 

[Brad Sallows]

say Unions are OK, right to strike not

That is a better statement of the position. I agree.

 

[Furniture]

Do we have any information that any CAF member (versus DND or public works PS) is involved in any place in the chain of command/management for that facility?

CAF members might not be involved in the the running of the facility, but there should have been CAF members that were informed about the impact the shutting the facility down would have. As an example, on an air base Wing Accommodations falls under the Deputy Wing Comander, so someone in that chain would have been notified about the impact on living conditions.

That said, notified doesn't mean that anyone took note, or cared. When I was in quarantine in barracks at 17 Wing back in '21 WAccn knew that water was being shut off to the building for 12 hours in the middle of the day, and they simply told people to fill their cups/canteens with water to get by. I knew the Accn manager personally, and had to email them directly to push for water to be supplied on each floor...

 

[Remius]

Interesting

Labour board flags 'irregularities,' low turnout in public service strike vote

Labour board flags 'irregularities,' low turnout in public service strike vote

OTTAWA — The federal labour board has found low turnout and irregularities of “significant concern” with the strike vote that led more than 100,000 public servants to walk off the job this week. The board found in a decision released Thursday that the Public Service Alliance of Canada failed to...

halifax.citynews.ca

More on the link.

not surprised to be honest. People have been asking what the voter turnout was like and what the results are and no answer given…

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Yes,...and what sucks is these same Union management sometime in the future will be crying about how secretive the Govt is being about an issue that concerns them.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Well this is a fuckup. A failure to declare some civilian employees essential means 700 troops living in shacks in Petawawa are without heat or hot water.

700 military members without heat or hot water at CFB Petawawa due to PSAC strike

About 700 military members living on base at CFB Petawawa are without heat or hot water after some federal workers were deemed non-essential during the Public Service Alliance of Canada strike.

beta.ctvnews.ca

I saw this in an email today. Something about unforeseen circumstances. I don't know how you can not realize not having X persons at work means a shutdown of your primary task.
If this wasn't on purpose then someone's pretty inexperienced.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Yes, leadership need to give their heads a shake. With the consolidation of all infra under the ADM IE organization, this should have the DM having a one sided discussion with ADM IE and ADM HR Civ about how this happened.

A lack of hot water is a health and safety issue.

This article has some details on other bases affected, include Halifax, Esquimalt and CFLRS in St. Jean.

Bad enough to be living on base, but basic is enough without hot water or heating, and it's still getting down to around freezing overnight. Not like they have the option to leave, and that's a big kitchen operation that isn't doing proper cleaning serving a lot of people every day.

Not the worst oversight on essential workers I've heard so far cough DND tug boat crews cough but pretty ridiculous.

Maybe common sense will prevail and the union will be flexible on allowing some additional essential workers to at least avoid the bad PR.

Heating and hot water on some military bases affected by public service strike

 

[Navy_Pete]

I can't say for sure but I am pretty confident that the heating plants in Halifax/Dartmouth are all civilian, they may belong to a larger CAF unit; say RPOPS ?

I can't imagine its much different anywhere else.

@dapaterson care to correct me ?

Pretty sure the steam plant operations falls under Base Ops (along with the other jetty services like power, water and compressed air), but general HVAC maintenance of buildings in general fall under RPOps. The workers are civilian but definitely military members up the chain.

But regardless of wheter the managers are military or civilian, a review was done with suggested essential workers. I know in our case all our suggestions were rejected, with even the option to recall them under exceptional circumstances not granted. It's black box process though, so no idea who made that decision.

Might be a weird cutoff like the steam plant fall and distribution falls under base ops, and the actual radiators in the buildings is RPOps. It's not even consistent for similar facilities on different bases, and some weird grey zones that get overlooked, but guessing someone is figuring out really hard who is responsible here in each case (and hoping it's not them).

 

[Spencer100]

Interesting

Labour board flags 'irregularities,' low turnout in public service strike vote

Labour board flags 'irregularities,' low turnout in public service strike vote

OTTAWA — The federal labour board has found low turnout and irregularities of “significant concern” with the strike vote that led more than 100,000 public servants to walk off the job this week. The board found in a decision released Thursday that the Public Service Alliance of Canada failed to...

halifax.citynews.ca

More on the link.

LOL Union votes! Maricopa County elections have more integrity.