OTTAWA...Some 61,000 Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) members who work for the government of Canada will vote shortly on a tentative agreement reached on March 4 between the union and Treasury Board.

The one year agreement provides for a 2% wage increase, retroactive to June 21, 1999, a lump sum payment of $625, effective March 31, 2000 and various improvements to the collective agreement for these federal public service workers represented at Treasury Board Table 1.

According to Nycole Turmel, Alliance national executive vice-president and the officer responsible for these negotiations, this one year agreement will enable the federal public sector union members "to obtain a wage increase before the introduction of a new classification standard. Thus, our members will know exactly what their level is before the Universal Classification Standard applies to them. It will allow us to better know the impact of this standard and assess the advantages or disadvantages for our members."

If ratified by the members, the agreement will expire on June 20, 2000 and provide for other improvements, such as: an increase in the shift premium to $1.50 per hour; 4 weeks and 3 days of vacation leave after 17 years of service, 5 weeks and 3 days after 28 years; an increase in the weekend premium to $1.50 per hour; improvements to overtime and various leave provisions. Members in the AS-7, AS-8, PM-7 and IS-6 groups will see the increments of their performance pay increased to $750. In addition, the parties signed a letter of understanding on measures to undertake to prevent violence in the workplace.

The weekend negotiations were held at the request of Conciliation Officer Norman Bernstein. Negotiations had broken off on January 14, when Treasury Board refused to increase its offer with respect to the lump sum payment of $450 it had just tabled. The members of the PSAC negotiating team consulted with the members over the last few weeks in order to assess the opportunities during conciliation.

The agreement reached over the weekend for Table 1 is to be ratified over the next few weeks. The 9,000 Alliance members in the Technical services group (Table 3) and the 1,000 members in the Education and Library group (Table 5) have also reached tentative agreements in January. Table 1 members include Administrative Services (AS), Information Services (IS), Programme Administration (PM), Welfare Programmes (WP), Communications (CM), Data Processing (DA), Clerical and Regulatory (CR), Office Equipment (OE) and Secretarial, Stenographic and Typing (ST).

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Information : Nycole Turmel, national executive vice-president, PSAC, (613) 560-4310

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