FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MARCH 29, 2000
Customs and Revenue Agency double standard: What’s good for the executives isn’t for the employees OTTAWA….Members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) employed by the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA) are bringing a message into CCRA offices across Canada today: CCRA’s "final" offer is peanuts, compared to the salaries being paid to CCRA management.
"CCRA Commissioner Rob Wright earns the princely sum of $203,500, while CCRA Deputy Commissioner Alain Jolicoeur earns $158,000, at the maximum of their salary scales," according to Serge Charette, national president of the Customs Excise Union Douanes Accise. "And both can receive thousands of dollars more per year under the government’s executive level performance pay system."
"Compare their salaries to the amounts being offered in negotiations," says Union of Taxation Employees National President Betty Bannon. "The CCRA’s "final" offer would see a CR-3 salary increase by a measly $639.94 this year, while a Storesperson in Ontario would receive even less - $584.36. These increases don’t even come close to the amounts of the bonuses CCRA management will be in line to receive."
"While CCRA executives are receiving compensation that more closely mirrors the private sector, the Agency’s offer to the majority of its employees is something right out of Treasury Board," says Charette. "In fact, their so-called final offer would leave CCRA PSAC members worse off than when they were employed by the federal government."
"It’s a double standard," according to Bannon. "CCRA wants to be known as the ‘Employer of Choice’. So far, that’s a joke. CCRA is an employer of choice only for the chosen few - those at the senior executive level. Even with CCRA’s proposed increase, the average salary for PSAC members at the Agency would be $38,672.28 - less than one-fifth of the Commissioner’s rate, not including any bonuses.
"We want the Agency to bargain with a mandate to deal with the issues our members have said are important - not the issues Treasury Board thinks are important", say Bannon and Charette.
PSAC negotiations on behalf of its 30,000 members with CCRA broke off on March 24th. The union will be announcing the actions it intends to take next later this week.
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