OTTAWA - "The agreement reached between the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) and Treasury Board enabling some 3,000 part-time workers in the Treasury Board Table 1 Program and Administration group to get the full $625.00 signing bonus, is a significant breakthrough for these members," says Nycole Turmel, PSAC national president.

"The majority of these part-time employees work substantially more hours than they are scheduled to work," adds Turmel. "For this reason it is more logical for Treasury Board to pay them the full signing bonus in lieu of manually calculating the pro-rated amounts for them," Turmel adds.

One of the areas of part-time work is the Call Centres operated by Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC). The PSAC will soon commence consultations with the employer on the level of part-time staffing at these Centres as agreed to in the current collective agreement.

The signing bonus was included in the Treasury Board Table 1 collective agreement which was reached in March and signed on May 16, 2000.

The Table 1 agreement covers PSAC members in the 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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For information: Nycole Turmel, PSAC national president (613) 560-4330

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