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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                       March 14, 2002

OTTAWA - After seeing 45,000 positions eliminated as a result of the job cuts of the 90's, federal public service workers are now feeling the impact of these massive cuts. Faced with ever increasing tasks and fewer resources, these workers have to deal with high stress levels which undermine their health and safety and impacts on their family life.

In an effort to get a clear picture of how this situation affects its 150,000 members, the vast majority of whom work in the federal public service, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) will be bringing together some 300 delegates to a health and safety conference. The conference will be held at the Château Frontenac in Quebec City, from March 14 to 17 and is an opportunity to share experiences and find solutions to the health and safety problems affecting all workers.

Under the theme¸ "Prevention: Our Future", participants in the PSAC National Health and Safety Conference will discuss issues such as violence in the workplace, work reorganization and workload, health and safety committees and political action as it pertains to health and safety. Participants will be encouraged to produce material to be used as guidelines for PSAC members. The Quebec conference will also promote the development of regional strategies.

A survey conducted in 1999 by the Treasury Board of Canada showed that 49% of public service employees indicated that their workload is unreasonable, while half of the employees surveyed said that the quality of their work suffers because they are required to do the same amount of work with fewer resources. "These results, consistent with other independent studies, are very high and they reflect obvious problems," said Tony White, PSAC Regional Executive Vice-President, Atlantic, and chairperson of the PSAC National Health and Safety Committee. "By promoting discussion within our membership on such crucial issues, we ensure that employers are aware of the problems and forced to address them. We want to ensure that workers work in an environment where they can reach their full professional potential, without being stressed out and overworked. Employers stand to benefit from this, since healthy employees are essential to more efficient organizations."

Speakers at the Quebec conference will include Charlie Richardson, consultant on work reorganization and professor at Massachusetts University, who will speak on workload; Linda Rae Murray, from the Woodlawn Center in Chicago, who will address prevention issues; and Michel Vézina, from the Université du Québec, who will deal with violence in the workplace. Nycole Turmel, PSAC National President, Henri Massé, President of the Quebec Federation of Labour, as well as Jérôme Turcq and Tony White, PSAC Regional Executive Vice-Presidents for Quebec and the Atlantic respectively, will also address the conference.

Members of the press wishing to attend the conference or to conduct interviews should contact the PSAC Communications Section to make arrangements. The conference detailed agenda as well as any additional information on the conference and items to be discussed are also available on the PSAC Website.

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For information :

Tony White, PSAC REVP - Atlantic - (902) 445-0925
Pierre Lebel, Communications Officer, PSAC - (613) 560-5482

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