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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                 March 21, 2002

OTTAWA - In a ground-breaking decision, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) has been certified as the bargaining agent for approximately 40 employees from five schools on the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario.

"For several years, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) has hired native language teachers, teaching and education assistants, tutor/escorts and administrative assistants to work in the Six Nations schools, but has refused to grant them the same rights as others doing similar work," explains PSAC National President Nycole Turmel. "The Deputy Chairperson of the Public Service Staff Relations Board has determined that these employees have been treated in a discriminatory manner."

In 1999, the PSAC applied to the Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) for certification to represent these workers. The CIRB found that they were not employees of the Six Nations Band Council and rejected the application. However, the CIRB did not rule on the status of INAC as the employer.

For this reason, PSAC made another application, this time to the Public Service Staff Relations Board (PSSRB). During the hearing, INAC argued that the workers were not employed by the department since they had never been appointed to a position in accordance with the Public Service Employment Act (PSEA). The PSAC, on the other hand, maintained that the department had held itself out to these employees as their employer by signing their contracts, assessing their performance and by paying them for their work.

"Deputy Chairperson Marguerite-Marie Galipeau has found that the fact that these employees had not been appointed in their positions under the PSEA is a technical irregularity and that the department has benefited from the services rendered by these employees without properly recognizing their role or contribution with respect to the education of First Nations children," says Turmel.

In her decision, Galipeau deplored the years of inaction on the part of the department. She found it "particularly offensive that, on the one hand, these persons are not deemed worthy of being considered employees of the Public Service but on the other hand, they are kept employed through a "device" and the Department continues to fulfill its legal obligations in matters of education. "By depriving native language teachers of the same labour relations status as their English language counterparts, they are given second class status," Galipeau concluded.

"It is time that the department recognized the value of the work performed by these employees," according to Turmel. "We have known for a very long time that these workers were doing work similar to other employees of the department and that it was a question of discrimination against the native language teachers. Now, these workers are members of the PSAC and the employer has to extend the same rights and benefits to them as it does all other federal public sector workers."

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For information:

Nycole Turmel, PSAC National President - 560-4330
Debbie Broad, Organizing Programme Officer - 232-2369 or 560-4250

15-210302