No. 16

March 24, 1998

COURT RULING IN BELL CANADA CASE WON'T AFFECT PSAC COMPLAINT

A recent negative ruling by Federal Court Trial Division Justice Francis Muldoon on a pay equity complaint involving the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP) and Bell Canada will NOT have an impact on the Tribunal which has heard the PSAC's federal complaint.

Justice Muldoon's decision follows an appeal by Bell Canada to stop a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal from hearing CEP's pay equity complaint against Bell. The Bell Canada case has its own peculiarities and many of the grounds on which Justice Muldoon based his decision are specific to the CEP complaint against Bell and have no relation to our complaint against the federal government.

Some years ago, the federal government unsuccessfully tried something similar. In 1991 in the Federal Court, Treasury Board challenged the jurisdiction of the Tribunal set up to hear the PSAC's federal complaint and requested the hearings be stopped. They lost their first challenge and lost again when they appealed the decision. In addition, the government was not successful in the court challenges it attempted during the Tribunal hearings. The government can't go back into the past and try again. We've been there and done that. Now it's up to the Tribunal to rule.

Marcel Massé, who has no connection with the Bell case, has used this opportunity to offer comments which are rooted in scare tactics, not based on reality. There is no connection between the government's offer and this decision. Nor is there any connection between the methodology referred to in the Justice Muldoon decision and any methodology put forward either by the PSAC or the Treasury Board. Massé is doing nothing more than once again trying to use the media to negotiate and to bully our members into accepting an inferior offer.

TRIBUNAL STILL WORKING ON ITS DECISION

As we mentioned in Bulletin #14 back in February, the PSAC was advised that the Tribunal which had heard the PSAC's pay equity complaint on behalf of its Treasury Board members would not issue its ruling before March 31, 1998. We hope to have more precise information in the near future.

On March 19, National President Daryl Bean wrote to the President of the Human Rights Tribunal, the person who oversees the establishment of the individual Tribunals which hear complaints under the Canadian Human Rights Act. He reminded her that PSAC members have been waiting for over 13 years for justice to be done and commented on the financial hardship this injustice has meant to our current and former members. He asked for her cooperation in doing everything she could to assist the Tribunal hearing our complaint for our federal members in arriving at a decision in the most expeditious manner possible. According to Brother Bean, "all are watching for news of the Tribunal decision with an unbelievably high degree of attention."

In his letter, Brother Bean acknowledged the complexity of this case. The Tribunal sat through 295 days of hearings and received thousands of pages of written documentation between 1991 and 1997.

BEAN TO CHRETIEN: GET SOME CHEQUES MOVING!

It may sound like an old song, but it's one that's worth replaying. At a time when the government is handing out money to deputy ministers making six-figure salaries, is recommending pay increases for judges and is contemplating increases for Members of Parliament, surely it's time to start delivering some pay equity money.

In a letter also dated March 19, President Bean called on Prime Minister Jean Chretien to show some respect and concern for those at the lower end of the pay scales. Judges and deputy ministers may have had their wages frozen, but so have all federal public services workers. And, unlike senior executives who have received significant bonuses as well as increases, and judges who received their annual indexing increase last year, PSAC members are still waiting.

"You must take into consideration the fact that the vast majority of the workers affected earn less than $30,000 annually, in contrast with public service managers earning in excess of $100,000 who were granted wage increases.", Brother Bean said in his letter. "Your responsibility as Prime Minister is to uphold the law and ensure that all workers are treated with dignity and respect. The very least you can do is pay down payments based on the amounts Treasury Board admits are now owed."

WHAT KIND OF LEADERSHIP IS THIS?

That's the title of a full-page ad which appeared in the March 16^th edition of the Ottawa newspaper The Hill Times. The paper, which focuses on political activity on and off Parliament Hill, is widely read by MPs and their staff, lobbyists and government bureaucrats. This issue was published in time to be available to the several thousand delegates attending the federal Liberal Party convention held in Ottawa March 20-22.

Among other things, the ad slams the government for fighting pay equity over the years. "Mr. Massé- the public service is a shambles because of inequities in the system that you, as a leader, have failed to address except to suit your own needs. If leadership is a quality that is supposed to inspire trust, confidence and faith, why are your employees so demoralized?"