Mr. Sean Casey
Hon. Wayne Easter
Hon. Lawrence MacAulay
Mr. Robert Morrissey
75 Fitzroy St
Charlottetown, PE
C1A 1R6
December 19, 2018
Dan Aiken & Debi Buell
Public Service Alliance of Canada
119 Kent St #510
Charlottetown, PE
C1A 1N3
Dear Sirs,
We write to you today on behalf of the Area Council for the Public Service Alliance of Canada. Several Components of PSAC are now engaged in collective bargaining with representative bodies of the Government of Canada. It was with great surprise and disappointment that we learned that representatives of the government showed up on numerous occasions with barely anything concrete to propose at the bargaining table. The wage proposals which have been offered by your government are nothing short of insulting. PSAC president Chris Aylward was absolutely correct when he described your government’s proposals as “outrageous.”
PSAC and the hard-working public servants whom the union represents rightly feel betrayed by your government’s failure to come forward with meaningful, respectful proposals. For years we were promised by Liberal representatives such as yourselves that defeating the Harper government would usher in a new era of respect and appreciation for public servants. For three years we have continued to report for duty despite not being paid, not being paid correctly, or finding ourselves victimized by cruel and mean-spirited repayment schedules for those who were overpaid.
Some PSAC Components have heard proposals from your government which are tantamount to a wage freeze with delayed cost-of-living increases well-below inflation. Other Components sit across the bargaining table from government representatives who don’t have a mandate to respond to the union’s fair and reasonable proposals. In recent months your government has shown disrespect to our friends and partners in the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW). In a shocking betrayal, your government used the power of parliament to attack unionized employees and undermine their right to engage in a lawful strike to achieve a fair collective agreement. This attack upon CUPW is indicative of a government whose memory is too short and whose promises too flimsy. As we now know, your attack upon CUPW is only one action in a broader assault on Canada’s public sector unions.
The PSAC Area Council urges you as parliamentarians and representatives of this government to immediately and without equivocation deliver a message to your government’s negotiators: Your outrageous proposals are an insult which will not soon be forgotten by PSAC and the tens of thousands of families whom have endured years of unwarranted stress from the malignant Phoenix pay system. We implore you to consider the natural and increasingly likely outcome of your government’s current negotiation approach.
We urge you to listen to our proposals and to recognize the valuable public services we administer on behalf of Canadians. We implore you to consider the social and economic role of federal public servants in Prince Edward Island. We call upon your government to immediately change course and seek fair and honourable collective agreements with federal public sector employees.
With respect,
Dan Aiken Debi Buell
President, PSAC Area Council Vice President, PSAC Area Council
cc.: Colleen Coffey, Regional Executive Vice-President, PSAC, Atlantic Region
Carl Pursey, President, Prince Edward Island Federation of Labour
Despite all the magic of social media, letters still pack a serious punch. A letter to the editor, to an MP, to your municipal councilor can make important inroads. PSAC members know more than almost anyone about the public services we provide, and we are best equipped to speak up and write up when these services are under attack.