Union to review CIC decision to block term staff from accumulating time toward indeterminate status

Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) has decided to suspend the right of term employees to accumulate time toward the three years of service needed to become indeterminate. The decision, which becomes effective October 3, 2011, will affect a total of 383 terms at CIC. CEIU will review the department’s rationale for the decision as it did when HRSD took the same step.

The issue turns on S. 7.2 of the Term Employment Policy, which reads:

In circumstances where a department/agency has given notice to the employer that, in reviewing its financial situation over the planning horizon (2-3 years), it can establish that the indeterminate appointment of term employees would result in workforce adjustment situations in the department overall, the department will advise affected employees employed on a term basis, in writing, that any further time spent in their current position will not count in the calculation of the cumulative working period for indeterminate appointment.

The union will write CIC for the rationale supporting their conclusion that workforce adjustment situations would develop if terms were made indeterminate. “We will make an thorough review of their response in order to determine our course of action,” said National President Jeannette Meunier-McKay.