Nova Scotia region begins talks on WFA/ETA

With a Labour Market Development Agreement in place between the governments of Nova Scotia and Canada, the union is turning its attention to the upcoming Employee Transfer Agreement (ETA). A first meeting between the employer and the union took place on July 14 with a second slated to follow on July 25. Throughout the ETA process, affected members are invited to participate by sending their questions and suggestions to the union.

The ETA between Canada and Nova Scotia is a critical document that will spell out the conditions under which CEIU members move to the provincial public service. The ETA will be taken up via a union-management Work Force Adjustment (WFA) committee co-chaired by Theresa MacInnis, CEIU National Vice-President and Derek Gee, Executive Head, Service Management for the Nova Scotia-P.E.I. Region.

The committees July 14 meeting dealt with preliminary issues including terms of reference and relevant time-frames before receiving presentations on pension and collective agreement issues from PSAC staff officers James Infantino and Howie West. (As previously announced on the CEIU website, the union has prepared documents comparing provincial and federal pension schemes and collective agreements to assist affected members in the ETA process.)

National Vice-President Theresa MacInnis was pleased with the initial meeting, saying “The committee is off to a good start and we’re getting great technical support from James Infantino and Howie West. She went on to emphasize the need for affected members to send their concerns to the union, “We want an ETA process that involves our members and an ETA deal that works for them. For this to happen, they need to continue to provide us their questions and suggestions.” Members are asked to contact the union through Nova Scotia Alternate National Vice-President Brock Smith.

The ETA in Nova Scotia must be tailored to the needs of members in the region, and the union will be borrowing from the best practices of earlier ETA exercises in Ontario and British Columbia. “We have solid resources available to us in the CEIU and PSAC, and we will make good use of them” said MacInnis, “and we have a national president who is standing firmly behind us as we move through the ETA process. All of this makes me optimistic about the final outcome.”