Jan. 29, 2001

Don’t miss your local demand-setting meeting
Mark your calendar!

OPSEU members in locals across the Ontario Public Service are filling out bargaining surveys this month in preparation for local demand-setting meetings in February. Mark you calendar! Your local demand-setting meeting is a crucial step on the road to our next OPS collective agreement.

Under OPSEU bargaining procedures, each local must hold a demand-setting meeting where members can discuss and decide what our most important goals will be when bargaining starts later this year. If you haven’t seen a notice up in your workplace, contact your steward or local president for details.

Results of the bargaining surveys will be presented and discussed at the local meetings. If you have not already filled out a survey, make sure you do - and make sure your co-workers do, too.

Ask your steward or local president, or download the “OPS Bargaining Issues Questionnaire” from our web site at http://www.opseu.org/ops/bargaining/surveyindex.htm. It still has to be returned to your steward or local president to be included in the local demand report.

Our OPS collective agreement expires Dec. 31, 2001. What the next one looks like is up to you.

What has your boss got in mind?

While you’re thinking about your future in the OPS, so is your boss. And the higher up you go, the bigger the plans.

In meetings with OPSEU members on your Central Employee Relations Committee, top OPS managers have made no bones about the direction they want to go. They want to:

1. Continue to merge government functions. They are creating seven clusters, with coordinated planning starting 2001-2002. “Super-Ministries” are the flavour of the day. They are stripping support functions from individual ministries and putting them into centralized services within Management Board Secretariat. The Shared Services Bureau, the Workplace Information Network, and Information and Information Technology Clusters are examples of this.
2. Manage you more aggressively with more intense attendance monitoring programs and a renewed commitment to “Performance Management.”
3. Destroy classified jobs and exploit other workers through more use of temporary agencies, fee-for-service contracts, and “workfare” placements. The exploitation of unclassified staff is set to continue if the government has its way.
4. Get out of business altogether. We’ve already seen privatization and downloading slice through the OPS, with a corresponding loss in service to the public. The Tories think it’s so successful they want to do more.

You don’t need to look far to see evidence of these and other initiatives. Look around your own workplace. Ask you manager: exactly what is the plan? How is it going to affect workers?

Keep these issues in mind when you are thinking about your next contract!

For more information on government plans for the OPS, check our web site at http://www.opseu.org/ops/cerc/cercoct282000.htm.

Produced by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, 100 Lesmill Road, Toronto M3B 3P8.
Web: www.opseu.org; e-mail: opseu@opseu.org.
Original authorized for distribution by Leah Casselman, president. 

OPS Bargaining 2001: Index

Ontario Public Service Employees Union, 100 Lesmill Rd. Toronto, ON M3B 3P8  (416) 443-8888  www.opseu.org