NRC has recently made several announcements regarding new initiatives, the Commitment to Excellence Program and the commencement of the Classification Review.  With respect to the Commitment to Excellence, both the RCEA and PIPS have had an opportunity to review and comment on the new program.   The final version incorporates several of our concerns and comments.  Commitment to Excellence reflects a new approach to performance planning and review, one that is based, at least in theory, on extensive communication between employee and supervisor.  It also provides significantly more training for supervisors.  These two new elements are, in our view, an improvement over the existing system.  We encourage all members to actively participate in the process.

NRC will be commencing its classification review in the next fiscal year. Over the past 2 years, the RCEA has provided input to NRC on problems with the current classification systems. As well, we identified the order in which we believe the current systems must be reviewed.  NRC has accepted our priority list and this is reflected in its decision to first review the AS/AD classifications, followed by the TO/OP.  NRC is still determining how it will undertake the review and what, if any, new systems it will implement.  We anticipate that the RCEA will have a significant role in this process.  To this end, we have engaged the services of an expert consultant to spearhead the RCEA’s involvement.  We anticipate that we will need to recruit many members to work on this project.  Our goal throughout, will be to ensure that all members are properly classified and that no members suffer any loss in whatever conversion takes place.

Notice to bargain has now been served for the AD, AS and PG groups.  Bargaining preparations are underway for the TO group.  The first meeting of the TO bargaining committee is scheduled for March 9.  It will certainly be a challenging round and we will have to work very hard to ensure that existing benefits are not taken away.  Members are encouraged to check out the following link in order to better understand the severance pay issue that we will be dealing with in this round of bargaining. http://www.pipsc.ca/portal/page/portal/website/memberservices/representation/bargaining/action/Examples%20of%20the%20tentative%20deal%20between%20TB%20and%20PSAC%20if%20applie