FPSLREB Decisions

AWARD

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research was created under the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Act that came into force on June 7, 2000.    It is a departmental corporation and a separate employer listed in Schedule II of the Financial Administration Act, and  Part II of Schedule I of the Public Service Staff Relations Act (PSSRA) provides the framework for collective bargaining between CIHR and its employees.  As an arms length agency of Government, it is responsible to Parliament through the Minister of Health.

Although the CIHR employs only a total of approximately three hundred persons, it is the major federal agency responsible for shaping health research in Canada and it supports more than nine thousand researchers and researchers in training.   The Employer consists of thirteen “virtual” institutes that bring together researchers, health professionals and policy-makers from voluntary organizations, provincial government agencies, international research organizations and industry and patient groups from across the country with a shared interest in improving the health of Canadians.  

The work of the employer embraces the four pillars of health research: biomedical; clinical; research respecting health systems and services; and the social, cultural and environmental factors that affect the health of populations.   A major challenge for the CIHR is to forge relationships across disciplines to stimulate integrative, multifaceted research agendas that respond to society’s health priorities while adhering to the highest ethical standards.

There is only one bargaining unit for the Employer and that is the Public Service Alliance of Canada, whose members number less than thirty persons.   The fact that a significantly larger number of employees are unrepresented is an unusual dynamic within the framework of federal agencies and the federal public service.

The issues contained in the Board’s terms of reference were numerous and remained so at the hearing.   The issues can generally be categorized into 1) changes to the language and terms of the collective agreement; 2) economic increases; and 3) conversion rates.

Many of the proposed changes to the language and terms of the collective agreement the parties were unable to resolve during the course of negotiations and a conciliation process arose because of the introduction by the Employer of a universal classification system for all of its employees and the Employer’s desire to minimize and streamline existing differences between the represented and non represented groups.  

The Board has also noted that when the parties were involved in the negotiation process and the conciliation, no record of economic increases had been established in the federal public sector.

With the Board’s assistance the parties managed to resolve all but the issue that was keeping them apart, that is the rates of pay and more specifically the conversion rates.

Accordingly, pursuant to our terms of reference and bearing in mind the Board’s legislative duties and responsibilities, the Board makes the following determinations:

Effective February 1, 2004	-	Economic increase of 0.417% on existing rates              (2.5% prorated for 2 months)
Effective April 1, 2004	-	Conversion of the employees to the following grid:
		ANNUAL RATES OF PAY ON CONVERSION
		C1-ASC-01  29573  30149  30738  31659
		CI-ASC-02   30889  31575  32266  33235
		CI-ASC-03   35141  36039  36939  38046
		CI-ASC-04   38944  39949  40950  42179
		CI-ASC-05   42615  43764  44904  46251
Effective April 1, 2004	-	Economic increase of 2.5%
Effective April 1, 2005	-	Economic increase of 2.4%
Effective April 1,2006	-	Economic increase of 2.5%

The expiration date of the collective agreement will be March 31, 2007

DATED at Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, this 14 th day of April, 2005.

”Francine Chad Smith, Q.C.”
FOR THE BOARD