Government Operations Committee on May 7th, 2013

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Peter Braid]

Thank you, Mr. Ravignat. You had slightly exceeded your time.

Our next questioner is Monsieur Gourde.

You have five minutes.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for being here this morning.

In its 2013-14 report on plans and priorities, the Public Service Labour Relations Board mentioned that it is putting in place a case management system to facilitate the analysis, follow-up and monitoring of its workload, as well as to improve efficiency and strengthen its activities. How many cases has the board received? How many decisions have been made on those cases in each of the past three years? Is the board in a position to foresee its future workload?

[David Olsen]

In the appendix, sir—

[A voice]

No, they don't have that.

[David Olsen]

Oh, they don't have the appendix.

Forgive me, I didn't realize you didn't have the appendices to the presentation.

I can give you the number of files we have resolved over the past three years: for 2010-11, 1,368; for 2011-12, 1,587; and for 2012-13, 2,101.

You will appreciate that we receive the cases; we have no control over the volume of cases or references that are being made. We have no way of realistically predicting what volume we will receive. All I can tell you is that we're doing our very best to adapt our processes so that we can resolve the most cases in the most efficient way.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Are the chronic problems that arise in some federal organizations or that affect a larger number of employees addressed more quickly than other cases that are considered less problematic?

[David Olsen]

We do have a set of priorities that we apply to our caseload. Clearly, board work, traditional labour board work, gets a priority, especially unfair labour practices complaints, or bad faith bargaining complaints that interfere with collective bargaining. Often in the grievance adjudication process we give priority to discharge cases. Clearly, if people have lost their jobs and are grieving, we give priority to them.

As I say, we are striving to work with all of the workplace parties. I mentioned the one with Corrections Canada, with UCCO-SACC, to deal with their issues.

We attempt to establish priorities with each of the bargaining agents and the employers to resolve the cases that they think are most important.

Thank you.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Among the grievances you receive, some are no doubt recurrent, and some are probably similar. Do you give indications or take preventative measures so that fewer of those grievances come back or to address them more quickly? Surely, there are cases that are similar and that are repetitive. You might have 150 similar grievance cases year after year. What do you do in those situations?

[David Olsen]

I think the best example is the special task force that we set up with Corrections and its trade union, where we attempt to identify similar cases raising similar issues. What we will do is get the parties to agree on a representative case, and then an adjudicator will decide that case on its merits. We will attempt, then, to apply that rationale to all of the similar cases.

I hope that's responsive to your question, sir.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Peter Braid]

Thank you very much.

I want to try to stay as tight to our allotted five minutes for questions and answers as possible, given that we're somewhat tight for time this morning, and I want to make sure that we get through our first full round of questioning.

Our next questioner is Madam Duncan.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

If I can be really concise, I'm sharing my time with my colleague, Monsieur Blanchette.

I'm very interested in these streamlined responses that you have introduced. I have two questions.

First, were the public service and the House of Commons employees consulted on these new streamlining processes, and have they been introduced by regulation? I know it's under section 237 of the Public Service Labour Relations Act. If you're going to establish rules of procedure for grievances, and you seem to be introducing all kinds of new procedures, including by teleprompter, have the employees been consulted on these new streamlined approaches? Do you have consistent rules set up for these processes by regulation?

[David Olsen]

We meet with our clients on a regular basis. It's called a client consultation committee. Present are the federal employers and the federal unions. This is the forum in which we have had these discussions about using expedited processes and so on. It's with the trade unions and the employers. It's not with the employees per se, but with their representatives.

The other major initiative, as I say, is with Corrections Canada and UCCO-SACC—which is the affected trade union. I'm not aware that we've introduced any of these processes at the House of Commons under that legislation.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

So you advise that you have done consultation, but I'm not getting a clear yes or no that the unions have consented to using written submissions, group cases, hearings by teleconference.

[David Olsen]

They are participating in that process with us.

In terms of the use of teleconferencing, I think that's an appropriate technology that the adjudicators can use. They're masters of their own procedure.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I won't belabour it any more.

[David Olsen]

Okay.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I'm not getting a yes or no.

Can you tell the committee what percentage of your workload this past year—I notice there's been an increase, which my colleague asked about, in a number of cases—has been related to the layoffs and notices?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Peter Braid]

I would like to quickly intervene and clarify that any of the representatives at the table may respond.

[David Olsen]

What I can say is that most of those types of cases go to the Public Service Staffing Tribunal, not to our board. We're not monitoring it. There may be a few policy issues that have come before our board, but they're very few.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Okay.

I'll go to my colleague, Monsieur Blanchette.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will try to be brief.

Mr. Olsen, you said that the number of cases is increasing and that they are becoming more complex, but that the budget remains the same. Beyond new technologies, what are you doing to manage these complex cases with the same budget?

[David Olsen]

I would observe that the board, for the first time in some time, has a full complement of adjudicators. A number of positions have been vacant over the past few years. With the exception of the chair's position, which is vacant, we now have a full complement of adjudicators. I would have to credit the executive director and his staff for reducing the budget in other areas so that we could compensate that full staff of adjudicators.

[Guy Lalonde]

Our strategy has been, wherever possible, to find ways to be efficient and reinvest in the organization in order to address priority issues like the increase in the caseload.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Peter Braid]

Thank you for those precise answers.

Our next questioner is Ms. Kelly Block.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to welcome our guests here this morning. I appreciate the opening remarks you made, as well as looking through your report on plans and priorities.

I have two questions. My first is to ask if you would be able to describe for us how your organization differs from the litigation management unit under the Treasury Board Secretariat.