Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee, I would like to thank you for this opportunity to speak to you today on behalf of the Correctional Service of Canada, CSC, regarding your study on Bill C-62.
My name is Kristel Henderson. I am Acting Director of Corporate Labour Relations at CSC. I am hopeful that I can provide the committee information on our workforce at CSC and our labour relations regime as it currently stands today, in order to provide some further context for your consideration of Bill C-62.
I will begin by providing an overview of the work that we do. CSC is responsible for administering sentences of two years or more in institutions of various security levels, and supervising offenders under conditional release.
On a typical day, CSC manages approximately 15,000 offenders within our 43 institutions across Canada, in addition to more than 8,500 offenders under supervision in the community.
As one of the largest departments in the public service, the Correctional Service of Canada employs approximately 18,000 staff members from across the country. Our organization's workforce includes correctional officers, parole officers, program delivery officers, health professionals, electricians, food services staff, and staff providing corporate and administrative functions at the local, regional, and national levels. Our employees work within institutions, parole offices, and administrative or headquarters areas in all 10 provinces and three territories. While some work mostly regular day jobs, others work shifts that entail long hours. Two occupational groups, for the most part exclusive to CSC, represent over half of all staff employed in operational units.
The correctional officer group, or CX group comprises 41.8% of staff while another 14.1% of staff are in the welfare programs, or WP category. This group includes parole and program officers who work in CSC institutions and in the community. The remainder of CSC's workforce reflects the variety of other skills required to operate institutions and community offices such as health professionals or corporate and administrative staff.
All staff work together to ensure that institutions operate in a secure and safe way and that offenders are effectively supervised on release, with specialized initiatives and approaches for indigenous offenders, offenders with mental health needs, and women offenders.
Our workforce and workplace directly impact the success of our operations and how we fulfil our mandate. Without a strong and professional workforce, and without a workplace conducive to its development and well-being, we would not be able to get these jobs done.
As this committee is aware, Bill C-62 would restore the public service labour relations regime that existed prior to the coming into force of certain budget implementation acts. These include those related to essential services in the resolution of collective bargaining disputes, along with the rights of bargaining agents to negotiate terms and conditions of employment related to sick leave and disability matters.
The provisions of the proposed bill support the return to the former negotiation approach to determining an organization's essential services profile. In that regard, CSC has always been committed to establishing a listing of essential positions, which promotes a profile that balances opportunities for active union involvement and manageable operational risk, and that is based on sustainable rationales.
Most positions located within our institutions and community offices continue to meet the definition of essential service in that they provide a service that is or will be at any time necessary for the safety or security of the public or a segment of the public. As a result, a re-examination of the proposed profile, where safety and security contributions can be managed through alternative approaches in the event of a strike, will be required to determine where we may be able to assume any additional degree of operational risk management. The amendments to the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations Act, as introduced by former Bill C-4, removed the choice of dispute resolution method for the core public administration and made conciliation the primary mechanism, except in cases where 80% or more of the positions in a bargaining unit are designated by the employer as essential.
Historically the dispute resolution method selected by bargaining agents active within CSC has been conciliation even when 100% of the positions within the bargaining unit have been deemed essential. It is expected that, should Bill C-62 come into force, bargaining agents would revert to their historical dispute resolution method. In addition, Bill C-62 also proposes to repeal a section of former Bill C-59, the implementing legislation of budget 2015.
Division 20 of part three of Bill C-59 authorized the Treasury Board to establish and modify terms and conditions of employment related to the sick leave and disability regime of employees, notwithstanding the provisions of the FPSLRA, but outside of the collective bargaining process. Those provisions came into force upon royal assent, although to date, they have not been implemented by the Treasury Board.
If enacted, Bill C-62 would allow consideration of the terms and conditions of employment related to the sick leave of CSC employees to be dealt with as part of the collective bargaining process.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today, and I welcome your questions.
Thank you.