Procedure and House Affairs committee  We have approximately 102 SCI employees.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If you would like my personal opinion—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  —I've never understood why they were closed, because everybody needs to eat. I never understood why we—I'm sorry, I don't mean to say this—only cater to the MPs for these things and why they shut down. Look at Christmas time; there are employees at all of the satellite sites on the Hill, employees who work at 131 or 181 Queen Street.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Do you mean the impacts of the election work-wise?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Basically, where you guys are sitting today, this is what my department does every day: we set this up for you guys.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  You're very welcome. In our department, we're mostly full-time employees, so we are very busy during elections. But if you're looking at the SCIs in some of these other departments that we talked about, the seasonal certified employees, you're correct that the work drops. The cafeterias are closed; the FPF, the facility the food comes from or the production facility, is shut down, and only minimum staff, probably, is working there, and maybe minimum staff in the kitchens or one or two cafeterias.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, that could possibly happen. As Jim said, if you're working later hours, it doesn't mean that the employees will be making more hours. When the House is sitting, this is when these employees work—and not just in food services; there are also employees in transportation. When the members are not here, the buses are not running, and these SCI employees are not at work.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Exactly. Another thing you have to understand about the SCI employees is that most of them, especially in food services, have two jobs. When the House is not here, they have a second job that they rely on outside, so that they can make their money. Some of them have houses and rent to pay or mortgages to pay.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, we do, actually, because we have individuals in our collective agreement who are called SCI, which means seasonal certified indeterminate employees. Now, these employees are persons when they start off, and must work at least 700 hours in a calendar year to achieve employee status and qualify as an SCI, and get all the benefits.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Good afternoon. We thank you for having us here. I'm the local president of the UNE-PSAC, representative of all UNE-PSAC members employed by the House of Commons and at parliamentary protective services, the PPS group, which includes approximately 450 employees in total. We represent House of Commons employees under four separate bargaining units: the operations sector, which includes material handling, maintenance and trades, transportation, messenger services, printing and mailing services, and food services; postal services; reporting and text processing; and the scanners department.