Click here for a PDF version of LockTalk #13.
While the Employer may be listening, they’re not hearing our message. They are oblivious to the environment inside our institutions and offices.
During our last bargaining dates in May, we provided the Employer with a wealth of information outlining the critical issues impacting Correctional workplaces across the province, as well as well-researched and comprehensive solutions, and a clear message: do better.
They failed. They came back to the table with nothing but concessions.
On June 23 and 24, your Bargaining Team used time at the table to drive the issues home.
We educated the Employer on the reality facing our Probation Officers, whose workload has increased by 20%, while staffing hasn’t kept up.
We highlighted the growing pay disparities across many classifications, where members trail far behind their counterparts in similar roles.
We emphasized our unprecedented turnover rates, especially among fixed-term staff:
- 1 in 5 new Correctional Officers and Youth Services Officers leave within the first year.
- 1 in 4 new Probation and Parole Officers leave within the first two years.
This alarming trend affects the entire bargaining unit — and it’s no mystery why. Wages, pensions, and benefits in Corrections consistently fall behind nearly every comparable group in the province. Being stuck in FXT status for years, trapped in unfunded positions, with no job security and no real path forward, only makes things worse.
And the Employer’s response? More concessions.
Their so-called “solution” to chronic understaffing isn’t to modernize their outdated staffing model that relies heavily on fixed-term members to fill an ever-growing number of unfunded positions.
Instead, the Employer continues to push two exploitative proposals – proposals that we’ve rejected time and again in the past two rounds of bargaining:
- Redefining overtime so that premium pay only applies if you have worked all of your regularly scheduled hours. Their intent is to penalize you for utilizing your entitlements.
- Redefining FXT scheduling so that the Employer can change shifts with no verbal confirmation, if the shift is more than 72 hours away.
Let’s be clear: the Employer wants you to work the same number of hours – including overtime — but without the premium pay you’ve earned. Additionally, for FXTs the Employer wants to strip away the only scheduling stability our FXTs have.
We see this for what it is: massive concessions that we will never accept.
Your team is disgusted. We are angry.
We have continued to bring forward well-researched, comprehensive proposals — solutions based on facts, frontline experience, and mutual interest. We’ve shown flexibility and willingness to collaborate. But the Employer remains positional, inflexible, and unwilling to show even a shred of creativity in solving their own staffing crisis in a way that benefits both parties.
Enough is Enough, Employer – Get Serious About Bargaining!
In solidarity,
Janet Laverty, Bargaining Team Chair
Adam Cygler, Bargaining Team Vice Chair