Report of the AD-HOC Membership Assignment Committee

The Committee reached out to the locals and Regional Vice-Presidents seeking their input, suggestions, and concerns, by way of a survey. The survey yielded responses from twenty-three (23) locals and two (2) Regional Vice-Presidents. (See Appendix A)

Some of the key issues that were identified and deliberated by the Committee are as follows:

• Virtual work location;
• Members proximity to local(s);
• Ability to attend AGMs;
• Ability to serve the membership;
• Concerns – organizational charts are not being provided to locals;
• Difficulty in nurturing the connection;
• Physical location trumps reporting location;
• Members don’t know who their local representatives are or their local;
• Sense of belonging of the membership;
• More collaborative work would be required at all levels of the union.

Although it does not form part of the recommendation, the Committee felt it was beneficial that we suggest some best practices.

• Locals must exercise their right to the quarterly list (Article 10) and if needed raise the issues at the UMCs or make it a standing item. Have ongoing conversations with management in regard to membership movement.

Collective agreement - Article 10 – Information

**10.01 The Employer agrees to supply the Alliance, each quarter, with a list of all employees in the bargaining unit. This list shall include the name, geographic location, and classification of each employee.

• Communication between locals regarding the movement of members and access to new ones is key.

• To assist in better member representation, ongoing communication with management in other areas is key. Locals should request to attend UMCs for which they have a stake even if that UMC falls outside of their regular jurisdiction. Discussion must take place at the local and regional level to ensure that the Terms of Reference are inclusive to allow more local presidents to attend UMCs where they have members.

• Union representative needs to be asking the right questions to understand the issue and the workload. The representative is not expected to know all workloads but should still be able to represent.

The following questions were asked under the Workplace of the Future meetings between the CRA and the National union, which assisted in our deliberations.

Question 1: How will it be determined where the employees’ home work location be decided? 

Answer: All employees, upon hire are associated with a designated workplace. The designated workplace must be a CRA establishment.  

Designated Workplace

The CRA establishment from which an employee ordinarily performs the duties of their position. For remote workers, it is the CRA business address where the employee would go to meet with their manager, attend team meetings or to complete reports.  

Note: Employees who work remotely on a full-time basis may not have a CRA establishment from which they ordinarily perform the duties of their position. In this case, the designated workplace identified by the employer will be the location where: 

• the employee needs to go for business reasons (meetings, IT technical support, documentation retrieval, etc.); 
• the employee will return if the virtual work arrangement agreement is cancelled (where practical); and, 
• the reference point for determining travel cost calculations in accordance with the Directive on Travel, reasonable job offers for work force adjustment exercises and source deductions. 

Question 2: How will CRA management allocate an office for employees working remotely? 

Answer: The Agency has a system in place for staff to book a worksite in an office.  More information and training on its usage will be provided as we move through the phases of the Agency Transition Plan.   

The Committee recommends the following:

The UTE assigns members to locals based on their physical work location. For greater certainty, physical work location is the office where the member performs their work or would normally perform their work if not teleworking and not the office or Branch to which they report. If the member is teleworking and there are multiple offices within an area of forty (40) kilometers, even if the member could report to a different location for in-person interactions, the member would be assigned to the office to which they would normally perform their work.

Where a physical work location, as defined above has not been assigned to the member by the employer, and there are multiple CRA buildings in a geographical area that are within forty (40) kilometers of each other, but the office to which the member reports is not within that scope, the member would then be assigned to the office where they would normally attend for in-person interactions.

Where a member is working from a remote location that has no office within a distance of one hundred and twenty (120) kilometers, that member would be assigned to the office to which they report regardless of the distance.

Where a member is temporarily assigned to an alternate work location for a period of no greater than six months, there shall not normally be a reassignment of locals, except with the expressed consent of the National President.  

Moved by Doug Gaetz, Chair
Seconded by David Lanthier, Co-Chair

I would like to thank the Committee once again for all their work and efforts in completing the task that was assigned to this Committee, and acknowledge the collaboration, professionalism, and respect that was shown by every committee member throughout our deliberations during this process.

Additionally, I would like to recognize the contributions of Natasha Larose and her support to the Committee.

Respectfully submitted,

Doug Gaetz
Chair of the Committee