News

Your negotiating team and I are pleased to announce the successful conclusion of collective bargaining with NAV CANADA.  A memorandum of settlement was reached after 12 days of face-to-face negotiations beginning in September 2011 and is now subject to ratification by the members.

Your negotiating team set out certain goals for this round of bargaining.  They included:

• Economic increases at least as high as other groups;
• Improving the TEC-2 pay to provide a more appropriate spread between the three classification levels; and
• Improved benefits in respect of leave and travel.

All these goals were achieved to varying degrees as follows:

• Wages will increase across all pay scales by 3% per year for two years matching increases obtained by other groups.
• A 3% non-pensionable increment will be added to the top of the TEC-2 level;
• Members required to travel with less than 48 hours notice will be paid a premium equivalent to one day?s pay;
• Members have additional flexibility with respect to the use of family related leave;
• Further clarification on interpretation of ?portal-to-portal? travel;
• Various other closed period commitments and improvements.

These are significant improvements and like other groups could only have been achieved by trading-off other benefits in the collective agreement.  Our collective agreement contains only two provisions that have sufficient value to make this happen: conversion of pensionable premiums to non-pensionable premiums OR elimination of the severance on retirement.  Given that the value of severance on retirement is slowly being eroded with every retiree and new hire, your negotiating team made the difficult but logical choice to eliminate severance on retirement in exchange for an increase in pensionable income matching that of other groups and the 3% non-pensionable increment at the TEC-2 level.  Employees with accumulated severance will have the option of having the accumulated severance paid out immediately or paid out on retirement at their rate of pay on retirement.

Your negotiating team and I are fully recommending this tentative agreement.  We believe it to be the best way to achieve our bargaining goals without negatively impacting your right to bank overtime or use vacation leave on an ad-hoc basis.

The full details of the memorandum of settlement are available here.  In the coming days we will provide a schedule for the information meetings and ratification procedures.

In closing, I want to thank the negotiating team for their dedication during this round of bargaining. These negotiations were difficult but your team faced the decisions with courage and a commitment to the greater good of the entire group.  I am very proud of their work.

In solidarity,

Daniel J Boulet
Business Manager / Financial Secretary