By Lorna Selinger
September 2011
Agriculture Union delegates left our Fifteenth Triennial Convention in Vancouver on August 19 ready to confront a majority Conservative government intent on cutting both quality public services and the jobs of the men and women who provide them.
A number of new faces were elected to both the National Executive and National Council. At the Executive level, Fabian Murphy was elected our new First National Executive Vice-President of the Agriculture Union. He had previously served as Fourth National Executive Vice-President since 2008 and Regional Vice-President for our Eastern Atlantic members from 2002 to 2008.
Our new Second National Executive Vice-President is Glenn Miller, formerly Regional Vice-President for our members in southwestern Ontario. Raphaël Tarasco was elected Third National Executive Vice-President. He had served as Regional Vice-President for our members in the Western Quebec Region since 2002. And Meraiah Krebs, now Fourth National Executive Vice-President, moves up from the national Council post of National Director for our members employed by the Canada School of Public Service and the Public Service Commission.
The complete National Executive (with short biography) and National Council can be found on the Agriculture Union website.
Delegates also adopted a realistic budget for the 2012-2014 period based on a conservative estimate of 8,500 members throughout the period. While our current membership is 9,300, members are all too aware that the Harper Conservatives are intent on slashing public service jobs in the name of ‘deficit fighting’.
Over the past three years, our union has aggressively conducted two of the most extensive and effective campaigns in the history of the PSAC and its Component unions: Food Safety First and GrainAction. As a result, the Agriculture Union moved to the centre of the public and media debate around both the food safety issue and the future role of the Canadian Grain Commission in supporting an orderly market for producers and consumers. However, such campaigns cost money. In recognition of this, Convention delegates authorized the creation of a new budgetary line item for political action and increased the percentage dues for the first time in almost a decade to ensure the Agriculture Union has the financial means to continue to defend the job security of our members. (More details regarding the percentage dues increase will be posted on our Web site next week.)
The Convention also addressed the issue of a proposed PSAC Supplemental Pension Plan for elected officers. After extensive debate, our Convention delegates voted overwhelmingly to have our union participate in this plan.
No less important were delegates’ overwhelming support for the reaffirmation of PSAC’s ‘no concession’ bargaining policy in the next round of negotiations and agreeing to have alternate members of the National Council come to its first post-Convention meeting in order to learn and understand better that governing body.
