CALL FOR NOMINATIONS - Youth Delegates

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS

Youth Delegates of the 2011 PSAC Prairie Regional Triennial Convention will elect a Youth Representative to serve on the Prairie Regional Council for the remainder of the three-year term.

Nominations:

• Nominations open effective February 1, 2013
• PSAC members who are 30 years of age or younger as of the date of the call out and members in good standing are eligible for nomination to this elected positions.  PSAC members are not required to have been Convention Delegates to be nominated for these elected positions.
• Nominations shall be in writing, signed by a nominator and a seconder, each of whom must have been accredited delegates at the 2011 Convention and self identified as a youth member.
• Nominations from PSAC Prairie Regional Triennial Convention youth delegates will be accepted until February 22, 2013.

Nominees Address to Convention Delegates:

• Candidates will be invited to submit a bio and or a written statement containing information they wish to be shared to the voting members.

Nomination Deadline:

• Nominations from youth members in good standing must be submitted no later than February 22, 2013.
• All nominations must be submitted by fax at (204) 943-0652 to the Chair of the Nominations Committee, Lisa Garnier.

Contact your local executive for a nomination form.

Have Your Say! (and have a chance at winning an ipad)

To complete the Our Union, Our Power survey and contribute your thoughts, ideas and feedback to the Members’ Plan, visit http://app.fluidsurveys.com/s/ourunionourpower/

Agriculture Union 2011 Convention

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.