Okalik: 'The union is just trying to pick a fight with me every week.'

Premier Paul Okalik accused the Nunavut Employees Union of misinforming its members on the treatment of finance employees last week.

"Unfortunately, the union is just trying to pick a fight with me every week, and make a mountain out of a mole hill," Okalik told reporters March 31, following heated discussion in the legislative assembly over the matter.

The spat started when cabinet decided to move employees from the beleaguered Department of Health and Social Services, and the Department of Executive and Intergovernmental Affairs, to the finance department in March.

The move was intended to tighten Nunavut's financial management, which Canada's auditor general, Sheila Fraser, has warned is weak and highly vulnerable to fraud.

Everyone seemed to agree the proposal to move finance employees under one roof was sensible, and, as Okalik has pointed out, the plan involved no changes to the job descriptions or salaries of employees.

But the execution of the plan still angered 17 of the employees enough that they protested their treatment by signing a petition, which was circulated by the union, and tabled in the house last week by Hunter Tootoo, MLA for Iqaluit Centre, along with a letter from the union president.

Several of the statements in the letter and petition proved to be inaccurate.

Doug Workman, president of the NEU, wrote in his letter that Simailak had claimed in the legislature that the employees had "volunteered" for the move.

But Simailak never said this. Instead, he said March 8 that the departments, and not individual employees, "volunteered" to centralize their finance staff.

But it took Okalik and his cabinet a long time to counter this, and other allegations, in the legislature.

Simailak never corrected how his words had been misinterpreted.

And when Okalik tried to object to the letter and petition, he was interrupted twice and then ruled out of order by the speaker, Peter Kilabuk, because he had risen in response to a question posed by Tootoo, who asked for a copy of government policies on the treatment of employees transferred between departments.

The petition also states, "We disagree with Minister Similak's comments in the Legislature on March 12, 2007 that any of us had been asked if we were ok with this decision but rather told we had no choice in the matter and we wouldn't have a job otherwise."

"We are in no way responsible for the deficit in the Department of Health and Social Services and our presence in the department in no way made the department any less effective," the letter continued, "which Minister Aglukkaq is implying by her statement in the Legislature on March 9, 2007."

Simailak stood by his words when Tootoo asked him how he could have been unaware that the employees were unhappy with their transfer.

"At that time I was not aware of anyone who did not want to be transferred," Simailak said.

The union says many of the finance employees only found out they would be transferred when the news was announced in the legislature in March.

Simailak said that a meeting was held to tell employees about the move before the announcement, but only several employees showed up, and the briefing was cut short by a blizzard.

As well, the union says they were never consulted about the transfer scheme, contrary to Article 5 of the collective agreement.

In response, Simailak says the union was consulted – 15 days after the announcement was made that the finance jobs would be reshuffled.

Okalik would later say this consultation was simply a courtesy extended to the union.

"They've misinterpreted the agreement," he said.

Tootoo said he supports the idea of toughening up Nunavut's financial systems, but also said that "shuffling Iqaluit-based positions" may not be enough to fix the government's financial weakness, "when it seems clear that the Government of Nunavut's toughest challenges in this area are being faced in its decentralized offices."

In March, Simailak said the government would consider further centralizing its finance operations to Iqaluit, but first, it needed to find other replacement jobs for decentralized communities.