Nunavut minister grilled about layoffs of casual staff
“Is this the kind of treatment that the GN’s growing number of long-term casuals can expect from the … the Department of Human Resources?”
Lorne Kusugak, minister responsible for Community and Government Services and newly appointed minister of the Department of Human Resources, answered questions in the legislature on Tuesday, Feb. 26, about layoffs of casual empioyees. (File photo)
Iqaluit-Manirajak MLA Adam Lightstone says Nunavut’s Department of Community and Government Services recently laid off a group of casual employees who were just one day short of receiving bonuses for continuous employment.
Speaking in the legislature on Tuesday, Feb. 26, Lightstone said these layoffs were not due to performance reasons, but because their jobs didn’t fit the department’s “organizational chart.”
“Essentially these casuals were working in unfunded positions,” Lightstone said.
The timing of these layoffs, on Nov. 30, meant that staff were unable to collect a continuous service bonus that calls for employment on Dec. 1, said Lightstone.
“I’m sure none of those employees had a very happy holiday,” Lightstone said.
Addressing Lorne Kusugak, who is the minister responsible for the department, and who will soon be minister of the new Department of Human Resources, Lightstone asked: “Is this the kind of treatment that the Government of Nunavut’s growing number of long-term casuals can expect from the newly appointed minister responsible for the Department of Human Resources?”
Kusugak was animated in his response.
“If there was a cheap shot across the bow, I think I just felt it,” he said. “I would like to assure my colleague that in 34 days I will be the Minister of HR and that minister is not responsible for hiring or firing any departmental staff.”
Earlier, Lightstone asked how many employees had been laid off. Kusugak said he would provide those numbers when they were available.
Lightstone also asked what efforts had been made to transfer these employees into funded positions. Again, Kusugak said he didn’t know, but “once the facts surface and are available, then we can provide the information.”
A report by Nunavut’s Department of Finance titled, Towards a Representative Public Service, says that as of Dec. 31, 2017, there were 92 casual staff working within the Department of Community and Government Services throughout the territory. Of those, 58 staff were Inuit. Across the GN’s Public Service, about half of casual workers are Inuit.
In Iqaluit, that report said there were then 195 permanent CGS positions and 80 of those positions were vacant. Of 115 staff hired then in the Iqaluit office, 32 were Inuit.
“We’re talking about a department that has many casuals,” Kusugak said. “Nobody in any department anywhere in the public or private sector likes to let go of their employees.”
Finance Minister George Hickes announced in this year’s budget speech that the Department of Community and Government Services will create over 20 new permanent positions to replace “long-term casual work” using internal funding.
Nunavut’s Public Service Act defines a casual employee as “a person employed to perform work of a temporary or casual nature or in an emergency”
There were 902 casual employees working for the GN in 2017-18, according to a public service annual report. That same fiscal year, 157 casual employees were hired to indeterminate jobs. Over half of those employees were Inuit.
When Lightstone asked Kusugak if any of the casual staff in his department who were laid off in November had new jobs with the GN now, Kusugak said he didn’t know.
“There is never a good time to let people go, but never a bad time to hire people,” Kusugak said. “Mr. Speaker, I assure him that the new HR department that will be formed on April 1 has nothing to do with what transpired on Nov. 30 and I assure him I will look into the matter.”
Welcome to the wonderful world of casual employment in the GN! I know people who have been kept on casual for years. There are rules against this found in collective bargaining agreements but they are skirted by laying-off the employees for a very short period of time just before they are to rotate into full-time positions by virtue of long-term continuous service. They are then re-hired a day or so later. It is a shameful way to treat long-term employees and leaves them without benefits, access to subsidized housing or protection from the unions! Departments do it to keep salary estimates low and avoid scrutiny regarding unplanned growth during budget reviews by Committee of the Whole. You see a lot of it in departments like CG&S and Health.
Welcome to the wonderful world of casual employment in the GN! I know people who have been kept on casual for years. There are rules against this found in collective bargaining agreements but they are skirted by laying-off the employees for a very short period of time just before they are to rotate into full-time positions by virtue of long-term continuous service. They are then re-hired a day or so later. It is a shameful way to treat long-term employees and leaves them without benefits, access to subsidized housing or protection from the unions! Departments do it to keep salary estimates low and avoid scrutiny regarding unplanned growth during budget reviews by Committee of the Whole. You see a lot of it in departments like CG&S and Health.
Casuals are merely temporary staff with an end date to perform work that is considered temporary. Could it be a situation where those CSA’s were ending Nov 30? If so, I didn’t realize management had an obligation to extend temporary staff on a casual basis just because. Could it be a situation that the position was filled through the regular staffing process? Lay-off route seems extreme to me and if they were all ended prior to the end date then that should be looked at closely. Maybe the Department is trying to deal with the casual situation that they are also being grilled on by the MLA’s, hence the reason for not renewing. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
I was casual for five years. I have a friend who has been in the same position as a casual employee for 10 years now. It shouldn’t be so difficult to roll those positions into permanent ones, since it seems like they need them on an ongoing basis. Ten years in the same position…that’s how many CSAs? If she wasn’t reliable or they didn’t need her, they’ve had many opportunities to get rid of her. They just keep stringing these ones along, and can just cut them out without warning. They shouldn’t even have to post the position after ten years.
Casual staffing is way for departments to get around the financial restrictions placed upon them by the Legislative Assembly regarding their core funding allocations. The more permanent employees a Department has over and above their approved budget the more hard and unanswerable questions Ministers and DMs have to face when their budgets are scrutinized by their colleagues in the Leg. Keeping long term employees on casual makes Departments look like they are effectively managing within their budgets while what they are really doing is exploiting their workers.
The best is when you ask the union for help, and gn management punishes you by making you a relief employee instead of CSA or term. No benefits at all, no protection, no overtime or stat pay (even when you work on a stat holiday), Just day to day work because you’re now “relief” (even though your name is actually on a schedule and you aren’t relief at all). Not a think the union can do either because they relief positions and the joy that comes with them to be included in the collective agreement a few years back. I’ve been “relief” with the same schedule for 4 years now. Thanks NEU and GN!
When I first started with the GN, I was a casual for 3.5 years. Under the same JD, and same title. after 3 years, I was forced to take a break in service, that was for exactly 20 business days, and than rehired back into the same position, under the same JD. Everything I accumulated over those first 3 years was lost. Raises, leave, union support. But the loses didn’t end there. I also lost 3 years of pensionable service. Instead of having 18 years of pensionable service now, I have less than 15. My bonuses should be more, but I have been out a $1000 dollars a year every year because of it. I have questioned this with the Department of Finance in recent years, but have been told it was to long ago now to do anything about it.
Casuals need to to be made aware of the long term loses of these actions, so they can better fight for whats right.
I was a casual with GN for 4+ years with the same position in Finance. GN is not using their bible (Collective Agreement between the NEU and the Minister Responsible for the Public Service Act) Article 51 say’s; The Employer may hire casual employees for a period not to exceed four (4) months of continuous employment in any particular division or department.
Where the Employer anticipates the period of temporary employment to be in excess of four(4) months, the employee shall be appointed on a term bases and shall be entitled to all provisions of the Collective Agreement from the first day of his/her employment.
So many casual’s usually are employed with the same position for years and not get appointed, why?
That section of the NEU Collective Agreement means that the GN cannot sign CSAs for longer than 4 months. Something like a 6-month CSA must be a 6-month Term position instead.
It does not mean that they can’t renew 4-month CSAs over and over, with the appropriate DM sign-off.
Talk to your union rep. They will tell you the same thing.
You’re right that it means CSAs cannot be for more than 4 months, and that it does not mean CSAs cannot be extended. But if the union was doing a good job with regards to casual staff, I’m pretty sure that CSAs renewed “over and over” for 5 years would violate the part that states, “Where the Employer anticipates the period of temporary employment to be in excess of four (4) months, the employee shall be appointed on a term basis and shall be entitled to all provisions of the Collective Agreement from the first day of his/her employment.”
Pretty hard for the employer to argue that throughout the entire 5 years of renewing a CSA, they never anticipated the period of temporary employment would be in excess of four months.
Stop signing CSAs. If no one really wants to be on them, stop agreeing to them. Eventually, GN will see it is not an effective way to staff their departments. BUT as long as there are people who ONLY want to be casual, there will be long term CSA’s hanging around.
For alot of people, saying no to a CSA is not an option. People have to live. People need to eat, people need money.
Apply for an indeterminate position God knows there are many that go unfilled.
Casual female employees are also screwed over as they are not able to get maternity leave. This is sexist. If they want to spend time with their newborn, casual women need to let go of all the benefits and then start over from the bottom. In the 10 + years I’ve been living here, I’ve always been amazed by this. I don’t understand why nobody said anything about this issue in the past. It truly is shocking. Can somebody tell me if this is even legal?
Completely legal.
Well, I’m just presuming that after law suits against bullying, I see a whole new case of Economic Inability lawsuits happening within 5-10 years, get my drift
Based on my experience the casual option is used to allow employees to get on the job training experience and training to allow them an opportunity to compete on the job as they have to be qualified to be appointed. Be careful what you want because it may have reverse effects for the GN. Don’t forget we don’t have a labour market in Nunavut with the skills needed to fill all the positions. This option is an ideal for that purpose and achieving a representative government.
Thank you LOTBS. Almost without exception, casual positions exist to create employment by circumventing need for credentials (certifications) and bypassing maximized position capacity. All government ministries receive funding based on demographics (for example, in schools based on enrolment). With that funding comes specific hiring guidelines for the number of full-time and part-time permanent positions for teachers and support staff.
To bypass these guidelines, schools create casual positions or substitute opportunities. If they were made permanent, then someone else would have to be terminated (which is another discussion which I am willing to have).
By acquiring advanced education and other relevant training, casuals can vault their experience into permanent positions as they rapidly become available. We need be careful of what we wish for or biting the hand that feeds us. The chickens always come home to roost.
How wonderful that a casual position can provide income, meaning and usefulness where otherwise none would be available.
It seems as though the GN is going against its own Human Resource Manual: Check out HRM s. 903, #19:
“Under no circumstances should a casual employee including those employed continuously for more than four months be laid off or not extended, where there is additional work to be done, solely to avoid paying the individual benefits to which he or she might otherwise become entitled.”
This is not the last we will be hearing of this.
The policies are legacy and changing them will mean previous will have to say “Ok” your right but that never happens