Wednesday, September 30, 2015
September 30, 2015 marks an important milestone in AMAPCEO’s history; it is the official conclusion of the Job Evaluation project.
We have completed a 12-year process for our Ontario Public Service (OPS) bargaining unit that has moved AMAPCEO forward considerably and advanced the interests of our members in significant ways. We have successfully eliminated an unfair, ad hoc and outdated classification system, which left members doing the same work while earning wildly divergent salaries – and replaced it with a fairer, more consistent system that will serve our members well for years to come.
While this process has certainly not been free from difficulty or controversy, in the end, it has provided more than 85% of our members with a positive outcome (an increase of headroom) and, as a collective, with millions of dollars in increased, pensionable earning potential for years to come.
AMAPCEO is also pleased with having been able to expedite the appeals process in 2015, after it had necessarily slowed during OPS bargaining in 2014. This was something achieved through efficiencies identified in the appeals process itself, and through the addition of President, Dave Bulmer, Vice President, Sally Jurcaba, Director of Dispute Resolution, Rob Smalley, and additional staff being devoted to the process between February and August of this year.
Over the past decade, Job Evaluation was repeatedly identified as a priority by the many Boards, Bargaining Teams, and successive Annual Delegates’ Conferences that sat during that time. We are pleased to have seen that objective met.
In addition to the recent work of those above, we want to thank the many staff and Job Evaluation secondees who dedicated thousands of hours over more than a decade to see the project to completion. Lastly, we would be remiss not to acknowledge the work of our past President, Gary Gannage, and past Vice President and Bargaining Team Chair, Robert Stambula, for their work and dedication to this project as well.
AMAPCEO remains committed to remedying all job classification concerns, either through traditional job classification appeals (Article 15 of the Collective Agreement) post-October 1, 2015 or through the next round of OPS bargaining in 2018.