President’s Report
September 16, 2009
Long Term Sustainability Plan Update (LTSP)
The Government has ordered the ONTC to do a complete review of its operations to develop a plan to address long term funding of the ONTC and to develop a viable plan for growth. The government wants a complete break down of the cost of sustaining the ONTC over the next 15 years. To that end Chief Operation Officer (COO) Paul Goulet met with all unions in June of 2008 to begin the process to seek our input.
Two weeks ago all elected union representatives were given access through the ONTC intranet to all the documents that have been produce over the last year, from consultant reports, to divisional plans, in regards to the LTSP. Every union representative had to sign a confidentiality agreement before viewing any of this material.
The amount of documentation is astounding and required extensive reading on everyone’s part to digest the thrust of the plan and infrastructure requirements for the organization.
The GCA met with President Steve Carmichael and COO Paul Goulet this past Monday to review the executive summary, divisional plan and infrastructure investment cost. The meeting lasted the entire day and the GCA provided the company in clear terms our concerns and suggestions for what the LTSP should contain.
The company stated they heard our concerns and would review all the documents to ensure our concerns were addressed.
A final version of the entire LTSP should be completed in the next three weeks and the company committed to keep the unions apprised of any and all changes and if necessary another meeting may have to take place before the entire plan is finalized.
This is an extremely important exercise for the long term future of the ONTC so we are able to convince those skeptical public servants and politicians that Ontario Northland has and plays a critical role in the long term social and economic well being of all of Northern Ontario.
Transportation and Communication Authority
You may have heard news items over the summer dealing with the closure of the Huron Central Railway, the reductions of train and service on the Ottawa Valley Railway and the recent announcement by Greyhound of their planned abandonment of bus routes in North Western Ontario. The GCA has been calling upon the ONTC and the McGuinty government for Ontario Northland to play a larger role in the delivery of Rail, Motor Coach and Telecommunication infrastructures and services for all of Northern Ontario.
With the threatened abandonment of the aforementioned rail lines and the discontinuance of bus routes a critical piece of the economic infrastructure of Northern Ontario is threatened. The Government has to realize that rail lines and bus routes are critical for the long term prosperity of all Northerners. The GCA believes if the HCR and Greyhound closure happen then the ONTC must be directed to provide those services. As well the ONTC needs to be allowed to provide its various types services through out the entire North.
The Governments of Ontario and Canada need to invest in these important Northern Infrastructures. Maintaining and upgrading these rail and motor coach lines provides the North with the means of moving products to market. At the same time it allows citizens the ability to access other communities for personal, professional and medical reasons. It is absolutely critical for the long term prosperity of the North that the ONTC be allowed to become the Transportation and Communication Authority for the entire North.
Pension Meeting Update
The Joint Pension Board met September 9th in North Bay. ONTC Commissioner Carson Fougere was in attendance to develop a communication strategy between the Pension Board and the Commission and answer any of our questions.
We discussed the Commission’s decision not to afford retirees an Ad Hoc increase as the corporation has historically done. Mr. Fougere stated that the Commission decided against the ad hoc increase because of the preliminary data they had received on the status of the Pension Plans financials which showed a significant drop in the value of the fund. The union representatives expressed our frustration of not being part of those discussions and the fact we had learnt about the lack of an ad hoc increase via company email. Secondly we pointed out it is hypocritical to deny pensioners an increase at the same time both the active employees and the company were still in a contributory holiday. The long term affect of the Commission’s decision to not grant an ad hoc increase could impact the way all unions address the issues of pensions in the future.
The Joint Pension Board and the Commission did agree to keep dialogue between the two groups open and to put each others issue on the agenda of the respective groups meeting.
As well everyone should be aware that the next Pension Actuarial Roll Forward must be done by January 2010, it is expected that both the ONTC and its employees will have to begin again making contributions to the plan. Members should prepare themselves for that and the financial impact to the ONTC could be significant.
We were informed the Company will be scheduling pension seminars with employees who have 3 years or less before retirement on September 29 and 30th in North Bay. Those members will be contacted directly; we advise all those members who are contacted to attend. More seminars with a larger group will be done in the future.
Sean O’Donnell and I met with representatives from the Ontario Northland Employee Pensioners Association in late August. We discussed a wide range of issues that we could jointly agree upon. We established common understanding over concerns about the health of the pension plan, the lack of an ad hoc increase for pensioner to name a few. We agreed to keep the lines of communication open and to meet again sometime in the future.
Economy
Steve Carmichael’s email of last week should be of concern to us all. The shutdown of Kidd Creek’s copper operations, plus the continuing sluggishness in the lumber and paper industry has caused revenues to drop for the first four months of the company’s fiscal year by a total of $6.6 million when compared to last year’s numbers. The ONTC does not see it returning to the positive in the short term. At the moment the only growth potential in the organization is in ONTERA and the Refurbishment Division. Unfortunately Refurbishment is still not adding positively to the bottom line as of yet and although the numbers at ONTERA are better it has still not made it into the black.
We are optimistic that with some real cooperation we can get the Refurbishment Division to have a positive impact on the company’s finances. That in turns makes every member’s job more secure. Unit #12 was approached by the company to discuss the potential of bidding on the next GO Transit Refurbishment Contract in late June, we have met with the company a couple of times but as of today these discussions are only in the preliminary stage.
We expect that the ONTC will continue to face challenges for at least the short term before the economy truly turns around and revenues start to climb again.
48 Hours
All money has been dispersed to all those members who submitted time cards on this issue from November 23, 2008 to May 8, 2009. The remaining money was split evenly between each member of Agreements #4 and #12 who worked during that period.
The Company has been abiding by the Letter of Agreement on hours of work and has been advising us of any situations where departments have been granted permits to exceed the 56 hours a week maximum.
Human Rights
Over the summer Ron Marleau fro Steelworkers, Louis Wilson for the Teamsters and myself met with the company on a number of occasion to fashion a new Human Rights policy. A new policy has been agreed to which will have a Human Rights Committee with representatives from each union and the company on it. The role of the Committee is clearly spelled out and in the instances of a formal complaint a third party investigator shall be brought in to investigate the complaint. The company will be providing human rights training for all departments in the near future.
Arbitration
The Company and the union have scheduled 2 days of arbitration with Arbitrator Picher for February of 2010. There are a number of outstanding issues that it seems only an arbitrator can resolve.
Website
In an effort to communicate on a more consistent basis with the membership the executive will be asking for membership approval of the cost of having an internet company set up a website for this Local. We will continue to use this Report, Unit Chairs Reports and the Katy to inform the members of the pressing issue confronted the membership in addition to the website. With your approval we are hopeful of having this website operational very soon.
In Solidarity,
Brian Kelly
President
Past Reports:
Mar 30/11 | Jan 26/11 | Oct 6/10 | Apr 14/10 | Jan 27/10 | Sep 16/09 |