Indigenous Public Servants Receive Paid Leave to Hunt and Fish.

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oh sorry I must have miss read, I thought they still get their normal vacation time from their job but then also get extra time paid time off to hunt and fish.....

I don't understand where they are talking about it if they just get to use their normal vacation time to hunt and fish on if they wish, the article made it seem like they will get extra time that is different from vacation time that only applies to natives...

but if all they get is exactly what they always had, just the normal vacation time everyone gets and they can take it during hunting or fishing season, then im all for that, why would anyone limit the when they can take the normal vacation time, that should be up to the company based of busy seasons and other employees vacations

No, Indigenous Peoples that are public servants receive five unpaid days to pursue traditional activities, including hunting and fishing. Now they will receive one paid day for these activities.
 
No, Indigenous Peoples that are public servants receive five unpaid days to pursue traditional activities, including hunting and fishing. Now they will receive one paid day for these activities.

So one additional paid day only for native employees to use? Is that taxable? And pensionable?

Nobody is talking about the big win though:

"Creation of a joint committee to make collective agreement language more gender inclusive."

Absolute victory for PSAC.
 
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True but for this particular “want” to make it through resolutions prior to bargaining and to be on PSAC agenda at the bargaining table means the majority of union members thought this issue important
I don't follow this union closely but I am under the impression there was voter suppression for the actual strike mandate vote.
 
I don't follow this union closely but I am under the impression there was voter suppression for the actual strike mandate vote.

Yup. screws up email notifications followed by a 'manual' replacement vote option that couldn't meet the timeline provided.

The vote was 80% of the only 30% who voted. Those numbers aren't great and explains why the union at first didn't want them given out.
 
Paid day off for Indigenous employees a ‘step in the right direction’: advocate

https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/paid-day-off-for-indigenous-employees-a-step-in-the-right-direction-advocate/

Recent agreement for unionized federal public servants will give day off to Indigenous government workers

MAY 8, 2023 – 3:41 PM EDT

By Madalyn Howitt

An advocate for incorporating Inuit knowledge into northern workspaces is celebrating the news that Indigenous federal government employees will soon be given paid time off to pursue traditional practices.

The Public Service Alliance of Canada and Treasury Board agreed to a tentative deal May 1 after a two-week strike. The new contract will see federal public servants receive a 12.6-per-cent wage increase over three years and a number of other workplace benefits.

A similar deal was reached a few days later between PSAC, the Union of Taxation Employees and Canada Revenue Agency.

One new benefit included in those deals is a paid day off for Indigenous federal employees to take part in cultural practices, such as hunting or fishing.

Details about the day haven’t yet been released, but it’s an achievement policy advocate Patricia Johnson-Castle, a PhD candidate, said is a step forward in creating healthier workplaces.

“It’s really exciting,” she said. “It’s a baby step, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

A former fellow in the Jane Glassco Northern Fellowship program who is also Inuk from Nunatsiavut, Johnson-Castle has advocated for incorporating more Inuit traditional knowledge and values into workplace culture.

Johnson-Castle said some self-governing Indigenous organizations have designated days for traditional practices within their own workplaces, such as days when everyone in the office will go fishing together, for example.

Those can be good opportunities for team bonding, but they don’t offer the same kind of freedom that a paid day off would where individuals are free to pursue cultural practices as they wish, Johnson-Castle explained.

The inclusion of a paid day off for Indigenous employees could be a sign that the federal government will “outpace some Indigenous organizations that maybe don’t offer the same thing,” she said.

“It’s a good example of how there can be divergent views within an organization about what the right path forward is like on a specific issue.”

“If the federal government is kind of the enforcer of settler colonial politics in this country, and they’re giving people a day off, you would hope that it would give Indigenous organizations pause about their own workplace policies,” she said.

Johnson-Castle clarified that it doesn’t need to be an “either-or” situation, where self-governing Indigenous organizations only follow statutory holidays set out by governments. Rather, it can be a scenario where Indigenous employees benefit from federally-mandated time off and days that individual employers have decided to offer for cultural pursuits.

And while more than just one paid day off would be ideal, Johnson-Castle said offering at least one day shows there’s room to discuss structural level changes.

“People think about holidays and work schedules as though they’re kind of set in stone,” she said, but “there’s a certain level of arbitrariness that comes from any decision to have a holiday at any given time.”

She pointed out that holidays like Good Friday or Easter Monday, which are on different dates every year, are statutory holidays in some places in Canada but not in others.

“That means that if it’s arbitrary, we have to choose what value system that we’re going to use to make the decision, right? Technically, any day could be a holiday,” she said.

“It’s important to have these very public conversations about what we want our workplaces to look like.”
 
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