Debates of May 28, 2008 (day 17)

Client Services, Program Delivery Details, information item.

Department of Human Resources, Client Services, Program Delivery Details, information item, approved.

Page 2-76, Client Services, Active Positions, information item, page 2-77.

Department of Human Resources, Client Services, Active Positions, information item, approved.

Page 2-78, Employee Relations, information item. Mr. Ramsay.

Mr. Chairman, I’m just wondering if the department’s done any analysis on what I would consider a growing problem, and that is stress leave and extended medical leave by employees, and whether you can trace some of this stress leave or extended medical leave back to departments. If we can correlate the use of stress leave and medical leave back to some departments, I think we need to examine the root causes of employees needing extended periods of time away from work.

I find this type of leave being more and more necessary, and employees having to go to doctors and get doctors’ certificates for extended periods of absences from work. I’m just wondering if the department’s done any kind of analysis on where the stress leave is happening and the extended medical leave so fingers can be pointed at the departments that are guilty of their employees needing to take time away from work like that. I can think of one department specifically, and that’s Justice. We’ll have the Minister of Justice here before too long, but maybe the Minister can answer that.

Minister McLeod.

Mr. Chair, we do keep track of employee leave, and we do use it as a management tool to, in some cases, detect problem employees. Also, I don’t think we’ve done an analysis of stress leave, but we could do that. We do have a review of people who are on stress leave for extended periods to determine whether they need a change in venue or whether we’ll have a medical doctor review their situation. But in terms of doing an analysis of the areas or departments that have the most stress, I don’t think we’ve necessarily done that yet.

Mr. Chairman, just because an employee accesses stress leave or other leave doesn’t necessarily make them a bad employee, and I wouldn’t want anybody to think that. I think in many cases it’s bad management, and it’s the employee feeling victimized in the workplace or harassed or intimidated or whatever you want. There are many reasons employees seek stress leave and extended medical leave.

I also wanted to ask the Minister…. If that type of analysis hasn’t been done, I think that’d be something worth providing to Members of this House — which departments have more employees who have accessed stress leave and medical leave — and break it down and show us, as a percentage, which departments are getting more employees requesting stress leave and medical leave. I think that’s important for us to know as legislators. This side of the House acts as the oversight accountability committee, and we really need to have this type of information so we can start directing questions at the Ministers who are managing the departments to try to figure out what’s going on.

Bob McLeod

Yellowknife South

I don’t think we break out leave according to stress leave; it’s usually sick leave or extended leave. I think we can do an analysis by going through and reviewing the documentation for extended leave or sick leave.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the Minister for that. I think it’d be a useful tool. Some of my colleagues have called some…. Not all workplace environments in the government are toxic, but some of them out there are toxic. People are having to access sick leave and disability leave and whatnot in greater numbers than I can ever remember. I think it’s a systemic problem. If it’s management or if it’s…. The finger has to be pointed somewhere, and ultimately someone has to be accountable for the increased occurrences in stress leave, disability leave and extended medical leave. So I’ll look forward to that report.

The other question I had was in terms of grievances. I know some employees out there who have been waiting in excess of two years to get a grievance heard and a decision rendered. To me, that’s really not acceptable. I want to ask the Minister how many grievances there are and what is an acceptable time frame to have those dealt with accordingly.

Bob McLeod

Yellowknife South

Mr. Chair, there are presently 242 outstanding grievances. I think a large part of the problem is that the employees have been filing grievances at the highest level. There’s no opportunity to resolve grievances when they’re filed at the third level, so it all has to be handled through arbitration. As such, it takes time and is something we’ll have to work with the union on to try to bring this down to a manageable level. The union has indicated they’re prepared to spend time to bring the numbers down.

Mr. Chairman, I’d like to thank the Minister for that and would encourage him to keep the dialogue going with the UNW and the other unions to ensure that grievances are dealt with in a timely fashion.

I’d like to ask the Minister: are there guidelines in place for dealing with grievances? Is there a policy where you would deem two years an excessive length of time for folks to wait to get a grievance dealt with? Should we set up at least some guidelines or some standards that we judge ourselves by? Are there any in place already?

Bob McLeod

Yellowknife South

There are guidelines, but they’re generally more along the lines of first-, second-, third-level grievances. The first level should be handled right at the local workplace: sort it out there, and if it can’t be resolved there, it gets picked up. I think if we’re going to have timelines, it should be based on the realistic opportunity to reduce the number of grievances. If we have 250 outstanding grievances and they can only resolve them through arbitration, we only have so many arbitration officers. The union has agreed to set aside one week of every month up until the end of 2009 to deal with arbitrations. I don’t know how long it takes to resolve an arbitration. Assuming one week for arbitration, depending on the number of arbitrations…. Unless we could have some control over the work, it would be difficult to set a timeline on it.

Report of Committee of the Whole

Speaker: Mr. Speaker

Can I have the report of the Committee of the Whole, please. Mr. Krutko.