Dangerous missions voluntary for civilian DND staff

[McG]

Dangerous missions voluntary for civilian staff
Mike Blanchfield
Ottawa Citizen; CanWest News Service
Wednesday, August 10, 2005

OTTAWA - Defence chief Gen. Rick Hillier was surprised by suggestions he would force civilian military personnel to serve on dangerous foreign postings against their will, military officials said Tuesday.

The comments came as a war of words escalated between Canada's senior soldier and the military's top union boss.

Spokesmen for both Hillier and Defence Minister Bill Graham said civilians would not be forced to work overseas against their will.

Maj. Mario Couture, a spokesman for Hillier, said the general met recently with John MacLennan, president of the Union of National Defence Employees, as a courtesy call and act of good faith.

"One thing that came out for sure, though, was that it was never mentioned by the CDS (chief of defence staff) that deployment of civilian employees would be mandatory. It would be on a voluntary basis only," said Couture.

Renee Filiatrault, a spokeswoman for Graham's office, echoed the statement: "It's important to note that DND civilian employees who deploy in support of the CF (Canadian Forces) do so voluntarily.''

However, the union points out that nothing is off the table, and that the language of their collective agreement does not cover the circumstance of civilian workers going on dangerous missions.

The issue was raised Monday in a speech by MacLennan to a union gathering in Halifax.

In the speech, MacLennan said Hillier raised the possibility of deploying civilians overseas as support staff.

"In turn, I put the chief of defence staff on notice that these assignments will in no case be mandatory," MacLennan said in the speech.

That statement left senior military brass scratching their collective heads.

 

[pbi]

What is this union person talking about? How would this even be possible? And, anyway, he and his UNDE buddies don't have to worry: there are lots of non-UNDE civilians who work for outfits like SNC Lavalin, etc who are more than happy to work alongside us in places like Afghanistan (within reasonable limits). Why would he even raise a ludocrously unlikely issue such as this: it doesn't do much for his credibility. Perhaps he should go and read the NDA. There is only group of people who can be ordered overseas in DND: us.

Cheers

 

[bubba]

The union boss must of miss read his morning paper.I needed a laugh this morning...pbi any idea what rate of pay those civi contractors are payin tradesmen to go over to work.

 

[Cloud Cover]

The union leadership is out to lunch on this one, IMHO. The UNDE rank and file has concerns about contracting out their work to SNC etc. If the position of the UNDE union leaders is that all overseas work should be voluntary for their members, I would agree- let them toot their horn on that all they want. To me the issue will quickly turn into one of having to decide which of the many volunteers gets to go overseas, and who has to stay behind. Senority issues leading to grievances, more than anything else, will be the problem.

As I said before, I think there are many thousands of civilian DND employees who have little time for union political statements, and they just want to get on with the job they are being paid to do- provide quality support servies to the troops. They would be more than happy to do their jobs overseas and to share some of the experiences with the troops- even if it is just "camp" experience. I couldn't think of a better way to build stronger bridges of respect between the two groups. [and it has already been pointed out in another thread that many of these employees are ex CF members, some are even reservists].

Cheers.