To: Roman Ruegg PSRC Chair
Date: May 1, 2002
From: Curtis Ballard PSRC Secretary
Re: TRIUMF P&S Executive Meeting
Present were: R. Ruegg, A. Trudel, G. Jones, J. Yandon, C. Ballard, B. Evans, K. Reiniger, J. Drozdoff
TRIUMF’s Board of Management approved in principle the recommendation to increase sick leave benefits in order to reduce EI premiums. This would make TRIUMF responsible for long-term sick leave rather than Employment Insurance. This will be in place when UBC processes the changes.
Roman thanked John Yandon for his years of service on the PSRC Executive. John will be retiring at the end of May. Thanks were also expressed to Roy Moore, who wasn’t re-elected, but has volunteered to continue to manage the PSRC website.
H.R. is still working on establishing a system of “Job Families” for TRIUMF employees. The families will be based upon job description to allow a comparison to “industry” standards for compensation. The families will cross the TRIUMF borders of P&S, BAE and Technical Staff and are related to job function rather than specific training. This is mainly for administrative purposes and should not affect the divisional organization.
Discussion followed about step increases, bonuses, and the definitions of P&S level III & level IV. It was noted that, recently, bonuses have been paid to employees to reward a “good” year, whereas, previously this was done with one or more step increases. The latter had the advantage of promotion toward reclassification, increased pension opportunities and a compounding effect on salary, especially since scale increases are usually based on a percentage of salary. Currently, the trend has been to base step increases on multi-year reviews. A bonus also does not address career advancement, which is an issue as we are all getting that much better at our jobs. As a rule (although no vote was taken), it was agreed among the Committee that a scale increase should be the priority and that merit increases and career advancement were secondary as the next five-year plan has already been established and the likelihood of more money was remote.
Roman brought up the statistic that the CPI was 2.9% for 2001 and that this year’s scale increase is only 2%. A suggestion was made to have the Board of Management give employees the three days at Christmas, that TRIUMF is normally closed, instead of making them use holiday time. It was proposed that we investigate what the policy of the new administration is regarding compensation. Do we want a regimented plan of how money is distributed and what the priorities are?
A.O.B.
Staffing level is still a concern. We are attempting to do even more (ISAC II) with the same number of people. John suggested that an in-depth analysis should be done (at Division Head level) as to the workload and goals vs. the available personnel (including vacations). It would not be difficult to calculate the total number of human hours available and compare it with an estimate of the projected goals with a priority given to the jobs. Andy also noted that there has been an increased requirement for documentation and personnel training and the onus falls mostly on the P&S staff.
Reorganization of resources has also been a major concern, as there seems to be duplication of services and areas where there is a lack of accountability. There exists an uneven distribution of workload on site that needs to be addressed.
It was resolved that Roman, Rick Baartman and Tim Emmons will speak to the director, informally, to get his impression on these issues.