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Message from the Chairperson

I am pleased to present to Parliament and to Canadians the Canada Industrial Relations Board's Report on Plans and Priorities for 2011–12

The Canada Industrial Relations Board (the Board) is an independent, representational, quasi-judicial tribunal responsible for the interpretation and application of the Canada Labour Code (the Code) Part I (Industrial Relations) and certain provisions of Part II (Occupational Health and Safety). Part I of the Code creates a framework for collective bargaining for the federal private sector. In carrying out its mandate, the Board has an obligation to encourage constructive labour-management relations between federally regulated employers and the unions representing their employees.

The unstable economic environment of the last two years has had limited impact on the Board's workload. The number of incoming cases has remained constant; although more complex cases represent a slightly higher percentage of the Board's incoming caseload than in previous years. This has not deterred the Board from continuing its efforts to reduce the number of outstanding complaints and applications, and improve the timeliness of Board decisions. I am pleased to report that our efforts in this regard have been successful. Our pending caseload is expected to drop to 400 by March 31, 2011. This represents the lowest level of pending matters since 1986–87. Also, the average processing time is expected to fall to 178 days by the end of 2010–11, compared to 312 days in 2008–09.

While I am very pleased with this performance, the Board does not intend to be complacent in the face of these improvements. The Board's priority in 2011–12 will be to continue its efforts to reduce the average processing time of new cases so as to ensure that a backlog does not reoccur. In order to achieve this, the Board will focus its efforts on effective case management and dispute resolution mechanisms that encourage the constructive settlement of differences. The Board will also complete a review of the Canada Industrial Relations Board Regulations, 2001 (the Regulations) in order to make them more clear, modern and practical and to further improve the management of matters coming before the Board for determination. A significant part of this review process will involve consultations with the labour relations community to obtain their views in order to better respond to the needs of the community.

I am extremely proud of the accomplishments of the Board's Vice-Chairpersons, Members and staff. I look forward to the year ahead as we explore new ways of doing business and emphasize initiatives that build positive working relationships and support stable labour-management relations in the federally regulated private sector.

SECTION I: DEPARTMENTAL OVERVIEW

Raison d'être, Responsibilities and Departmental Organization

Responsibilities
The CIRB is an independent, representational, quasi-judicial tribunal responsible for the interpretation and application of Part I (Industrial Relations) and certain provisions of Part II (Occupational Health and Safety) of the Canada Labour Code (the Code). The Board was established in January 1999, to replace the previous Canada Labour Relations Board, through amendments to Part I of the Code.

Part I of the Code establishes the framework for collective bargaining, the acquisition and termination of bargaining rights, unfair labour practices and protection of the public interest in the event of work stoppages affecting essential services.

The CIRB has jurisdiction in all provinces and territories with respect to federal works, undertakings or businesses in the following sectors:

• Broadcasting
• Chartered banks
• Postal services
• Airports and air transportation
• Shipping and navigation
• Interprovincial or international transportation by road, railway, ferry or pipeline
• Telecommunications
• Grain handling and uranium mining and processing
• Most public and private sector activities in the Yukon, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories
• Some First Nations undertakings
• Federal Crown corporations (including, among others, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and the national museums)

The federal jurisdiction covers some 800,000 employees and their employers, and includes enterprises that have a significant economic, social, and cultural impact on Canadians from coast to coast. The variety of activities conducted in the federally regulated private sector, as well as its geographical scope and national significance, contribute to the uniqueness of the federal jurisdiction and the role of the CIRB.

The Board's role is to exercise its powers in accordance with the Preamble and provisions of the Code, which state that Parliament considers "the development of good industrial relations to be in the best interests of Canada in ensuring a just share of the fruits of progress to all." To that end, the Board aims to be responsive to the needs of the industrial relations community across Canada.

Departmental Organization
The Code provides that the Board is to be composed of the Chairperson, two or more full-time Vice-Chairpersons, not more than six full-time Members (of which not more than three represent employers and not more than three represent employees) and any other part-time members (representing, in equal numbers, employees and employers) necessary to discharge the responsibilities of the Board. All are appointed by the Governor in Council: the Chairperson and the Vice Chairpersons for terms not to exceed five years, the members for terms not to exceed three years. The Board currently consists of the Chairperson, five full-time and two part-time Vice-Chairpersons, and six full-time and two part-time Members. Information on the Board members can be found at: http://www.cirb-ccri.gc.ca/about-apropos/members-membres/index_eng.asp.

The Chairperson is the chief executive officer of the Board and has supervision over, and direction of, the work of the Board, including:

• the assignment and reassignment of matters that the Board is seized of to panels;
• the composition of panels and the assignment of Vice Chairpersons to preside over panels;
• the determination of the date, time and place of hearing;
• the conduct of the Board's work;
• the management of the Board's internal affairs;
• the duties of the staff of the Board.

The Board's headquarters are located in the National Capital Region. Support to the Board is provided by the Executive Director, reporting directly to the Chairperson. The Executive Director is responsible for regional operations, case management, client and corporate services and financial services. The Legal Services Branch provides legal assistance as required by the Board and is headed by a general counsel who reports directly to the Chairperson of the Board.

The Board has four regional offices located in Dartmouth, Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver, with two satellite offices, one in Ottawa and another in Winnipeg. These offices are staffed by labour relations professionals and case management teams. Each regional office is headed by a regional director, who reports to the Executive Director in Ottawa.

The Board has established a series of strategic objectives in support of its mandate, which include to:

• seek solutions to labour relations problems by determining the cause and nature of conflict and by applying the appropriate dispute resolution mechanism, including fact finding, mediation and adjudication;
• conduct its activities in a fair, timely and consistent manner;
• consult its clients on its performance and on the development of policies and practices;
• promote an understanding of its role, processes and jurisprudence through client contact and a variety of information dissemination methods;
• conduct its business and manage its resources in a manner that is fiscally sound, in accordance with the Financial Administration Act and the policies and directives of the central agencies of government.

Strategic Outcome and Program Activity Architecture (PAA)

Strategic Outcome
In pursuing its mandate, the CIRB seeks to achieve the following strategic outcome:

The CIRB's strategic outcome is aligned with the government's Economic Affairs and supports the government's desired outcome of ensuring a Fair and Secure Marketplace through the impartial, effective and appropriate administration of the rules governing the conduct of employers and unions, in order to ensure stable labour-management relations and productive workplaces.

Program Activity Architecture
Based on its legislated mandate, the CIRB has a single strategic outcome and two program activities.

[D]

Program Activity Architecture Crosswalk

The PAA shown above differs from the PAA provided in the Board's previous Report on Plans and Priorities. Specifically, the CIRB, in consultation with the Treasury Board Secretariat, reformulated its Strategic Outcome to better describe the benefit that the CIRB ultimately provides to Canadians. The change has no financial impact, nor does it change the Board's Program Activities. The previous PAA is shown below for comparison.

[D]

Planning Summary

The following table provides a summary of the total planned spending for the Canada Industrial Relations Board for the next three fiscal years.

Financial Resources ($ thousands)

2011–12	2012–13	2013–14
13,027	13,033	13,033

The following table provides a summary of the total planned human resources for the Canada Industrial Relations Board for the next three fiscal years.

Human Resources (FTEs)

2011–12	2012–13	2013–14
104	104	104

Strategic Outcome: : Effective dispute resolution services that support constructive labour management relations in sectors regulated by the Canada Labour Code

Performance Indicators	Targets
Number of applications/complaints resolved as a percentage of applications/complaints received	100%
Percentage of clients that are satisfied with the CIRB case management practices measured over a three-year period with a Client Satisfaction Survey	75%

Program Activity1	Forecast Spending 2010–11	Planned Spending			Alignment to Government of Canada Outcomes
		2011–12	2012–13	2013–14
Adjudicative and Dispute Resolution Program	10,366	9,510	9,514	9,514	Fair and Secure Market Place The CIRB promotes stable industrial relations within the industrial sectors that fall under federal jurisdiction, thus ensuring safe, fair and productive workplaces that contribute positively to the Canadian economy.
Internal Services	3,278	3,517	3,519	3,519
Total Planned Spending		13,027	13,033	13,033

Contribution of Priorities to Strategic Outcome

The CIRB's priorities are largely dictated by its strategic outcome. In the discharge of its mandate, the Board aims to be progressive, efficient and effective, as well as open and accountable. In addition to its objective of promoting and contributing to effective and stable industrial relations, the Board plans to pursue the priorities summarized in the table below.

Operational Priorities	Type	Links to Strategic Outcome	Description
Expeditious and fair processing of applications and complaints	Ongoing	All of these priorities are linked to our sole strategic outcome: Effective dispute resolution services that support constructive labour management relations in sectors regulated by the Canada Labour Code and are directly linked to our main program activity: Adjudicative and Dispute Resolution Program	Why is this a priority? Stable industrial relations contribute to Canada's economic prosperity. By resolving matters in a timely and fair manner, the CIRB directly contributes to this objective. Plans for meeting the priority To accomplish this, the CIRB will complete a review of its Regulations to ensure effective and efficient handling of applications and complaints; it will continue to monitor and fine-tune procedures aimed at reducing processing time for certification applications; and will actively explore opportunities to further reduce the average case disposition time.
Successful resolution of labour relations problems through appropriate dispute resolution mechanisms	Ongoing		Why is this a priority? Being responsive to the community needs and addressing the underlying labour relations issues contributes to a stable industrial relations climate and thus has a direct positive effect on the Canadian economy. Plans for meeting the priority To achieve this, the CIRB will increase its emphasis on proactive mediation of complaints by regional staff and Board members, and will implement tracking measures to measure its success rate.
An involved and well-informed labour relations community	Ongoing		Why is this a priority? As client-focused service is important to the federal government, consultations with clients will continue to be a priority for the CIRB. Plans for meeting the priority The CIRB will update and expand the information on its Website; continue to develop and disseminate regular CIRB updates to the labour relations community; and consult the community on policies and procedures.

Management Priorities	Type	Links to Strategic Outcome	Description
Enhanced electronic management capabilities	New	This priority is linked to our sole strategic outcome: Effective dispute resolution services that support constructive labour management relations in sectors regulated by the Canada Labour Code and is linked to two program activities: Adjudicative and Dispute Resolution Program and Internal Services	Why is this a priority? The ability to embrace and maximise new technologies to improve our capacity to manage information and provide excellent services to our clients is a core pillar of Public Service Renewal and is essential to CIRB's ability to achieve its strategic outcome economically, efficiently and effectively. Plans for meeting the priority The CIRB will complete the implementation of e-faxing capabilities within the Board and realign business processes to manage its case files electronically. The CIRB will also develop a needs assessment and framework that will assist it in moving forward with an e-filing capability, followed by the eventual replacement of its legacy Case Management System. This will be supported by appropriate change management strategies and principles to ensure successful implementation.

Risk Analysis

The CIRB is a low risk agency. Financially, approximately four fifths (81%) of its $13.0 million operating budget is for salaries and benefits. Of the remaining $2.6 million in Operations and Maintenance (O&M), 55% is for travel and professional services, and is largely related to the processing of cases such as travel to external hearings, temporary rental of hearing rooms, interpretation services and translation of Board decisions. The Board adheres to Treasury Board policies for the expenditure of its O&M budget.

Operating environment
The Board has an ongoing planning challenge in that the CIRB's sole function is to respond to the matters referred to it by unions, employers, employees and the Minister of Labour. As such, the CIRB's operational activities are driven by external demands that it can only react to rather than plan for.

The Board's workload is a function of many variables, but the economic environment and the collective bargaining cycle are key determinants of the types of cases submitted to the Board. For example, corporate mergers, acquisitions and restructuring tend to increase the demand for bargaining unit reviews, the determination of a single employer and of a sale of business. Corporate bankruptcies and insolvencies frequently result in a loss of or decrease in the level of collectively bargained salary and employment benefits, with resultant increases in duty of fair representation (DFR) and bad faith bargaining complaints. The negotiation or renegotiation of collective agreements in areas essential to public health or safety creates demand for Board investigations and rulings on maintenance of activities issues.

The state of the economy can affect the nature of the demand for Board services and the absolute number of incoming applications and complaints, which has tended to rise since the beginning of the latest recession in 2008. A significant increase in the incoming number of complex matters would severely affect the Board's ability to meet its strategic outcome.

Processing Time
The Board's largest operational risk is associated with the number of applications and complaints it receives in a given year, combined with its ability to continue to reduce its backlog of cases. To mitigate this risk, priority is given to the processing and consideration of matters in which it appears that delay will pose a significant potential for adverse industrial relations consequences, or where other identifiable factors require a matter to be promptly addressed. In addition, the CIRB adopted new procedures for the processing of DFR complaints over the last few years.

This year, the CIRB will complete a comprehensive review of its Regulations to ensure effective and efficient handling of applications and complaints and will continue to monitor and fine-tune the processing of applications for certification. It is expected that these mitigating strategies will further reduce the time it takes to process matters, which in turn will continue to reduce the number of backlog cases.

Quality of Decisions
In addition to the timeliness of decisions, a second operational risk involves the quality of the decisions. Decisions that are not based on sound legal and industrial relations principles would not only lead to flawed jurisprudence, but would also create uncertainty in the client community. It should be noted that all but two of the 97 judicial review applications heard by the Federal Court of Appeal were dismissed in the 2005–06 to 2009–10 period. This underscores the importance of the quality of Governor-in-Council appointments that are made to the Board and the experience and expertise that these appointees bring to it.

Corporate Management
The CIRB, like most of the federal public service, is facing challenges with employee retention and departures due to retirement. In the next five years, almost 20% of the Board's staff is eligible to retire. What is more problematic, however, is that almost 43% of the executive group is eligible to retire over the same period. In addition, results from the Public Service Employee Survey identified issues related to career progression within the Board. As the CIRB is a small and specialized organization, the impact of staff turnover can be significant. Maintaining continuity of the Board's corporate knowledge requires sustained focus on recruitment, training and succession planning. The Board responded in 2009 by putting in place trainee positions and development programs for selected key positions critical to the Board's operations.

The Board, like all federal departments and agencies, will also have to manage its operating and salary budget in line with budget restraints, which are likely to remain in place for some time. In addition, the Administrative Services Review undertaken this past year by the government to review administrative functions and overhead costs in order to identify opportunities for additional savings may further impact the CIRB.

Like other small departments and micro-agencies, the CIRB continually faces pressure to respond to, or implement various government-wide management initiatives. The CIRB is continuing its work on several fronts, such as strengthening its accountability framework, implementing new policy requirements, and developing measures to enhance the use of technology. The CIRB will also continue to actively seek horizontal opportunities and interdepartmental partnerships, in order to achieve efficiencies. The CIRB believes this approach will mitigate the pressure caused by increased demands, while ensuring it continues to be well positioned to carry out its statutory mandate.

Expenditure Profile

[D]

In 2008–09, the Board's actual expenditures were slightly higher than 2009–10 due to the relocation of the Board's regional offices in Montréal and Vancouver as a result of Public Works and Government Services Canada Initiatives. The forecasted spending for 2010–11 includes pay increases due to payments for retirements, maternity and parental leaves and other benefits adjustments prescribed by collective agreements and Treasury Board policies. It is expected that the budget restraints imposed by the government will result in a decrease of the Board's planned spending over the planning period.

Estimates by Vote

Estimates by Vote are presented in the 2011–12 Main Estimates, which are available at: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/est-pre/20112012/me-bpd/info/info-eng.asp.

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