surial said:
Hi Sarayu,
I came to know that there is strike action taking by all
Visa officers on cic website.. This is realy bad for us i think
Alert – Strike Action
The Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers (PAFSO) union is currently taking strike action. PAFSO union members responsible for processing visa applications have been walking out of offices in Canada and overseas.
Posted processing times for both temporary and permanent resident visa applications do not take into account work stoppages.
Anyone applying for a visa should anticipate delays and submit their application online as far in advance as possible. Electronic applications give CIC much more flexibility in moving case processing to offices with the capacity to handle them.
Contingency plans are already in place to ensure all offices remain open and are providing at least a minimum level of service. Priority will be placed on urgent humanitarian applications.
CIC continues to closely monitor the situation.
Here is the strike statement;
26 July 2013 - Statement by the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers: PAFSO Responds to
Government's Rejection of Arbitration Shortly before noon today, PAFSO received a letter from the President of the Treasury Board in which he rejected
our offer of binding arbitration. Minister Clement's decision was based on the grounds that PAFSO would not
accept all six of the preconditions he wanted to impose on the arbitration process. The Canadian public must understand two key facts: Two of Treasury Board's preconditions were so paralyzing that their acceptance would have predetermined the
outcome of arbitration in the Government's favour and negated the purpose and integrity of the process.
Specifically, they wanted to exclude from consideration any mention of other professional groups in government
who perform the same work as us – often in neighbouring offices – which has been at the heart of our position
since day one. PAFSO made a reasonable and responsible effort at finding common ground by accepting two of the six
preconditions, and committing to a goodwill gesture – a suspension of service withdrawals while arbitration is
ongoing – which would have satisfied a third. Let us be clear: PAFSO has not rejected binding arbitration. We offered it in the first place. We agreed to pursue it
even with three of Treasury Board's preconditions. This offer still stands. If Minister Clement truly believes his offer is “fair and reasonable”, he would not have shied away from
arbitration without preconditions. Rather, he would have welcomed the opportunity to submit his offer to
independent scrutiny. Instead, he sought to stack the deck in his favour by cherry-picking criteria which would
have favoured Treasury Board's position. He is trying to tilt the playing field to the Government's advantage, and
is clearly uninterested in a fair contest. The Government has reached tentative agreements in two other long-outstanding contract negotiations during
the last month, and will return to the table on Monday to address a third. PAFSO is one of the smallest unions in
the federal government. Equal pay for our members could be achieved for $4.2 million – 1.5% of the impact this
strike is having on the tourism sector alone. PAFSO can only conclude that the Government is behaving
prejudicially toward the Foreign Service and is therefore negotiating in bad faith. This should be of serious
concern to all Canadians. Effective Monday, in order to persuade the Government that binding arbitration remains the responsible way
forward to resolve our dispute, PAFSO members will withdraw all services until further notice at Canada's fifteen
largest visa processing centres abroad: Abu Dhabi, Ankara, Beijing, Cairo, Delhi/Chandigarh, Hong Kong, London,
Manila, Mexico City, Moscow, Paris, Riyadh, Sao Paulo, and Shanghai. We take no pleasure whatsoever in these strike actions and their real, severe, and mounting effects on the
Canadian economy. But it should now be evident to all Canadians that from this point forward the Government
of Canada bears sole and complete responsibility for these impacts. PAFSO has made every reasonable effort to
resolve this situation; the Government has not. PAFSO encourages all individuals, businesses, and industry
associations with a stake in the outcome of our dispute to intervene with the Government and urge them to
bargain freely and flexibly with their own employees.
