Patrick Jetté, president of the Association of Justice Counsel, leads the organization’s demonstration in Ottawa. Roy Grogan for The Lawyers Weekly Click here to see full sized version.

The only things missing were the cold beer and the guests of honour.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson and Treasury Board president Vic Toews were no-shows at the first-ever demonstration organized by the Association of Justice Counsel (ACJ) here May 13, despite special invitations extended by the union for 2,500 rank-and-file federal Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors and lawyers.

The ministers’ absences didn’t seem to dampen the relaxed mood of 300 to 400 Ottawa-area ACJ members, however, as they ate boxed lunches in the noon sunshine outside DOJ headquarters as Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” blared out of loudspeakers erected for the unusual event.

Respect was the key message of ACJ president and Montreal prosecutor Patrick Jetté, whose members waved around empty blue cardboard folders to emphasize that the ACJ has tried, without success, to negotiate its first collective agreement ever since it was certified as the  lawyers’ bargaining agent on April 28, 2006.

“We have nothing – please raise that folder with me because it’s the symbol of the [government’s] disrespect for its lawyers,” Jetté told an enthusiastic crowd who sported buttons stating “Federal lawyers deserve justice!”

Said Jetté, “we have to tell the employer loud and clear that it must show us recognition and respect for what we do.”

He told The Lawyers Weekly the government is presently offering what amounts to a pay cut for most federal Crowns: i.e. a 1.5 per cent pay increase for each of four years, but the elimination of annual performance pay increases (from 4.6 to seven per cent) for the LA1 and LA2A categories, which comprise 70 per cent of DOJ lawyers.  “It’s insulting,” Jetté complained. “We couldn’t be farther apart than we are right now.”

He said the union wants a 35 to 45 per cent pay raise, which would give federal Crowns approximate parity with Ontario Crowns. The top salary for a mid-level Ontario Crown in the CC3 category is hovering around $184,000 as compared to the top salary for an LA2A federal Crown at $108, 700 and $119,000 for an LA2B Crown, Jette said.

Under a settlement reached in 2006 with the Ontario government, Ontario Crowns obtained a 45.48 per cent increase over 4.5 years.

 “Sixty per cent of our members are in the province of Ontario,” Jetté noted. He said the DOJ has problems hiring and retaining lawyers in Ontario, B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba where provincial Crowns’ salaries now exceed federal salaries.

The two sides are presently moving toward binding arbitration by a three-person panel, likely in the fall. Jetté stressed the ACJ is very concerned that the government agree with the union on an impartial and experienced chair who is seen as independent by both sides.  “We do not want to have a government employee,” he said.

The union has opted for binding arbitration to achieve its first contract, but Jetté confirmed that in future ACJ members could opt instead for conciliation and strikes.

ACJ members in the crowd told The Lawyers Weekly they believe the government is dragging its feet in the negotiations in order to save money.

“I feel that they have been stalling,” said Wilma Hovius, of the public law policy section in the DOJ’s public law group. “We do feel slightly dispirited and we do feel disappointed in how the government has been acting during the negotiations,” she said.

Added Brian Jarvis, an AJC rep also with the public law group in Ottawa, “We mean business. What we are hoping that [the protest] will demonstrate is that we care about what we are trying to achieve here, and that we are very much looking forward to the correct choice of a 100-per-cent-fair arbitrator because that’s crucial.”

Several lawyers told The Lawyers Weekly they remain optimistic that they will eventually get a fair increase. “Certainly other government lawyers in Canada have been quite successful and I think there is no reason to believe that we can’t be successful as well,” remarked Bruce Mayo of the DOJ’s support unit for the Department of National Defence.

Treasury Board has declined comment, stating it doesn’t wish to negotiate in public.