On February 26, 2008, Canada Post and CUPW met to discuss some of the issues arising from a letter that was recently sent to temporary employees assigned to Group 1 surge casual call-in lists at the VMPP. In that letter, dated January 24, 2008, Canada Post advised temporary employees that their continued employment would be subject to their ability to show “reasonable availability”:

As a surge casual employee, you are in an on-call position. You may be called on the same day as needed and must be available and willing to report for work. You must demonstrate reasonable availability when called, and failure to do so may result in removal from the temporary employee call-in list. The minimum standard is the acceptance on 50% or more of work offers.

As a result of Canada Post’s correspondence, many temporary employees feel extremely apprehensive about declining work assignments. Other temporary employees have expressed that they feel as if they must now be on 24 hour standby in order to keep their jobs. In addition, the tone of Canada Post’s recent correspondence was considered to be too militaristic.

While Canada Post has the right to expect “reasonable availability” from its temporary employees, its standard must be reasonable. The Union maintains that “reasonable availability” should not be determined by a 50% acceptance rate, but by the individual facts and circumstances surrounding an employee’s ability to accept work assignments.

As a result of the concerns that were brought forward regarding the Corporation’s recent correspondence, the parties met to consult on the problems arising from the new standard of “reasonable availability”.

At consultation, the Corporation stated that it would not “back off” the 50% acceptance rate, but it qualified that position by stating that it would review individual circumstances when auditing the acceptance rates of surge casual employees.

The following items reflect the other discussions that took place during consultation.

Only one refusal per day

Work assignments are now administered to temporary employees by an automated machine. The Automated Employee Call Management System (AECMS) is programmed to contact employees at home or at other designated contact numbers for the purpose of offering work assignments. The AECMS leaves a voicemail that outlines the details of the work assignment after which employees are allowed ten minutes in which to respond. In the absence of a response, the voicemail offer is been recorded as a refusal.

Like all automated programs, the AECMS contains flaws. The system is programmed in such a way that employees are automatically contacted for work assignments regardless of shift. The AECMS is programmed to contact employees at home even if they are at work! It is possible to receive up to three offers per day, which, without response, would be recorded as three refusals on a single calendar date!

The Union pointed out that the collective agreement states that temporary employees shall not work beyond five days per week barring exceptional circumstances. Therefore, even if an employee accepts one of the work assignments offered on a given day, he or she might still be offered up to two additional work assignments per day. When tallied at the end of the month, a temporary employee who accepts daily work assignments might nonetheless fail to have achieved a 50% acceptance rate! The Union observed that it would be quite unreasonable for an employee who accepts daily work assignments to be in breach of the 50% acceptance rate contemplated by Canada Post’s definition of “reasonable availability”.

The Union took the position that employees should not be charged with more than one refusal per calendar day.

In response, Canada Post advised that henceforth, “reasonable availability would be based on days offered work, not shifts”.

Lack of notice when offering work assignments

Another ongoing complaint has been the lack of notice given to temporary employees when work assignments have been administered by the AECMC. For Canada Post, one of the advantages of an automated phone system is that its administrative staff is spared from the wrath of employees who have been given notice of a work assignment at the last minute.

Unfortunately, many temporary employees have not been able to accept work assignments because of the last minute notice. During consultation, Canada Post acknowledged that it has been recording these occasions as refusals.

In the Union’s view, this is a patently unreasonable practice. The Union took the position that reasonable notice is required and that employees who are not been provided with reasonable notice should not be penalized for their inability to accept the offer of a work assignment at the last minute.

Initially, Management’s response was that “a refusal is a refusal regardless of the circumstance”.

Management later took the position that “when auditing acceptance rates, we will not count as a refusal those instances when a surge was given less than one hour notice and didn’t accept”.

For many employees, one hour’s notice will still not provide sufficient time to make the necessary arrangements to report for work, particularly when taking into consideration transportation and childcare needs. The Union has requested that the notification period be extended to ninety minutes. Canada Post is currently reviewing the Union’s proposal to extend the notification period.

On March 15, 2005, Arbitrator Ken Swan issued his decision on National Policy Grievance N00-03-00004. That grievance was filed by CUPW after Canada Post refused to authorize over-assessment payments to Letter Carriers covering absences on over-assessed routes by working extended hours and/or incentive overtime.

Unlike internal employees, Letter Carriers are assessed their workloads on the basis of a work measurement system known as the Letter Carrier Route Measurement System (LCRMS). The LCRMS is a time and motion study that was designed to assess routes in light of the standard time required to carry out the various functions associated with the task of delivering mail. Under that work measurement system, each component of a Letter Carrier’s duties is assigned a specific time value. If and when a route becomes assessed at 485 or more minutes per day, Appendix V of the collective agreement requires Canada Post to pay over-assessment payments. That payment is provided to the employee(s) who is assigned to cover the over-assessed route.

The dispute that gave rise to N00-03-00004 was initiated when Canada Post refused to grant these payments to Letter Carriers who covered over-assessed routes pursuant to Article 17.04 of the collective agreement. The provisions of Article 17.04 require Canada Post to cover Letter Carrier absences by offering extended hours and overtime by equal opportunity. Under that language, an uncovered route is broken down into portions, and then offered on a volunteer basis as extended hours and or overtime to part-time and full-time Letter Carriers.

Prior to the filing of the grievance, Canada Post took the position that Appendix V only requires an over-assessment payment to be paid when an individual Letter Carrier covers a full over-assessed route. Canada Post rejected the proposition that such payments are applicable where more than one volunteer covers an absence on an over-assessed route.

The Union took the position that such payments are always required, regardless of the number of employees covering an absence.

In his decision, Arbitrator Swan rejected the Corporation’s arguments. In responding to the Corporation’s claim of an accounting nightmare, the Arbitrator found stated: …I am unable to accept, in the absence of some evidence, that modern management information systems cannot be adjusted to keep track for partial days of work when they must already have been conceded to be able to keep track of individual full days.

As remedy, Arbitrator Swan ruled that over-assessment payments are applicable not only to employees who work full days, but also to those who work fractional days on an over-assessed route.

Ken M.