Karen De Francesco – Grievance Officer
Erin Collins and Aaron Spires – Arbitration Advocates
Brothers and Sisters,
The Grievance Committee has had a very positive and progressive year, filled with many inspirational wins and triumphs for the members of the Vancouver Local.
The hard work of the advocates are paying off. We have been able to resolve grievances on a regular and continued basis. When I first took office in 2012, I tried to assure the members of the Vancouver Local that my main objective would be to deal with the enormous grievance backlog.
At that time, there was an enormous backlog of approximately 2,000 grievances; it was growing every day. Many of these grievances were from the 2003 Collective Agreement. The Corporation was regularly trying to adjourn hearings, delaying justice for our members even more. We needed a better plan to address the outstanding files – clearly what we were doing wasn’t working.
With the help of Brother Ken Mooney – Regional Grievance Officer, and Stan Lanyon – Lawyer and Arbitrator, the Parties decided to adopt a process of “expediting” the grievance procedure that would be in compliance with the language of our Collective Agreement.
Before we adopted this expedited process, the Corporation would inhibit the Union’s advocates from addressing all the grievances on a list of files scheduled for a date in front of an Arbitrator and only address the top few. In effect, this prevented the Union from attempting to resolve upwards of sixty (60) grievances that would appear on a list.
With the new “expedited” system in place, the Union is able to discuss all grievance files on the list, attempting to resolve as many as possible while only leaving a handful that need to be heard in front of the Arbitrator. As a result, the Grievance Committee has addressed 811 grievances since the launch of the “expedited” process in September of 2013, and successfully resolved 604 with this proven method.
In that time, we have successfully obtained $51, 551 for the membership that may have otherwise been lost, or waiting for resolution for years to come.
The charts below show the progress we have been able to make. By continuing to utilize this process we hope to eliminate the backlog of grievances and ensure a faster resolution to grievances filed in the future.
In Solidarity,
Karen De Francesco
Grievance Officer
| Vancouver Local – 2014 Summary – Resolved Regular Arbitration Grievances |
||||||
|
Month & |
Grievances Scheduled on |
Grievances Resolved |
Hours Paid Out * |
% Resolved Grievances |
||
|
January (2) |
55 |
34 |
177.61 |
61.82% |
||
|
February (2) |
113 |
88 |
163.04 |
77.88% |
||
|
March (2) |
110 |
88 |
162.79 |
80.00% |
||
|
April (2) |
109 |
84 |
147.78 |
77.06% |
||
|
May (2) |
103 |
85 |
262.8 |
82.52% |
||
|
June (2) |
107 |
84 |
244.69 |
78.50% |
||
|
July (2) |
110 |
72 |
222.38 |
65.45% |
||
|
August (1) |
58 |
43 |
92.58 |
74.14% |
||
|
September ** |
44 |
24 |
90.82 |
54.55% |
||
|
Total: |
809 |
602 |
1564.5 |
74.41% |
||
*Hours Paid Out encompasses suspensions, OT bypass, special leave, sick leave restored, vacation time, etc.
**At the time of printing, Arbitration hearings for the month of September are still in process.
The VPDC suspension grievances have now been resolved, awarding members $11,908 for the suspensions rendered.
To date, the total amount paid out is $51, 551 to our members.
ck/CUPE-3338