On Wednesday, July 31, 2013, the Local met with the shop stewards for the internal members to discuss and come to an understanding of what would be the fairest way to proceed with a bid on the positions in the Pacific Processing Plant (PPC).
We met with shop stewards on the night shift and also held a shop steward meeting at the Local office to try to come up with an understanding of the problems and concerns of either method that was being proposed in the bulletin of July 26, 2013:
1.) Open bid for all assignments
2.) Section bid for sections with no change
One of the issues that was put forward was that members may not understand why some sections are going to be done as an open bid no matter which method of bidding we decide to use.
It was also felt that the duty rosters, as proposed by the employer, needed to be shared with the members so that members would have a clear idea of what was happening with the sections and the movement of positions. Some sections have no dayshift positions.
At this time, the Local is meeting with the employer to discuss these schedules. Based on our discussions with the employer, these rosters may change in the future,
Facts and Issues:
Will we all have jobs at the PPC?
Although the employer put out a notice in February of this year that there would be eight hundred and nine (809) positions in the new PPC, this has now changed with the move in date, as the total complement of employees is higher than the previous number.
The new number is eight hundred and sixty-three (863), without the TSOS members needing positions. The employer is telling us that they will achieve their reduction of positions through attrition. This will be in the form of transfers, retirements, and people that quit in the future.
The employer’s plan is that when someone leaves, they will not fill the position and delete it from the rosters. No one is being forced to part time or being surplused. Every regular employee that has a position in one of the two Vancouver Plants will have a job in the new plant.
What creates an open assignment or vacant assignment?
The employer is deleting sections and creating new sections. With the deletion and creation of sections, they are also changing the work schedules in all of the sections.
Under the language of the Collective Agreement, an assignment is identified by constituent elements. A constituent element is:
- the section where the work is performed
- the work schedule
If both constituent elements are changed (most are changing with the move to the PPC), then these assignment must be declared as vacant or unassigned. These will then be posted in the order book as vacant assignments and are open for everyone to bid on.
Are the sections and work schedules changing?
Management can create new sections by: deleting a section, creating a new section, or breaking up a section into two (2) new sections. For example, management is doing this with the old VMPP Coding and Mech section. They are dividing it into two (2) NEW sections: Mech and VES. Even though one of the new sections will have an old name (“Short and Long Mechanized”), it is still a new section because they have changed the work schedules with the removal of the VES or Coding work. With that change, coding will not be available to the Mech roster. Therefore, both are new sections in a new plant with new work schedules.
All the full time and part time employees in the old Coding and Mech section will have to bid for a new assignment for February 2014. The assignments in the new sections, Mech and VES, will be open to all PO4s in the post office, not only to the people that hold positions in the current coding and Mech.
Management is deleting VMPP RT&D and the old VPDC RT&D and creating a new section – RT&D for the Pacific Processing Centre. The assignments in the new section will be open for bid to all PO5s in the post office. The old sections will have no assignments for anyone to stay in (as they will have been moved). So this will be an open bid for the P05s.
Management is also creating a new section – Vancouver Exchange Office, by combining the old Customs Support, Registration, Consolidation, and some of the work from the old Parcels and Packets, and Premium Products. All of the assignments in this new section, VEO, will be open for bid to all full time PO4s in the post office. All of the full time PO4s in the old sections (Customs Support, Registration, etc.) will be without a section and will need to bid for a new assignment, along with all PO4s, for February 2014.
At the time of writing this bulletin, five hundred and sixty-five (565) members will participate in an open assignment bid while one hundred and sixty-two (162) might be left in their sections and unable to bid on new assignments. However, these one hundred and sixty-two (162) will get to bid on all the open assignments. Some of these sections have had a reduction of dayshift positions and some will have no dayshift positions.
Please e-mail your comments to: [email protected]
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In Solidarity,
Pat Bertrand
1st Vice President
ck/CUPE-3338