MOA on team-based approach, lines of sequence does not limit management rights
An employer’s unilateral creation of a new position called “Utilityman” for its steel mill violated the collective agreement, the union said.
The union grieved, claiming that the collective agreement set out a team-based approach that gave the union a say in the creation of new bargaining unit positions.
In 1997 the company and the union signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) that set out a team-based approach to operating the company’s steel mill.
The MOA outlined compensation principles for the positions listed and provided for employee involvement in the design of work along with the elimination of lines of sequence or groups of jobs linked by seniority.
In 2009, the employer posted a job vacancy for a position in the mill described as “Utilityman.” Job tasks listed for the Utilityman position were to assist other disciplines at the mill and to participate fully within a self-directed work group.
The union grieved.
Union input
The union said that the employer was prevented from creating new positions without union input. The MOA was a comprehensive agreement between the parties that outlined their joint efforts, addressed job structure and set out how the operation was to work.
Clearly given that context, the union said, it would follow that union agreement would be required before structural changes were contemplated or new jobs were established.
Moreover the creation of the Utilityman position established a compensation structure outside the team-based approach set out by the MOA. This amounted to a direct violation of the agreement, which specified that new lines of sequence could only be established with the agreement of the parties. This did not happen here, the union said.
The employer said that its management rights under the contract gave it the right to establish the Utilityman position. There was no suggestion that a worker in the position of Utilityman could use his or her seniority to advance to the more technical jobs in the mill described in the MOA. Even if the job did create a new line of sequence, that did not necessarily amount to a violation of the agreement. The contract entitled the employer to slot temporary jobs into existing lines of sequence or create new lines pending an agreement between the parties.
New positions
An employer has the right to manage its operations and reorganize its workforce, the Arbitrator said. And clearly, in this case, a decision to create a new position was well within management’s rights under the terms of the collective agreement.
The issue was whether or not the parties had agreed that management would be prevented from creating new positions without union agreement.
The agreements did not limit the employer’s authority in that way, the Arbitrator said.
Neither the MOA nor the other letters of agreement attached to the contract limited the employer’s ability to create jobs, the Arbitrator said.
“Neither of these agreements addresses or limits in any way future re-organizations of the (mill), the creation of new positions nor the requirement for union agreement before the introduction of new positions in the (mill).”
The MOA was comprehensive and did set out the structure and operational model for the mill, along with the compensation principles, job classes and pay rates, the Arbitrator said. However, “[T]he Memorandum of Agreement is silent in regards to future re-organizations, or the creation of new positions. It does not specifically make future changes conditional upon concurrence.”
While the union argued that the requirement for concurrence could be implied by examples in the MOA where the parties agreed to the number of positions, job classes and wage rates, the Arbitrator disagreed.
“[I]t is not plainly obvious from the number of positions or the existence of a wage schedule that the parties intended the positions in the Memorandum of Agreement to be, in effect, frozen unless otherwise agreed to by the parties.”
The absence of express language prohibiting the employer from re-organizing its workforce or creating new positions meant that the employer was not prevented from creating the position of Utilityman, the Arbitrator said.
“[T]he unilateral creation of the position of Utilityman by the employer in the (mill) in the exercise of its management rights was neither circumscribed nor a violation of the (MOA) or … the collective agreement. The employer had the right to create the position of Utilityman without union agreement …”
The grievance was dismissed.
