Taking the position that the employer’s practice of reassigning bargaining unit employees to different departments during the workday violated collective agreement provisions on seniority, the union grieved.
Citing operational needs associated with running its food distribution centre, the employer had developed the practice of moving workers between the various departments.
About 140 workers were employed at the facility, which maintained separate departmental seniority lists as required by the collective agreement.
While it was agreed that the temporary reassignment of an employee from his or her own department to another department had no effect on the employee’s wages, seniority or classification, the union said that the reassignments violated collective agreement provisions on departmental seniority and specific contract terms governing transfers.
Management rights
The case ultimately focused on whether or not management had the right to reassign employees according to its practice.
The union acknowledged the unfettered right of management to allocate work subject only to specific contractual restraints, good faith and operational requirements. While the employer’s actions met the test of good faith and operational requirements, the union argued that contractual constraints prevented the employer from reassigning employees across departmental lines.
Following a line from the management rights provisions in the contract, beginning with the specific proviso that management’s rights to effect transfers are subject to seniority provisions spelled out in the contract, the union made the case that the employer was obliged to follow the job-posting and seniority considerations associated with interdepartmental transfers as specified in the contract.
The employer could deal with its temporary staffing needs through part-time employees or overtime, the union said, but it could not simply transfer employees from one department to another as it had been doing.
For its part, the employer argued that it had the broad right to direct its workforce and that this right encompassed temporary reassignment. Clear, explicit language would be required to restrict this right and there was no such language in the contract, it said.
The seniority provisions referenced by the union governed restrictions that might apply to transfers or promotions, job vacancies and postings but not to temporary reassignments. Management was free to temporarily reassign employees from one department to another, the employer said.
Express language required
The Arbitrator agreed that, in this case, no express or inferred language restricted management’s right to temporarily reassign employees between departments.
Citing Alberta Health Services the Arbitrator affirmed that decision’s assessment that, “Unquestionably, the right to designate the location where an employee’s duties are to be performed is prima facie a matter of management’s rights to organize the workplace and direct its working force. We accept the proposition that such an important management right can only be restrained by clear and unambiguous language.”
The Arbitrator also turned aside the union’s argument that there was another contractual basis for proscribing the employer’s power in this case. While the union asserted that reassignment defeated the purpose of departmental seniority, the Arbitrator disagreed. “[I] cannot see how temporary reassignment interferes with seniority rights. It cannot be inferred that the mere fact of departmental seniority creates a bar to moving employees. Nor is there any language that suggests that interdepartmental movement must be based on seniority … In this contract, there is no language indicating that one of the purposes of departmental seniority is to govern or in any way restrict temporary movement among departments.”
The union’s argument that the contract obliged the employer to follow contract provisions on promotions and transfers was also in error. “These restrictions, however, are not universal ones of general application affecting all movement of employees. The restrictions are specifically directed to the filling of vacancies and bidding on new classifications.”
The grievance was dismissed.
