Following renewal of the collective agreement, a dispute arose over entitlements to $8.00 meal allowances for employees working overtime.
While the language concerning meal allowances had been in the collective agreement for many years, the employer served notice that it had reinterpreted the language and determined that meal allowances were now due only when employees worked two or more hours beyond their scheduled shift.
The employer said that workers who had at least 24 hours’ notice prior to working overtime were not entitled to the allowance because they were, in effect, working a scheduled 10-hour shift. Management rights, said the employer, gave it the right to determine the scheduling of operations in this way.
The union grieved.
The agreed facts put before the Arbitrator established that the bulk of the workers were canvassed at work about their willingness to work overtime either on the back end or in advance of a regular eight-hour shift. During busy times of, workers might be asked to come in early or stay late for a week, or until further notice.
For another group of service employees engaged in “set-up,” 10-hour shifts were the norm.
Management’s rights
Before the Arbitrator, the employer argued that its rights to direct work according to management’s rights and the lack in the collective agreement of a defined shift schedule gave it the flexibility to schedule 10-hour shifts.
While the employer conceded that eight-hour shifts were more typical, it argued that when employees agreed before hand to work 10-hour shifts, they were assenting to a schedule change.
Moreover, a purposive approach was the appropriate method of interpreting the collective agreement, the employer argued. The point of the meal allowance was not that it was to operate as a financial incentive — the workers were already being paid an overtime rate — rather, it was to act as compensation in cases where insufficient notice of overtime made it difficult for workers to make preparations for their meals.
The collective agreement language was clear and unambiguous, the union argued. The article stated, “An employee who works two (2) hours or more outside of his scheduled shift shall be paid a meal allowance of eight ($8.00) dollars.” As the standard or scheduled work-week defined in the collective agreement was five consecutive eight-hour days, two or more hours worked beyond the typical eight-hour shift was captured by the language in question and the meal allowance was due, the union said.
Notice or the lack of notice was not an issue as the employer alleged because notice was not referenced by the agreement.
Whereas the employer had correctly interpreted and applied the terms of the collective agreement in the past, its current practice constituted a violation of the agreement, the union said.
The Arbitrator agreed.
Meal allowance also a monetary incentive
While the Arbitrator approved of a purposive approach to the language of the collective agreement, in this case the meal allowance did also act as an additional monetary incentive for employees to work voluntary overtime.
The Arbitrator also disagreed with the employer’s interpretation of the effect of the additional hours on an employee’s “scheduled shift.”
“In the circumstances of this case I am unable to accept the Employer’s position that advance notice of over-time is sufficient to change an employee’s scheduled shift so that the employee is disentitled to the meal allowance … The Employer’s position equates daily, voluntary, overtime to a change in shift schedule. More precise and unambiguous language is required for such a broad and liberal interpretation of ‘his scheduled shift’ in [the collective agreement].”
Different considerations might apply in cases where an employee’s regular shift exceeded eight hours, but the number of extended shifts required to alter the perception of an employee’s “scheduled shift” would exceed a few days and would not be based on intermittent occasions over time, the Arbitrator said.
“[I]f an employee always works eight (8) hours but on occasion works additional over-time hours ‘his scheduled shift’ has not been changed by the mere fact of those occasional over-time hours. Therefore the meal allowance must be paid on those occasions.”
The grievance was allowed.
