Retrofit building, not job duties, arbitrator says

A policy grievance was upheld at a southwestern Ontario county where a new municipal building was erected that had the effect of changing the nature of the job for the workers who were tasked with maintenance.

In 2012, the County of Lambton revamped its municipal art gallery, and introduced a new cleaner position — previously there had only been one.

Unifor filed a policy grievance on behalf of county workers, saying the two new cleaner positions existed under the same classification, as opposed to two, which the county believed it had established.

The problem was significant for one Trudy Springer, the incumbent part-time cleaner of the library and old gallery. She waas the only employee affected by the change, and it resulted in a six-hour deficit in weekly hours.

From the county’s view, the unique requirements associated with cleaning the new gallery constituted the need for a new classification — had the employer simply needed to assign an employee to a different work location, it would have done so in Springer’s case.

Because the collective agreement did not restrict the county’s ability to create new classifications, it was well within its management rights to do so.

Despite this claim, evidence presented by union counsel indicated the employer referred to the gallery cleaning job as a new "position" not "classification" in its initial memo informing Unifor of the change.

At issue is how fill-in hours are distributed to cleaners in the bargaining unit pursuant to the collective agreement, said Christine Schmidt, the arbitrator presiding over the grievance.

By referring to the new job as a "position," the employer did not create a classification — and therefore the issue resolved itself.

She also reviewed the specific requirements of the job and determined they would not have justified the creation of a classification.

"Even had I accepted that the library cleaners and gallery cleaners were different classifications, my view is that the county would still be required to offer fill-in gallery hours to part-time library cleaners before casual workers," Schmidt said.

The grievance was allowed and the county was ordered to create a fill-in list reflecting that the positions fall under one classification, and to distribute the fill-in hours in accordance with the decision.