Payments meant for dairy pasteurizers alone
A working foreman at the St. John’s Agropur dairy plant grieved after he felt that a $1-per-hour premium was not being applied to his hours.
Terry O’Neill, had worked for the employer since 1984, and he regularly made butter from cream or milk. He testified that he considered himself to be a butter batcher, because he takes the raw material and processes it into batches of butter.
As well, O’Neill worked in what he called a “butter-batching room” which was located directly beside another batching room
According to a June 18, 2015, letter of understanding, “employees required to work in a batch processor or HTST (high temperature/short time) processor position will be paid $1 premium for hours worked in the position.”
O’Neill said when the 2015 negotiations happened, he would have asked for the butter maker position to be included under the batch and HTST positions, if he was he involved in the talks.
On March 28, 2017, O’Neill filed the grievance, with the union, the Teamsters, Transport and Allied Workers Union, Local 855. As well, the grievance asked for an additional $1-per-hour premium as working foreman.
O’Neill testified he asked about the premium in January 2017, when Agropur began to make butter at the plant. But the employer responded that the $1-per-hour premium was only intended to be paid to those workers involved in the pasteurization process.
A company manual refers to a “batch of butter” but it didn’t use the verb “batch” in any way, said O’Neill.
David Pearce, former president and business manager for Teamsters, testified that during the 2015 negotiations, the employer was concerned about losing batch and HTST workers, who felt they weren’t being adequately compensated for pasteurization, which was crucial to plant operations because of food-safety concerns.
The employer added the premium pay to keep the workers from transferring out of their current positions, he said.
If Agropur clarified that pasteurization was the key consideration in the original 2015 talks, the union wouldn’t have brought forward the grievance, said Pearce.
Andrea Dillon, quality control supervisor, testified batch and HTST processors go through a minimum of three months of training, followed by on-the-job shadowing due to the importance of their work and O’Neill was not trained in critical control point (CCP) work, which was defined as, “Any action and activity that can be used to prevent or eliminate a food safety hazard or reduce it to an acceptable level,” according to the company’s CCP training manual.
Making butter involved cream or milk that was already pasteurized, said Dillon.
Arbitrator James Oakley dismissed the grievance. “(O’Neill’s) position of butter maker is one of the machine-operator positions. Butter making occurs in a room separated by partition from the batching room. (O’Neill) referred to his room as the butter-batching room. However, the photographs indicate that the label on the room is ‘butter room’”
There are separate categories of workers, according to Oakley. “The evidence establishes that there is a specific position of batch processor which is the machine-operator position doing batch pasteurization. (O’Neill’s) work as a butter maker is not batch pasteurization. The butter maker and the batch processor are two separate and distinct positions within the machine-operator classification.”
The second premium requested was also denied. “There is no reference in the wage schedule to paying any amount to the working foreman over and above any premium paid to the classifications supervised,” said Oakley.
“(O’Neill) is entitled to the rate for working foreman in schedule A, which is $1 above the rate paid to the machine-operator classification.”
Reference: Agropur Dairy Cooperative and Teamsters, Transport and Allied Workers Union, Local 855. James Oakley — arbitrator. Jack Graham for the employer. Stuart Morris for the employee. Jan. 29, 2018. 2018 CarswellNfld 164
