Teachers win scheduling case on technicality
Teachers at a school in southwestern Ontario won a scheduling case on a technicality.
At Echo Place, a school in Brantford, Ont., run by the Grand Erie District School Board, there exists a "balanced school day." There are no official lunch
break and instead there are small breaks and recess periods throughout the day, as opposed to one large break in the middle of the day.
The problem and basis for a grievance filed by the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) was prompted by provisions pertaining to occasional teachers, particularly a scheduling conflict.
According to the collective agreement, when an occasional teacher is called to an assignment for a half day, it will be either for a morning shift or an afternoon shift — and they will never be required to work over the lunch break.
On a couple of occasions during the 2012-2013 school year (but not enough to be especially disruptive), the vice-principal had to leave school in the morning. An occasional teacher would be enlisted to cover her teaching responsibilities and would work from 9:40 a.m. to 1:10 p.m. Though the replacement staffer would not teach for more than 150 minutes, they would be required to work over the lunch break.
The union argued this was in violation of the collective agreement by requiring them to work over the break.
"If the occasional teaching began at the start of the day, instead of later on, the occasional teacher could, even in a balanced school day environment, complete all of his or her teaching before the lunch break," the ETFO explained. "The collective agreement could, and should, be administered in a way that did not lead to a breach and that meant, in this situation, starting the occasional assignment earlier in the day."
On the other hand, the school board submitted that there was no possibility of an occasional teacher ever getting more than a half-day assignment, that all occasional teachers taught for 150 minutes and were paid for 150 minutes. Further, the non-traditional schedule eliminated any "lunch break" and made the union’s argument moot.
"Since there is no lunch break in the traditional sense at noon anymore with the balanced day, we believe that assignments during the second instructional block that conclude around 1 p.m. are not in violation of the collective agreement," the board said.
In this case, the flaw was in the design, the arbitrator ruled.
In his decision, William Kaplan said there had been a technical breach of an out-of-date provision in the collective agreement. Both the union and board no longer adhered to a schedule with morning and afternoon classes separated by a lunch break.
"So, while the existing provision has been breached, that breach must be placed in context: it is technical only as the provision has no current applicability," Kaplan explained.
Reference: Grand Erie District School Board and the Grand Erie Elementary Occasional Teachers’ union, affiliated with the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario. William Kaplan — arbitrator. Stephen Gleave for the employer, Mark Wright for the union. Oct. 14, 2014.
