Non-Preferred Rest Days and Crossover Agreements

February 6, 2007

Brothers and Sisters,

Today we signed off on three (3) agreements which will affect various TP&E employees in the Eastern, Prairie and Pacific regions in a positive manner. I have attached them at the bottom for your review.

The first agreement has to do with the NOSA (Northern Ontario Service Area)/SOSA (Southern Ontario Service Area) crews in the Eastern Region.

The company has plans to lay off the High density tie crew in NOSA on approximately July 10th, 2007. They will reduce it to a light density tie crew, laying off a number of junior employees who will not have even worked long enough this season to be eligible for EI.

After the displacements that will inevitably follow throughout NOSA there will still be roughly a dozen employees without work. At the same time the company is planning on hiring employees in the Prairie region, in particular Manitoba (45 employees between June and September).

With this agreement the employees left over after the displacements will be given a chance to go to Manitoba to work, thereby lessening the number of new hires and not affecting the work schedule of the MB employees. The full details are in the Northern Ontario Crossover Agreement under the heading "Work Opportunities".

Around this time, the newly formed Light Density tie crew will be allowed to crossover into SOSA, as their work will be completed in NOSA. All Eastern Region TP&E employees will then receive enhanced mileage compensation, our members will do work that may have been contracted out and the NOSA light density tie crew will not affect the work season of the SOSA crews.

Remember, NOSA and SOSA are in the same region and even without this agreement, article 11.8 of wage agreement 41 would still apply, which reads,

Thereafter he will have the seniority date he carried and seniority dates established on the seniority territory to which he transferred. An employee returning to his former seniority territory shall relinquish all seniority dates held on the seniority territory to which he had transferred. Copies of bulletins shall be furnished the employees concerned."

Under this article, NOSA members could still possibly come into SOSA and displace SOSA members after a series of displacements throughout NOSA. With this agreement, we will allow the NOSA members to get a complete season, without displacing SOSA members, the SOSA season will not be affected and all TP&E members on the Eastern region (both NOSA & SOSA) get enhanced mileage.

I realize that most of us are opposed to the flexibility of seniority territories.

I am, and have always been, opposed to it. Our membership spends far too much time on the highways instead of home with their families.

However, in looking out for the common good of the membership as a whole, sometimes allowances have to be made. Contractors must be kept off of the property whenever possible, our members must be able to work and there must be compensation. And any flexibility must be temporary, without prejudice or precedent, dependent wholly on the instant circumstances.

The second agreement had to do with flexibility of TP&E seniority territories on the Prairie region. Manitoba steel would come in to Saskatchewan to assist Sask steel and then Sask steel would crossover into Manitoba to assist Manitoba steel. Again, we negotiated enhanced mileage for all TP&E employees on the Prairie region.

The steel crew work in both Saskatchewan and Manitoba are ambitious projects where the company wanted to have two experienced steel crews working in tandem to get it completed in a timely manner. This would also allow a full work season for both crews and an absence of outside contractors.

By combining steel crews, especially on the Swift Current sub, non-preferred rest days cycles would also be kept to a shorter duration. In addition, it allowed us to negotiate a substantial benefit for all those who had to work the non-preferred rest days schedule this year, as we tied the cross over agreement into the non-preferred rest day issue.

The third agreement concerned non-preferred rest day cycles. As you are all aware, this is a contentious issue. I have attached links to six different CROA cases concerned with this matter. There are a lot more but I believe you will get the point with these.

As you can see, there are instances where we have won this issue at arbitration, both the TCRC MWED and the BMWE. However we have also lost some cases. I even included a similar one which was lost by the CAW because of "operational requirements".

Last year we took the company to CROA over the non-preferred rest days (case 3559). We lost.

You see, the collective agreement allows the company to go to non-preferred rest days temporarily, if they can show 'operational requirements'. And when they can show 'operational requirements', they go to non-preferred rest days without any extra compensation to the employees affected.

After much discussion amongst ourselves and with legal counsel, we came to the conclusion that the instant matter (the non-preferred rest days cycles in 2007 work season which the company was planning on implementing) was very close to the argument and the circumstances that the company used in 3559.

Does this mean that we did not have a chance at CROA? Of course not. We could put together a good argument and fight it out. But the arbitrator could rule against us (as he did in 3559) and the members working the non-preferred cycle would not receive any compensation for their hardship.

A hard decision to make for sure, but one that had to be made.

Because the company wanted the crossover agreement in the Prairies, which would also be a benefit in itself to our membership and we wanted enhancements for anyone who had to work a non-preferred rest day schedule, we reached an agreement. After a long fight with much discussion, we got them to agree to the 12.5% increase on all hours worked in a non-preferred rest day schedule. This means that on 20 dollars an hour, a member will receive an additional $25.00 a day or roughly, an additional $450.00 a month, not counting overtime.

As well, all members who lose hours or rest days due to the switch in cycles, will receive further compensation. To fully appreciate all the benefits, please review the documents.

I am satisfied that we have gained substantial compensation here and am proud of and grateful to those who helped us achieve this, including but not limited to David Brown, Directors Helfenbein, Doherty, Spikula and Vice President Delongchamp.

Anytime you have to make temporary modifications to seniority territories or to the work cycles, it causes a lot of soul searching, sleepless nights, dialogue and debate. But the decisions have to be made and once the decisions are made, all agreements must reflect an improvement for the membership. These agreements do just that.

Stay safe, stay strong, stay united.

Bill Brehl
President
TCRC MWED

http://arbitrations.netfirms.com/adhoc/AH0522.htm declined

http://arbitrations.netfirms.com/croa/40/CR3559.htm declined

http://arbitrations.netfirms.com/shp/SHP0457.htm declined

http://arbitrations.netfirms.com/croa/30/CR2995.htm allowed

http://arbitrations.netfirms.com/croa/25/CR2464.html allowed

http://arbitrations.netfirms.com/croa/40/CR3524.htm allowed