I would like to acknowledge how challenging the last few months have been for all of us and I would like to thank every one of you that voted on the Canada Post proposals. We had a very good turn out for these votes and our members sent Canada Post a strong message that the proposals were not good enough. We are continuing to demand that management return to the bargaining table with a mandate to negotiate deals that provide us with what we need and are ratifiable by our members. I also want to provide a brief update on what is happening in the world of grievances and arbitration.
Termination Grievances:
We are still seeing a large number of terminations happening in our Region. We need to be constantly aware that management is watching us and that there are cameras every where. We all need to do our jobs properly and follow the work rules. If you encounter an issue, please report it to local management right away. This includes anything that is out of the ordinary like vehicle defects, machines not working correctly, hazards on your route or in the plants and depots, not being able to get all your work done or confrontations with the public.
If you are given a 24-Hour Notice of Interview, contact a shop steward or your local executive immediately. When you are in the interview, be honest and tell the truth. Not disclosing everything or being dishonest does not work. We have had several very difficult termination cases lately that did not go well because our members were not honest during the interviews and then the truth came out later. We can usually deal with a breach of the work rules and get decent results, however, dishonesty in addition to a breach of the work rules makes it very difficult to get good results for our members.
Uncovered Routes and Seniority Violations:
This is still a huge problem in our Region, and we are working hard in the Regional Office to find solutions. Ultimately this all hinges on staffing and we have been working with management to find solutions to the hiring and retention of new employees. Until this is fixed, we need to keep filing grievances. We have been successful in getting people compensated for delivering extra days of mail and for seniority violations.
This is a bit more of a challenge for RSMCs due to the different Collective Agreement language. We are working on innovative ways to get RSMCs compensated when you are forced to deliver extra days of mail. We are currently waiting for a decision from an arbitrator on one of these new approaches to resolve this issue and we will share that when we receive it.
Seniority violations occur when management is pulling Permanent Relief Employees, On-Call Relief Employees, Relief Letter Carriers, Routers and Temporary Employees off assignments that were bid on using seniority to deliver routes that were not delivered on previous day(s). If this happens to you, then please file a grievance. This includes when undelivered sequenced mail is added to manual mail in SSD depots. Management’s argument that volumes are light does not apply.
Stay Strong and continue to respect the Overtime Ban. Remember our overtime ban is not the cause of the staffing issues, it has just highlighted how bad the staffing is at Canada Post.
The grievance process is there to protect our rights under our Collective Agreements. If you don’t grieve when management violates our Collective Agreements, you are accepting these violations of your rights.
In Solidarity,
Stephen Gale
Regional Grievance Officer