HomeMy WebLinkAboutGroup 92-00-00 IN THE MATTER OF AN ARBITRATION
between
SHERIDAN COLLEGE OF APPLIED ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY
(hereinafter referred to as the College)
and
ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES UNION, LOCAL 245
(hereinafter referred to as the Union)
Classification Grievances of:
Gary Anthony
David Whorrall
George Chambers
Sole Arbitrator: G.J. Brandt
Appearances:
For the College: Rosalie Spargo
Brian Scannell
For the Union: Jay Jackson
Gary Anthony
David Whorrall
George Chambers
Hearing: Sheridan College, Oakville Campus
September 21, 1991
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AWARD
1. Introduction
The grievors are all currently classified as Stationary Engineer,
B. Payband 8. In this grievance they seek reclassification to
Stationary Engineer C, Payband 9. Their PDF s are all identical
save for the fact that Mr. Chambers has had added to his PDF
certain lead hand functions.
It is necessary at the outset to deal with a preliminary
matter respecting the issues that are before me.
The Arbitration Data sheet filed for the purposes of this
hearing indicates that for Mr. Anthony and Mr. Whorrall there was
a dispute over the factors of Guidance Received (Nature of Review)
for Mr. Anthony and Mr. Whorrall. That was a dispute between
level 3, ("work assignments intermittently and or periodically
checked for quality") and level 4 ("work assignments are subject
to a general form of review for achievement of specific objectives
and adherence to established guidelines.") However, there was no
dispute with respect to this factor for Mr. Chambers as both
parties had rated this factor at level 4.
The Arbitration Data Sheet further indicates that, with
respect to the factor of Communications there was a dispute as to
the Purpose of communications for all three of the grievors. The
College considered the purpose to be at level B, viz "providing
detailed explanations to ensure understanding..." while the Union
rated it at level D, viz, "problem identification and solution
with respect to matters of considerable importance requiring tact,
diplomacy and persuasion."
However, at the arbitration hearing, the College stated that
it was prepared to revise its rating of all of the grievors for
the Communications (Purpose) factor. It was prepared to rate Mr.
Chambers at C3 and Mr Whorrall and Mr. Anthony at B3. In other
words for Mr. Chambers there was a change in both the level and
the purpose of contacts and for Mr. Whorrall and Mr. Anthony there
was a change in the level of contacts. The result of this change
would be to give Mr. Chambers a total of 590 points and to place
him in pay band 9.
Mr. Jackson, on behalf of the union, submitted that it was
improper for the College to proceed in this way; that the
Arbitration Data sheet establishes the ratings that each party is
prepared to defend at the arbitration and essentially defines the
issues between the parties. Consequently, although the effect of
the re-evaluation of Mr. Chambers' position was to grant him the
grievance (by putting him in payband 9), the union claimed that
all three of the grievors should be treated identically and that
there was nothing that would justify treating Mr. Chambers
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differently than the others for classification purposes.
I agree with the position of the union. While it remains
open for the parties to make concessions at the hearing in an
effort to resolve grievances, that cannot be accomplished in a
unilateral fashion. Thus, if the union does not accept the higher
rating for Mr. Chambers' position because it considers that it is
indefensible in terms of the PDF s and the day to day realities of
the work place, it does not have to accept it. Of course, it
takes the risk that the arbitrator will find against it on the
issues as defined in the Arbitration Data Sheet and that the
success that might have been achieved by one of the grievors will
have been lost.
Before dealing with the issues in dispute in these grievances
it is also necessary to set out the chronology with respect to
certain management changes that have occurred at the College.
This is particularly important in view of the fact that one of the
factors in dispute is Guidance Received (Nature of Review).
The grievances were filed on March 14, 1991 and the PDF's on
which they are based were prepared in May of 1989. In March of
1991 the grievor's immediate supervisor was Mr. Howard McKeown.
Although he was not a qualified engineer his immediate supervisor,
Mr. Barry Bell, was a mechanical engineer. Mr. Bell retired on
December 31, 1990. In February of 1991 Mr. Brian Scannell, a
qualified engineer, came to the Oakville Campus as Acting Director
of Campus Services and later became Director of Campus Services.
Prior to his arrival at the Oakville Campus, Mr. Scannell was at
the Brampton campus and, since 1989 was available to advise and
assist Mr. McKeown on technical matters.
Prior to August 17, 1992 the grievors formally reported to
Mr. McKeown. On that date they began reporting to Mr. Scannell.
As noted the grievances were filed on March 14, 1991. My
task is to determine whether or not, on that date, the positions
held were properly evaluated having regard to the factors in
dispute. Consequently, and in particular with reference to the
factor of Nature of Review, it is necessary to examine the
situation as it obtained on March 14, 1991. On that date the
grievor's immediate supervisor was Mr. McKeown and it is the
nature of their relationship with him that is primarily important
for the purposes of determining how this factor should be
evaluated.
It may be that the relationship changed at some later date,
such as when Mr. Scannell became their supervisor such that their
classification would again change. I make no findings on that
issue as it is not before me. It is sufficient to say that it
would remain open to the College to change the classification and
for the union to grieve that change seeking relief up to the date
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of that grievance. This grievance seeks relief for losses
suffered up to March 14, 1991. Any changes that may have occurred
in the job or in the reporting relationships subsequent to that
date are simply not relevant.
2. Duties and Responsibilities
The grievors are all currently classified as Stationary
Engineer "B" The PDF sets out the duties and responsibilities of
the Stationary Engineer as involving the operation, repair and
maintenance of a number of pieces of equipment and equipment
systems, viz, boilers, auto-clave and steam presses, air
conditioning chillers, heat pumps, cooling towers, air
conditioning units, air compressors and pumps, ventilation
equipment, kitchen equipment, and gas equipment.
The evidence is that these duties are, broadly speaking,
performed in two different contexts. Approximately 25% of their
time is spent doing preventive maintenance work according to a
fixed schedule. The rest of the time is spent on operating and
repairing equipment. In this latter connection the grievors are
required to respond to various calls requiring their service, eg.
to fix a leaking water pipe. They service all of the Oakville
Campus as well as the Burlington and Iroquois Shores Road Campus.
Preventive maintenance is, as indicated, done according to an
established schedule. Work on call is unscheduled. Where the
grievors may be needed to attend to a particular matter they
become aware of that in a number of different ways. They may be
paged by the secretary to the Campus Services department on their
radios; or, if they cannot be reached by page, a written work
order will be prepared and placed in their office area or a
message left on an answering tape on a telephone in their office
area. Or, they may be told of a problem while they are engaged in
doing other work or may themselves notice something that may
require action to be taken.
Generally, one of the Stationary Engineers each week is
scheduled to be "on call" and the other two perform the scheduled
preventive maintenance work. When a call is received to attend to
a particular problem that engineer will investigate it and
determine what needs to be done. If the nature of the problem is
such that it will require the services of one or the other of the
two engineers, they will be taken from their respective duties on
preventive maintenance to assist with the problem. Where the
engineer who is on call cannot be contacted and it is necessary to
have the problem attended to immediately, one of the other two
engineers will be contacted and informed of the problem.
The grievors work together both in terms of working out what
should be done, in cases where the problem cannot be quickly and
easily resolved, and in terms of priorizing their work. Mr.
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Chambers stated that in 90% of the cases decisions about
priorizing were reached through a common consensus of the three
men talking the situation over and that, in only 10% of the cases,
what is necessary for him, as Lead Hand, to make the decision as
to which job was to be done. Mr. Scannell agreed with that
general assessment of how the situation worked both under Mr.
McKeown and after he became supervisor.
3. Factors in Dispute
a) Guidance Received (Nature of Review)
As noted, one of the factors in dispute is the Nature of
Review that is done of the grievor's work. The PDF states that
"work is reviewed by discussion with Supervisor on a daily to
weekly basis. Some site inspections are done." The union claims
that this does not accurately reflect the situation at the time of
the grievance. In the union's view a more accurate statement
should provide as follows: "The incumbent establishes their own
priorities and accomplishes tasks to meet work deadlines. The
work is not checked on a daily or weekly basis for quality,
however, review of department objectives occur to ensure Campus
Services mandate is adhere to."
The evidence establishes clearly that, at the date of the
grievance, Mr. McKeown, the grievors' supervisor, did not review
their work for quality. As noted above Mr. McKeown, was not a
qualified engineer and tended to rely on the reports of Mr.
Chambers that the work was done and done properly. He simply
trusted that the grievors, as qualified Stationary Engineers,
would do the work. His main concern was to ensure that the work
was done, not "how" it was done.
It has been noted that since 1989 Mr. Scannell was available
to advise Mr. McKeown on technical matters and indeed came on the
Oakville Campus in February of 1991 one month before the
grievances were filed and became supervisor in August of 1992.
However, in his evidence, Mr. Scannell confirmed and agreed with
the grievor's evidence concerning the nature of the review
provided by Mr. McKeown. His evidence also indicates that, even
after he became supervisor, the situation in terms of review of
the work has not materially changed. Mr. Scannell stated that he
while he does "rounds", often with Mr. Chambers, he nevertheless
trusts that the stationary engineers will do quality work on the
regular day to day trouble shooting jobs that need to be done.
Where he might become more involved on the quality side is where
there was a large job requiring the expenditure of substantial
sums of money and the use of outside contractors.
The kind of "supervision" exercised by Mr. Scannell of the
work done by the Stationary Engineers appears to be more in the
nature of consulting with Mr. Chambers about particular large
scale projects that should be undertaken and arranging to have him
obtain quotes from various outside contractors and suppliers with
respect to the particular jobs in question. It did not involve
close checking of the quality of the work actually done by the
grievors.
The College has rated this factor at level 3, viz, "work
assignments are intermittently and or periodically checked for
quality". It appears quite clear from the evidence that,
certainly at the time of the grievance, and to a large extent
subsequent to that time, the grievor's work is not checked for
quality on an intermittent or periodic basis. Certainly it was
not checked by Mr. McKeown who simply had to trust the word of the
lead hand, Mr. Chambers that the work was done properly. What Mr.
McKeown checked was whether or not the work was done. It appears
to me that this is a level of review that is more appropriately
captured by the narrative accompanying level 4, viz, "general form
of review for achievement of specific objectives and adherence to
established deadlines."
There is some suggestion in the evidence that Mr. Chambers
may have done some checking of the work, if for no other reason
that to be able to report to Mr. McKeown that it had been done and
done properly. However, the Manual (Section IV, page 1) states
that the Lead Hand is not to be considered to be a supervisor;
that his role is essentially one of passing on instructions from
the supervisors. Although there is some checking of work for
"completeness and accuracy" the lead hand definition makes no
provision for checking for "quality". It may be noted that this
choice of terms reflects precisely the difference between level 2
Nature of Review ("regular review on completion by supervisor for
completeness and accuracy") and level 3.
This case does not require me to decide whether or not a
position in which the lead hand reviews for completeness and
accuracy is one that is a level 2 position. I leave that for
another case. It can be said here, however, that the checking for
"quality" that is done by the lead hand rather than by the
supervisor is not sufficient to warrant a rating at level 3. To
be at that level the checking must be done by the supervisor.
Consequently, I would rate the Mr. Whorrall and Mr. Anthony
at level D for this factor. This would bring them up to the same
level as Mr. Chambers whose rating at this level is accepted by
the College.
b) Communications: (Purpose of Contacts)
In the course of performing their duties the grievors come
into contact with a number of different members of the College
community. Their PDFs state that they have daily contact with
"all people in the College" for the purpose of "receiving
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complaints of heating and cooling and following up on these
problems."
The nature of these contacts may be acrimonious. For
example, where it is necessary to shut off the water supply to a
photography lab, without which a class cannot progress, the
grievors may have to tell the instructor that he/she will have to
cancel or postpone a class until such time as the problem can be
attended to. It is agreed that the stationary engineers are on
the "front line" of these complaints and receive a lot of
criticism, even abuse, as a result of problems over which they
have no control.
Mr. Scannell acknowledged the difficult position that the
grievors can be placed in when they must advise a faculty member
that it will be necessary to cancel or postpone a class. However,
it was his view that upset faculty members would more typically
contact their dean or department head to complain about the
disruption in their schedules and that the dean and head in turn
would contact management in the Campus Services Department to
resolve the problem. He also did not believe that much
"persuasion" was involved in this task; that it was essentially a
matter of telling the faculty member that there was little choice
but to, for example, shut off the water. In other words, it was
not a matter of "negotiating" an agreement with the faculty member
to "permit" the grievor to shut off the water supply.
The union claims that this factor should be rated at level D,
viz, "...contacts for the purpose of problem identification and
solution with respect to matters of considerable importance
requiring tact, diplomacy and persuasion." It is argued that, in
those cases where the grievors are on the "front line", their
contacts with faculty members require a measure of tact and
persuasive ability.
I am unable to accept this argument.
First, the Notes to Raters state that only those contacts
that "occupy a significant portion of time and are an integral
part of the job should be taken into consideration." The evidence
does not support a finding that the potentially acrimonious and
difficult contacts that the grievors may admittedly have with
members of the faculty occupy a "significant portion of their
time" or are an "integral part of the job". The core of their
duties is the operation, repair, and maintenance of heating,
ventilating and air conditioning equipment. A significant
proportion of their time (25%) is spent on regular scheduled
maintenance. The rest of it is spent on a variety of duties, some
of which could expose the grievors to difficult situations
involving the faculty. However, even those situations can be
avoided in some cases by doing the work when classes are not in
session.
I do not dispute that this aspect of the job is deserving of
some recognition in the job evaluation process. However, it is my
view that, to the extent that a need for some tact and persuasive
ability may be necessary, it is perhaps better reflected in the
Judgment Element of the Job Difficulty Matrix.
Secondly, while recognizing that their may be atypical
situations, it is important to preserve the relationships between
the various positions so as not to produce anomalies in the
system. Thus, it is useful to see how other positions are
classified for the purpose of understanding how terms like "tact,
diplomacy and persuasion" should be interpreted. In this regard
it is significant that the positions that have been classified at
level D for Purpose of contacts are those of Nurse and Programmer
Analyst. While admittedly I have no evidence of the specific
requirements of those positions, it appears self evident that
contacts requiring tact and persuasions would occupy a far more
significant portion of the position of Nurse than that of
Stationary Engineer.
In this same connection it is also worth examining the
treatment of the position of Security Guard. That is a position
which is found in the same Job Family as that of Stationary
Engineer. Typical duties performed include preventing
unauthorized entry to College premises and ticketing vehicles in
parking lots. It is self evident that the exercise of these
duties could quite easily expose an incumbent in this position to
acrimonious contact of a kind that might be far greater than that
to which the grievors are exposed. Yet, this position is rated at
the same level for this factor as is that of Stationary Engineer.
To rate the grievors at level D for this factor would, in my
opinion, distort the relationship between the Stationary Engineer
position and the other positions referred to. Further, I note
that there is no evidence nor is there any claim by the union that
these positions are in any way atypical.
Consequently, I am not persuaded that the rating of the
grievors for the factor of Communications (Purpose) should be
raised to level D as claimed.
I note that, in this respect, no distinction is to be drawn
between the Lead Hand, Mr. Chambers and the other two grievors. I
refer again to the Manual that notes specifically that a lead hand
is to be paid a premium for the performance of lead hand functions
and that management has the right to withdraw the premium when
circumstances no longer warrant its payment. It appears clear
from this that the performance of lead hand functions is not to be
taken into consideration as a factor in the classification of the
position. Not only is the performance of those functions already
rewarded though the payment of a premium but the premium may also
be withdrawn. I find some difficulty in reconciling the notion of
a relatively permanent classification that attracts compensation
within a fixed payband with an arrangement under which
compensation for services performed can be increased or diminished
at the discretion of management.
4. Summary
In conclusion Mr. Whorrall and Mr. Anthony should be given a
rating of D4 for Guidance Received. No relief is awarded for the
claim of Mr. Whorrall, Mr. Anthony or Mr. Chambers with respect to
the factor of Communications (Purpose).
As a result Mr. Whorrall and Mr. Anthony receive a total of
553 points, the same as that of Mr. Chambers whose point total
remains at the level established by the College.
At that level the grievors all remain in Payband 8 and their
grievances must be dismissed.
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Dated at LONDON, Ont. this day of , 1992
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G. J. Brandt, Sole Arbitrator