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HomeMy WebLinkAboutHyang 92-02-05 IN THE MATTER OF A CLASSIFICATION ARBITRATION BETWEEN : OPSEU (hereinafter called the "Union") - and - GEORGE BROWN COLLEGE (hereinafter called the "College") AND IN THE MATTER OF THE GRIEVANCE OF Kathy Hyang Woo Oh Board of Arbitration: B.A.Kirkwood, Arbitrator Appearances for the Union: Anne Lee Kathy Hyang Woo Oh Appearances for the Employer: Regina Park Dan Benson The arbitration of this matter was heard in Toronto on January 26, 1992. Page 2 ~ AWARD The grievor has held the position of Textbook Buyer for the College since 1973. As a Textbook buyer, she is responsible for purchasing, monitoring inventory levels and co-ordinating returns of textbooks sold through Campus bookstores. There are two stores. One is located on the St. James campus and the other on the Casa Loma campus. The grievor is located on the Casa Loma campus. In March, 1988 the incumbent's position was classified to Clerk General, Payband 5. The parties agreed that as the incumbent was paid at the Payband 8 rate, she would remain on that payband until she leaves the College. In June 1991, the grievor's position description form (the PDF) was rewritten to the mutual satisfaction of both parties. The College then reclassified the grievor's position to an Atypical Clerk, Payband 6. The Union claimed that the College improperly classified the grievor's position and claimed that the position should be rated as a Clerk General, Atypical, Payband 9. The points conferred by both parties to the elements of the position in the Arbitration Data Summary Sheet were as follows: Elements Management Union Rating Points Rating Points Job Difficulty C4 144 C5 166 Guidance Received C3 104 D5 172 Communications B3 59 C3. 84 Knowledge/Training/ C3 64 C6 105 Experience Page 3 Knowledge/Skill 3 34 4 47 Working Conditions/ B3 7 B5 13 Manual Working Conditions/ B3 7 C4 18 Visual Environmental A5 3 A5 3 Total Points 422 608 Payband Number 6 9 As the rating of most of the elements of the position are in dispute, I will first outline the basic procedure that the incumbent follows in receiving and processing orders for textbooks and verifying inventory. These functions cover 70% of her job functions. I will subsequently draw upon these functions and elaborate on them and such other functions as are necessary under the appropriate categories. The incumbent obtains the orders for the textbooks from either the Dean, the Chairperson, the Co-ordinator or the Instructor. Although the orders may come from any of these people, for simplification, I will refer to those persons placing the orders as the instructors. The instructor completes a textbook and material order form for the incumbent. The instructor is supposed to provide the incumbent information on the course, the estimated enrollment, the textbook's title, the author, the publisher, and the ISBN, the text's unique international number. On many occasions the information is incomplete. The incumbent can either return the form to the instructor, or telephone the instructor for more information. The incumbent often has found it more efficient to complete the form, as she has sources readily available to her to provide her the information. Page On receiving the form, the incumbent locates the publisher by using sources such as, The Canadian Publishers Directory, which lists books and publishers' names, The ISBN Directory, which provides all international publishers and the unique international standard book number prefix, and the Book Buyer's Guide, which lists publishers and distributors serving the universities and colleges in the United States, giving the trade and test policies, discounts and return policies. If none of the books can be found within those directories, the incumbent may contact the library, which has a multi-volume series of books called Books in Print, which provides the name of books and where they are published. The incumbent determines the quantities of books that must be ordered. She receives the information from the instructor on the enrollment. She reviews the inventory in the bookstore and she reviews the "sell-through history." The sell-through history is a cardex system that outlines the numbers of texts purchased, the instructor who placed the order, when the texts were purchased, when and if there were any returns, the cost, and the retail cost. The incumbent places the order verbally with the publishing house. She then issues the purchase order by inputting information on the title, ISBN, department and course into the computer. The computer's software program gives cost of the bulk order, although not the unit cost. The incumbent calculates the unit price, using the College policy of 20% margin and rounding it to the nearest dollar. The incumbent then assigns a number to the purchase order. The Supervisor, Dan Benson, signs the purchase order so that the accounting department will prepare the cheque. Once the purchase order is signed, copies go to the warehouse, accounting and to the manager's office. Page 5 When the books are received by the warehouse, employees in the warehouse check the price against the purchase order. If there is a discrepancy, they contact the incumbent to resolve the problem. Job Difficulties The parties agreed on the complexity of the job. They agreed that "work involves the performance of various complex tasks that include both routine and non-routine aspects requiring different and unrelated processes and methods." The parties disagreed on the Level of Judgment. The Union rated the Level of Judgment at Level 5 which states: Duties performed require a significant degree of judgment. Problem-solving involves interpreting complex data or refining work methods and techniques to be used. The College rated Level of Judgment at Level 4 which states: Duties performed require a considerable degree of judgment. Problem-solving involves handling a variety of conventional problems, questions or situations with. established analytical techniques. The degree of judgement that is used to make a decision is affected by the latitude that the incumbent has to make the decision, the information that the incumbent has on hand, and the consequences of an error in judgement. It is also affected, as the parties have pointed out when setting the criteria, by the nature of the problems that the incumbent has to face and the methods that the incumbent uses to resolve problems. Page 6 The PDF states that the incumbent purchases textbooks, monitors inventory levels, and coordinates returns of texts through the campus stores by "using established techniques." The standard procedure that is followed to order books minimizes the use judgement. The incumbent has very little latitude in determining the source of the publication and the sale price of the book. She uses very little judgement when choosing the source of the books, as the title of the book predetermines the publisher. Each title is only published by one publishing house or agent. It is only in exceptional cases, that there is more than one distributor of the book. In those cases the incumbent uses some judgement to choose between distributors with the best price or the fastest delivery. The incumbent's choice is circumscribed further by the needs of the student or instructor. No judgment is required to set the sale price of the books as the publishers determine the wholesale price and the College's policy determines the margin. Similarly the College's policy determines the retail value for .used books. The incumbent does not need to interpret the College's policies on margin. She needs only to apply the policies. On one occasion, the incumbent set a price that fell outside the policy. She had received some books free and she sold them at a cost to cover the handling costs. This was an exceptional matter, and the incumbent's actions were a reflection of her ability and performance rather than of the functions that are to be analyzed for classification purposes. The incumbent must use considerable judgement to determine the quantity of books to be ordered. It is her sole responsibility to determine the number of texts that are to be ordered at any given time. The incumbent is expected Page 7 to maintain the necessary inventory to supply instructors and students, but not have many texts on hand at the year end on March 31. The bookstore attempts to either return books or sell books at a discount, from February to the end of March to insure that inventory is at its lowest at the year end. Mr. Benson testified that there was no obligation during the year to maintain a low inventory. However, notwithstanding Mr. Benson's statement, the incumbent must be guided by various publishing companies' return policies. It would be foolish to disregard those policies and then leave the College with unnecessary inventory that could not be returned at the year end or could not be sold at a discount. As it is, the incumbent sometimes negotiates terms with the publishing houses to return the books at the best advantage when the books must be returned outside the period set by the publishing house. I do not find that significant judgement is required even though the incumbent makes the decision independently. The resources that she has, provide guidelines that minimize the margin for error. The order form that she receives from the instructors gives incumbent with the enrollment. The cardex system provides the incumbent with the history of sales and estimates the required numbers of texts. A review of inventory provides the number of texts on hand. The information she relies upon to make the decision is not complex. The incumbent is frequently faced with many orders for boOks that must be delivered by a certain time. Considerable judgment is required in prioritizing orders. The decision is based upon the location of the publishing house, the expected delivery date for the book, and the date when it is needed by the students. To resolve these problems requires excellent organization skills, and knowledge of the publishing houses, Page 8 not refining work methods, techniques or interpreting complex data as required by Level 5. Similarly other problems that the incumbent encounters are factual in nature and flow from the difficulties that are inherent to the publishing business and their delivery of services. The problems with late orders or a difference in pricing are resolved by having a knowledge of the system and the reliability of the various publishing houses. Problems of a factual nature are also inherent to research. If the library provides wrong information on the source of the publisher, or if a publisher no longer publishes the text, the incumbent must again be knowledgeable of the system, and the players. Problems may occur if the library gives incumbent with wrong information or if the publisher or agent has changed. In that case, the incumbent must make further inquiries to locate the new publisher or agent. In none of these cases does the incumbent need to refine her work methods, her techniques nor interpret complex data. A different type of problem occurs when an instructor wants the bookstore to stock more books than the incumbent believes can be sold. The incumbent must use tact and judgement to deal with the instructor without offending the instructor, while balancing the needs of the College not to be left with a large inventory at the end of the year° In the event that the incumbent could not resolve the situation to her satisfaction, she could ask her supervisor to look after the matter. I find that the areas where the incumbent exercises the greatest degree of judgement are determining the quantity of texts to be ordered, and prioritizing orders. Both areas require considerable judgment as the incumbent must balance Page 9 the needs of the bookstore to retain a low inventory at the year's end, with the needs of the staff and instructors to have the texts that they require, when they require them. The degree of judgement is not significant as the system is set up to minimize the problems and errors. She is able to make the necessary decisions without relying on complex data, and without refining her work techniques or methods. Therefore, I find that the College properly rated Job Difficulty at C4 and 144 points are to be allocated to this category. Guidance Received The Union submitted that the Guidelines Available were best described by Category D as follows: Work is performed in accordance with procedures and past practices which may be adopted and modified to meet particular situations and/or problems. A Supervisor is available to assist in resolving problems. The College submitted that Guidelines Available were best described by Category C as follows: Work is performed in accordance with general procedures and past practices. Unfamiliar situations are reviewed with Supervisor. The Union submitted that the Nature of Review was described by Level 5 as follows: Work assignments are reviewed only for achievements of broad objectives, effectiveness of results and to insure integration with the work of others. The College submitted that the Nature of Review was described by Level 3 as follows: Page 10 Work assignments are intermittently and/or periodically checked for quality. As stated in the PDF the position is governed by established procedures and practices. There are few written directions and few policies. Procedures and practices have developed from the requirements of the College and the practices of the publishing industry. The work is performed in accordance with the general procedures. This process is not changed if there is a rush order. The process is expedited. If the incumbent has to have a cheque ready, should prepayment be necessary, she may have to go to accounting before getting her supervisor's signature on the purchase order. This process has developed according to past practice. Level 5 suggests that events may arise that cannot be handled by procedures and practices that have developed. Therefore the procedures and past practices have to be changed. The situations that the incumbent has to confront do not require her to modify the practices that have developed. The incumbent operates independently, relying on the practices and procedures that have developed at the College and therefore meets the criteria in Category C. Frequently a job does not fit squarely within the description set out in the criteria. Then it is a question of analyzing the intent of the criteria and considering which description best fits the situation. The role that the supervisor has towards the incumbent does not fall in either category C or D. The incumbent works independently. .She has contact with the supervisor daily, although he usually works at the St. James store. The problems that she has, arise from demands of instructors or students for books, or problems arising from late delivery or books, or difficulties getting certain books. Although a supervisor is available Page 11 should she run into problems or unfamiliar situations, I do not find that the mere availability is sufficient to outweigh the other factors that conform to the criteria in Level C to classify this element of the position as Level D. In this case as most situations can be resolved by following general procedures, I find that Level C best fits the guidelines available. The incumbent is entirely responsible for purchasing textbooks for the Campuses. Initially there were two people ordering for the two stores. However to insure a consistency in approach and to prevent errors and duplication the ordering functions were merged in the incumbent's position. The supervisor ensures that the work that the incumbent performs, meets the broad objectives of the bookstore. He does not review the quality of her work. He looks at the purchase orders before he signs the purchase orders. He may ask the incumbent questions to clarify questions that he may have, but he does not review the purchase orders for quality. He acknowledged that the incumbent has the authorization to order the books that are necessary. His signature is therefore a safeguard that prevents possible financial problems. Therefore I find that the Union has properly rated the Nature of Review at Level 5. By application of C5 to the Guidance Received Matrix 144 points are awarded to this category. C OMMUN I CAT I ON S The parties agreed on the Level of Contacts involved in the job, but disagreed on the Purpose of the Contacts. Page 12 The Union submitted that Category C was applicable. Category C states: Work involves contacts for the purpose of providing gui!ance, instruction, or technical advice or for the purpose of explaining various matters by interpreting procedures or policy. The College submitted that Category B was applicable. Category B3 states as follows: Work involves contacts for the purpose of providing detailed explanations to ensure understanding on matters such as how information was collected or how a figure was calculated. A difference between Categories B and C, is what the incumbent does with the information that the incumbent has. In Category B, the incumbent passes on the information that the incumbent has, but may elaborate on the information by providing details. Category B requires more than passing on information. By needing to interpret practices and procedures, it is not sufficient to explain the procedure or practice. There may be more than one possible ~eaning, and the incumbent has to consider the possible meanings and place it in a context, and then provide the information to the recipient. Similarly, if 'guidance' is needed, the recipient does not have the necessary information or tools to make a decision by his or herself. Therefore the incumbent has to select facts or courses of action among alternatives, and give a rationale to the recipient in an attempt to persuade or direct the recipient. To instruct or to give technical 'advice' involves a similar process and is not merely passing on information, technical or otherwise. The purpose of the incumbent's contacts with most of the people is to act as a conduit of information. She either Page 13 receives information, such as the names of texts that the instructor requires, or provides information to the instructor on facts such as the availability of texts, appearances of new texts or the discontinuance of others. Similarly she conveys information to the publishing houses, such as the contents of her order, or receives information, such as the prices of texts, their availability, or their delivery dates. In a similar vein, the incumbent conveys information to and from the accounting department. She sorts out any difficulties with pricing differences between the published price and the price received from the warehouse. The incumbent's relationship with the other employees of the bookstore will be more involved as she substitutes for them on breaks. However, the purpose of the contacts remains to convey and receive factual information. The incumbent uses College policies to establish the unit prices of books, but this does not require interpreting policies. Similarly, she reviews the return policies of publishing houses to determine when, and under what conditions, the texts may be returned. Again this requires the application of policies, but not the interpretation of policies. Although the incumbent has negotiated with publishing houses to obtain terms for the return of books past the due date, this process is a reflection of obtaining the best terms, not interpreting policy. The incumbent takes it upon herself to review the contents and indexes of books that have been ordered and she discusses the texts with instructors. By the incumbent's knowledge and exposure to the publishing market, the incumbent develops information that can help the instructor decide to select one text over another. The incumbent's role is not to provide guidance to instructors as the instructors have the responsibility for selecting the course content. Page 14 The incumbent's role is to provide the detailed information that the incumbent has. To inform the instructor when the bookstore receives the order, or when the incumbent learns that a book is out of print or she cannot locate the publisher. Therefore I find that level B3 best describes the incumbent's functions in this area. Accordingly 59 points are awarded in this category. TRAINING/EXPERIENCE The parties agreed that up to three years of practical experience was required for the job. The parties disagreed with the Level of Training that was required. The Union submitted that Level 6 was applicable. Level 6 states: Required skills normally acquired through attainment of a three year Community College diploma or equivalent. The College submitted that Level 3 was applicable. Level C3 states: Required skills normally acquired through attainment of secondary school graduation or equivalent. I cannot agree with the Union's submission that a BA in business is needed to provide an employee with the necessary training to purchase text books. The Union suggested that the degree provides a knowledge of the names of the texts and provides background into texts and authors. If the incumbent had no knowledge of the contents of the texts, the incumbent would still be able to perform the job Page 15 as described in the PDF. The incumbent's role is to receive the information from instructors and process the order. The processing of the order to its finality requires knowledge of the publishing business, that can be gained from three years practical experience, that the parties agree is necessary to perform the job. An insight into the various areas of study that the College offers would no doubt be an asset to the job. However, my role is not to evaluate the position on the basis of desirable qualities, but to evaluate what is the minimum training that the incumbent would need to perform the job. Although secondary school graduation or equivalent may provide training for the clerical functions of the job, I find that due to the emphasis in the position on purchasing, and on researching publishers and locating books that some job related course are necessary to meet these needs. Therefore I find that Level 4 best describes the training needed for this position. Level 4 is described as: Required skills normally acquired through attainment of secondary school graduation or equivalent and completion of additional job related courses or equivalent. By application of C4 to the corepoint matrix, 78 points are attributed to this category. KNOWLEDGE/SKILL The Union submitted that Level 3 was applicable. This Category states: Work requires the ability to organize statistical information and to understand elementary principles of a science or a professional discipline. May operate complex computer, electronic instruments or laboratory instruments. Page 16 The College submitted that Level 4 was applicable. Level 4 states: Work requires the ability t'o apply specialized technical or clerical skills based upon a sound knowledge of established procedures. May be required to operate moderately complex computer, laboratory, or office equipment. The incumbent spends 30% of her time operating a computer. The types of programs that have developed for the computer today have a varying range of complexity. In this situation the incumbent uses more than one program or function, but the nature of the program and what she must do to operate the program cannot be considered complex. I find that it may be considered moderately complex due to the different programs that are used to access the history of the purchases, or to input information, or to obtain purchase orders. To operate the computer, to maintain the cardex system, the incumbent requires specialized skills of a clerical nature. Even though the incumbent is now inputting the information from the cardex system into the computer, which was not part of the functions at the time of the grievance, and is not before me, this function is a continuation of the clerical expertise needed. I do not find that the work requires an ability to organize statistical information. I do not find that knowledge of purchasing is a principle of science or is a professional discipline. Therefore I find that Level 3 properly describes the Skill Element that is needed for the position.' As a result, 34 points are allocated to the incumbent in this category. Page 17 WORKING CONDITIONS/MANUAL The parties agreed that the job requires "light manual effort and physical exertion egs. prolonged standing, sitting, walking, climbing stairs, using light tools and/or handling light weight materials." The parties disagreed on the prevalence of the time. The Union argued that it was "continuous - more than 60% of the time" and Level 5 was applicable. The College argued that it was "occasional - 10% to 30% of the time" and Level 3 was applicable. The incumbent's job has both a moderately mobile aspect that involves walking and attending the bookstore, and a stationary aspect that involves desk functions. Both these activities are included in the description of manual working conditions. The incumbent has her office at the Casa Loma campus. Although it is not on the same floor as the boQkstore, she goes to the bookstore each day to monitor the inventory. She also goes once a week to the St. James Campus and twice a year to the Kensington Campus. Sometimes the incumbent goes to speak to the instructors about orders. In addition, she substitutes for the store clerks when they are absent or during peak periods. Part of her duties include maneuvering books in the bookstore. The incumbent spends 20% of her time maintaining accurate and systemic records of purchasing and inventory activity. Part of this record keeping is done on the computer and is therefore included in the 30% of the time allocated to computer operations. Additional time is spent sitting, while she makes the various telephone calls that are Page 18 required to discuss requests for texts and to do telephone research into the publishers. Additional time is spent sitting to research the various sources that the incumbent has to locate the publishers. When considering both the mobile activities and the desk activities, I find that the incumbent exercises manual effort for 31% to 60% of the time. This is level 4 and attributes 10 points to this category. VISUAL The Union submitted that due to the necessity to concentrate on the computer for 30% of the time, Category C was applicable. This Category states: Considerable visual concentration required. Required to focus on small areas and objects for up to two hours at a time. For: Frequent 31% to 60% of the time. The College submitted that Category B was applicable as the incumbent has a variety of other duties that do not involve the use of the computer. The College also submitted that the nature or the job is not like that of a data entry operator or a word processor who must have considerable concentration on the screen. Category B states: Moderate visual concentration required. Required to focus on small area or objects for short periods of time, i.e. up to one hour 10 to 30% of the time. For: Frequent - 31% to 60% of the time. Page 19 This category evaluates the visual strain inherent to the job. The incumbent spends 30% of the time at the computing inputting information, and processing purchasing orders. Although the nature of inputting information may be different from a data entry operator or a word processor, the act of entering the information is the same. The incumbent needs to concentrate on the screen to input information and to generate work orders. To complete these tasks the incumbent cannot do the volume of work agreed to by the parties in the PDF by spending short periods of less than an hour at the computer. Therefore the incumbent has considerable visual strain for periods up to two hours. I do not find that there is any greater visual strain as the periods of focus on a small area is broken by the various telephone calls and interruptions that the incumbent has. Therefore I find that the Visual Strain is best described by Category C. This visual strain occurs on daily. Visual strain is not limited to work on a computer. In this case the incumbent also has to focus on resource books to obtain the information necessary to complete the information. Taking into account both areas of concentrated work in small areas I find that time that the incumbent is subject to visual strain is slightly more than 30% of the time. Therefore I find that Level 4 best describes the prevalence of the visual strain on the incumbent. The application of Category C4 to the corepoint rating system gives the incumbent's position with 18 points under these working conditions. SUMMARY Page 20 In summary with the compilation of the rating allocated to the various elements that were in contention, the incumbent's position receives 493 points and is allocated to payband 7. As the incumbent is already being paid at payband 8 there is no financial repercussions to the grievor by the reclassification of this position. Dated at Toronto, this 5th day of February, 1992. B. A. Kirkwood, Sole Arbitrator , F COLLEGE ___ ~ .... PRESENT C~SSIFICATION ~7 V'p/c~ AND PAYRAND POSITION D~SCRIPTIO~ I, Position Description Fo~ A%~a~h~ ~ Parties a~ree :n ~on~nts ~ a~aCh.d ~ition Dmscription Form ~'- ~ Union disagrees wX%h ~on~nt~ ~f a~%a~he~ ~osi%ion De~criDtion Form SPECIFIC DETAI~ OF (U~E REVERSE AWARD Management Union Arbit rator EL~NTS ~tinq ~s. Ratihg ~s. Rating Pts. TOTAL POINTS TACHEO ~ITTEN SU~ISSIONSI The Union $ I GNAT)JRF, S: FOR TH~ UNION FOR MANAG~/~ENT - (uz'ievo~) ARDIT~TOR' S USE~ /~/' ' ., ~earing