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HomeMy WebLinkAboutHopley 91-10-15 OPSEU ~ 91B400 IN THE MATTER OF AN EXPEDITED ARBITRATION BETWEEN : OPSEU (hereinafter called the "Union") - and - SHERIDAN COLLEGE (hereinafter called the "College") AND IN THE MATTER~DF----~T~E GRIEVANCE OF Corinne~) AND IN THE MATTER OF A COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT BETWEEN ONTARIO COUNCIL OF REGENTS FOR COLLEGES OF APPLIED ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY AND ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES' UNION (FOR SUPPORT STAFF EMPLOYEES) Board of Arbitration: B. A. Kirkwood, Sole Arbitrator Appearances for the Grievor: Jay Jackson Bill Mathison Corinne Hopley Appearances for the College: Rosalee Spargo Trudie Tumber A hearing was held on September 24, 1991 in Oakville. Page 2 AWARD The incumbent has been an employee with the College since August 18, 1986. She transferred to her current position with the Department of Counselling and Special needs on September 5, 1989. Her position was initially classified as Clerk General Atypical, Payband 6. A new position description was submitted by the incumbent's supervisor to the Human Resources department in October, 1990. The College reviewed the position and reclassified the position to Clerk General D, Payband 7. The Union agreed that the Position Description Form (PDF) accurately described the grievor's position except for the level of supervision described under the heading of "Guidance Received." In any event, the Union claimed that the incumbent's position ought to be reclassified as a Support Services Officer A (Payband 8) with retroactive pay, benefits, and interest from October 22, 1990. The Union filed a grievance in support of its claim on January 18, 1991. The points conferred by both parties to the elements of the position in the Arbitration Data Sheet were as follows: Elements Management Union Rating Points Rating Points Job Difficulty C4 144 C4 144 Guidance Received D3 129 D4 150 Communications C3 84 C3 84 Knowledge/Training/ D4 90 D5 104 Experience Knowledge/Skill 3 34 3 34 Page 3 Working Conditions/ A5 3 A5 3 Manual Working Conditions/ B3 7 B3 7 Visual Environmental A5 3 B5 13 Total Points 494 539 Payband Number 07 08 The elements of the job and the respective core point rating in issue, were Guidance Received, Knowledge/Training and Working Conditions/ Environmental. These elements were rated by the parties as follows: Elements Management Union Rating Points Rating Points Guidance Received D3 129 D4 150 Knowledge/Training D4 90 D5 105 Working Conditions Environmental A5 3 B5 13 The purpose of the incumbent's position as set forth in the PDF and as corroborated by the evidence was to provide general administrative support services to the Counselling and Special Needs department at the Brampton campus. As an office manager, the incumbent was responsible for all the office's administrative tasks. She was involved in the management of the Career Centre, the career assessment and testing service of students and in various projects run by the department, especially the A.I.M.S. project. GUIDANCE RECEIVED The parties agreed thatthe Guidelines Available was properly described by Level D as: Page 4 Work is performed in accordance with procedures and past practices which may be adapted and modified to meet particular situations and/or problems. Supervisor is available to assist in resolving problems. The ?DF described the degree and method of supervision as "Work assignments are reviewed periodically, usually by discussion." The Union disagreed with this description and with its application to the Guidance Matrix, Nature of Review Category. The Union's representative submitted that the incumbent worked with minimum general supervision of the position and little direct supervision of the work. The Union's representative argued that the incumbent's responsibility was to ensure that a number of projects functioned properly and she had to make independent decisions on a variety of issues relating to the projects. These decisions were not checked intermittently or periodically by the supervisor. Accordingly the Union's representative submitted that the Nature of Review was best described by Level 4, which states: Work assignments are subject to a general form of review of achievement of specific objectives and adherence to established deadlines. The College's representative argued that the fogus in Level 4 was related to the achievement of specific projects. The College's representative submitted that the incumbent was not responsible for the projects. The Co- ordinator was. The incumbent was responsible, as part of the support staff to carry out the tasks that were required to achieve the projects. The College's representative submitted that the work that the incumbent received from the counsellors and the Co-ordinator was reviewed periodically and' intermittently by Page 5 the Director in addition to the review by the Co-ordinator. The College submitted that Level 3 properly described the level of review. Level 3 states: Work assignments are intermittently and/or periodically checked for quality. The College's representative submitted that level 3 ought to be considered in the context of the other categories. It was the first level where there was no supervision by the "supervisor" and the review of the work was dependent upon the individual "self-checking." In determining the level of supervision involved in the Nature of Review, it is necessary to consider the tasks that the incumbent performed and the involvement of others in reviewing the work performed. The incumbent received directions from the Director, Trudie Tumber and from the Co-ordinator Linda de Jong. Both the Director's and the Co-ordinator's offices were located on the Oakville Campus. The incumbent also worked with counsellors who were located in the department's office. The department was responsible for running projects throughout the year. At the beginning of the school year, it had a booth at registration and it organized a project called "Right Foot Day." As the year progressed, it held various workshops, such as Time Management and the Wellness Fair. The role that the incumbent had in Right Foot Day was representative of her role in the other projects. The Director had instituted Right Foot Day to assist new students in their orientation to the College. A counsellor was responsible for the project. However, as he was not at the College during the summer he met with the incumbent and Page 6 developed a list of tasks with the incumbent to ready the project for the beginning of the school term. The tasks that needed to be done included modifying the computer's data base on the students, inputting new data, assembling information and co-ordinating all the details that were required for the project. The incumbent had a background in computers and could modify the data base, and she handled all the details to ensure the success of the project. Similarly, as with other projects, the incumbent organized the items that needed to be done to ensure that the projects were carried out, such as booking rooms and co-ordinating the staff's working schedules to ensure that they were available for the projects. Similarly, the incumbent assisted the counsellors by obtaining two guest speakers for workshops for the counsellors and support staff. The incumbent obtained authorization from the Director to proceed, arranged the facility and arranged for the staff to attend. In these cases, the incumbent bought a gift for the speaker and thanked the speakers after their presentations. The incumbent was involved in testing students. She administered and invigilated the tests and correlated the results. The incumbent administered tests to groups outside the campus after obtaining authorization from the Director. The incumbent used a Policy Book for Testing Procedures to assist her in administering the tests. The manuals did not give the procedures for each test, but gave general instructions and provided the information that could be given to those being tested. The incumbent clarified questions from the students about the tests without providing answers to the questions asked on the tests. As an Page 7 invigilator, the incumbent identified any unusual behaviour, such as fatigue or illness, which required the tests to be rescheduled and she watched for cheating. The incumbent's role with the A.I.M.S. project was slightly different from her involvement with the other projects. She was a member of a committee on A.I.M.S. The Co-ordinator sat on the meetings, but did not give instructions. Each person knew what had to be done and were responsible for different functions. The incumbent took minutes of meetings that were subsequently approved. The incumbent developed a guidebook for the A.I.M.S. project. She set up the data base for A.I.M.S. '91 and for the registration system and put the instructions on the computer to enable anyone to use the application by following the instructions. The incumbent had been involved in the hiring procedure and the delegation of work to a part-time employee. When the grievance was filed, the use of a part-time employee was in its developmental stage. The Director stated that initially a part-time employee was hired to help the incumbent, while the incumbent became familiar with her job. However, the Director concluded that a permanent part-time employee was required. The incumbent .found, interviewed, and recommended the present part-time employee to the Co- ordinator and to the Director, who subsequently hired her. The incumbent determined how the part-time employee was to be used. The Director did not dispute that the incumbent assigned work to the part-time employee, but felt there was little flexibility in using the part-time employee as the Director had only scheduled the part-time employee to work ten hours a week. The evidence showed that the incumbent worked for the most part on her own co-ordinating and doing necessary Page 8 administrative and clerical duties that needed to be done to ensure each project's success. There was little direct supervision of her work. The Director and the Co-ordinator reviewed the incumbent's work periodically. In a period of three months, the Director met the incumbent seven times for this purpose. There was little telephone communication between the Director and the incumbent. The incumbent performed her functions with minimum supervision by the director and the Co- ordinator. The incumbent had great independence to do the work that she was assigned. The meetings with the Director lasted about one half hour. There was no formalized structure nor agenda to the meetings. The incumbent stated that she updated the Director on the various ongoing activities and projects. She obtained statistical data for the Director when requested. She advised the Director on staff interaction and problems. She advised the Director on the status of the student testing. In the event that groups outside the College needed testing, the incumbent obtained authorization from the Director to administer the tests. The incumbent obtained authorization from the Director to buy supplies. A fundamental difference between the positions of the Director and the incumbent lay in their perception of their roles. The incumbent perceived that she reported to the Director on the activities of the department. The Director perceived that the Co-ordinator reported to her and the incumbent performed clerical duties to assist the professional staff. The Director did not consider the incumbent responsible for the decisions that had to be made for the projects. The Director placed this responsibility on the Co- Page 9 ordinator and the Counsellors. She saw the incumbent's responsibilities as task oriented, to provide clerical work such as booking rooms, overheads, scheduling events and staff activities in order that the staff could attend, to expedite time sheets, to make purchase orders and to respond to routine matters. The incumbent met the Co-ordinator for about one half hour each week. The Co-ordinator was more involved with the details of the incumbent's work than the Director. The incumbent reported on the activities of the department and the status of the projects. She' advised the Co-ordinator on the degree of the testing required, the costs of testing packages. She investigated computer software, hardware and training and reported her findings to the Co-ordinator. The incumbent's work was reviewed periodically. However, the issue is whether the nature of the review meets the criteria of the higher level 4. Level 4 focusses on the purpose of the review. It requires that the work meet specific objectives and deadlines. The work which the incumbent performed required specific tasks to be done, and those tasks had to be accomplished by specific deadlines. Although the work was task oriented and was both clerical and administrative in nature, the work was directed to accomplish specific goals, whether it was to carry out a project, to administer and correlate testing results, or to provide information to the Co-ordinator or Director. Level 4 does not require the incumbent to be responsible for the conceptualization and development of the programs or projects. The incumbent was responsible that the broad objective, that the projects be carried out efficiently and properly be in accordance with the aims of the Page 1.0 counsellors, the Co-ordinator and the Director. The work that the incumbent performed was done independently and accorded with the decentralization of the department that the Director had enCouraged and developed. Therefore I find that the Nature of Review for this position goes beyond level 3 and meets that the more independent standard of level 4. I find that by application of the core point rating to D4 on the Guidance Received Matrix that 150 points are to be allotted to this category. KNOWLEDGE/ TRAINING The Union submitted that as the ?DF indicated that the incumbent must be either a college or high school graduate, with job related courses as an asset, the minimum level of education that the job required was a Community College diploma. The Union's representative submitted that it is the minimum level of education and not the desirable level that must be reviewed. Therefore the Union ' s representative argued that Level 5 was applicable. This Level states: Required skills normally acquired through attainment of a two year Community College diploma or equivalent. The College's representative submitted that education and experience were linked. A basic secondary education was the minimum, if the incumbent had four to five years working experience. The College would have liked the incumbent to have courses in testing and Career Resource Services, but it accepted that there were none available in those areas. Therefore, to the College, experience was important. The College submitted that secondary education provided the necessary basic education, which could be Page 11 supplemented by job related courses, such as micro or main frame computer courses. The College's representative submitted that Level 4 was applicable as follows: Required skills normally acquired through attainment of secondary school graduation and completion of additional job related training courses or equivalent. A difficult aspect in assessing the knowledge and training required for a position is segregating the skills and abilities that an incumbent may have from the minimum skills that are required for the job. The function that I have is to determine what are the minimum skills for the job and not what is desirable for the incumbent to have. The incumbent stated that the psychology courses were required to sensitize the individual to the students' concerns and courses in office administration assisted'the individual in management of the office. The incumbent stated that the management aspects of the job required a person to have more than a secondary education. Furthermore, courses were required to maximize the use of computers. It was acknowledged by the College that a secondary education was not sufficient. It was recognized that a psychology course was important. Psychology courses are not found in the secondary school system and do not fall within the scope of job related courses. There were various data bases in existence for the projects. Although the incumbent did not have to create data bases, she had to have knowledge to modify data bases to meet the needs of the department. The tasks that she had to perform were greater than inputting information into an existing system. The incumbent had to understand the system to create a procedural manual. Therefore, certain job Page 12 related courses, such as word processing or data base courses were essential no matter what level of education the incumbent had. I find that as a result of the decentralization of the department and the reliance by the Director on the Co- ordinator and the counsellors to ensure the smooth functioning of the department, that many responsibilities were delegated to the incumbent. In order for the incumbent to perform the tasks that she was .required to do, a secondary education supplemented by job related courses, even in data bases and word processing, would not be sufficient to carry out the functions that the incumbent had to do. Without doubt, experience provides an understanding of the operation of an office, however, courses in Office Administration, such as the eight month course that the incumbent'had, provides the additional depth that is needed to manage an office with little supervision. When I look at all the courses that an individual must have to perform this job, the incumbent must have a minimum of a College diploma. It would be a rare person who could perform this job with a high school diploma and job related courses. The purpose of determining a minimum level of skill and training that an incumbent must have, is to recognize a minimum base level of skill required for the job and not to recognize the skills of an exceptional person. Therefore I find that D5 on the Knowledge/Training Matix is to be applied and that the core point rating is to be 104 points. Page 13 WORKING CONDITIONS The College submitted that Category A was applicable, as the conditions that the incumbent was exposed to were typical of those found in an office environment. Therefore, the College submitted that Category A was applicable, as follows: Generally agreeable working conditions such as those found inside offices or equivalent work areas. The Union submitted that as the College admitted in its PDF that the position was subjected to poor air quality 100% of the time and noise from shared accommodations with another department 100% of the time, these conditions reflect slightly noisy, hot or cold conditions and Category B was applicable. This Category states: Slightly disagreeable working conditions. Exposure to somewhat noisy, hot or cold conditions. The incumbent worked in an office that was shared by Counselling and Special Needs, Co-op and Employment Resources, and Career Resources. The interior of the floor was divided by partitions and baffles. The outside area of the floor was divided into various offices. The incumbent worked at one of the interior desks, surrounded by baffles. The grievor's office backed onto the counselling offices. The incumbent claimed that her work was frequently disrupted by arguments resounding from the counsellor's office. She stated that at times she was unable to talk on the telephone. Arguments would occur when the student did not get the placement that the student wanted or when the placement was not satisfied with the quality of the work Page 14 performed. The incumbent stated that she was also distracted by the traffic around her office and the constant talking between the students and the staff. In analyzing the working conditions of the job for the purposes of classification, I must look to the inherent environmental aspects of the job. There are situations where the nature of a job creates hazards to the individual's health and safety. For instance, it is inherent to a miner of asbestos that the miner is exposed to the risks of the asbestos fibres in the air. The condition or risk is inherent to the nature of the job. The poor air quality in this case is not a condition of work that is inherent to the position, but is an Occupational Health and Safety problem that was dealt with. The College admitted that it had had a problem with the poor air quality. There were difficulties with rust in the ventilation system, poor air circulation and fumes arising from construction that was being done in the area at the time that the grievance was filed. The College handled the noise problem from the construction by moving the employees affected or by sending them home. Therefore although the incumbent worked in an area that was affected for a time by poor air, it was not a reflection of the task, duties, or responsibilities that she had to handle. The noise that affected the incumbent's work was that of conversations between the various office employees, and the students and their counsellors. Voices between staff and students are sounds that are inherent to an office environment. While there may be occasions where the students would be volatile, angry and would raise their voices when they were speaking to their counsellors, the incumbent admitted that these occasions were not frequent. There was Page 15 no evidence that the noises were greater than any other office. Therefore I find that the more accurate description is described by Category A. By application of the corepoint rating this element of the position receives 7 points. JOB FAMILY The Union submitted that the job family ought to be changed to Support Services as the work was project oriented and not clerical in nature. He submitted that the job was to run ongoing projects, workshops, and to balance administrative details, advertising and follow-up details. I do not find that the job family ought to be changed as this job involves both clerical and administrative functions. A fundamental element that is found throughout the Support Services Officer Series is the conceptualization of projects. At the level A, the Support Services Officer's typical duties are to develop and recommend policies and procedures for the administration of the unit. This fundamental element is missing from the incumbent's position. However, as the administrative tasks involved in the incumbent's job are greater than the clerical functions of a typical Clerk General, I find that her position is to be described as a Clerk General D Atypical. The effect of my findings in the three areas of dispute is to award the incumbent 529 points for her position which places the incumbent in Payband 8. This shall be effective as of the date of the filing of the grievance. Interest on any unpaid amounts shall be retroactive to the date of the filing of the grievance. Page 16 . I will remain seised in the event that there is any difficulty in the implementation of this award. Dated at Toronto, this 15th day of October, 1991. ~_~ B.A. Kirkwood, Sole Arbitrator ARBITRATION DATA SHEET - SUPPORT STAFF CLASSIFICATIONS PRESENT CU~SSIFICATIO~ JOB F~ILY ~D PAYBAND REQUESTED BY GRIEVOR ~OSITION DESCRIPTION FO~: 1. Position Description Form Attached 2. ~-~ Parties agree on contents of attached Position Description Form ~ Union disagrees with contents of attached Position Description Form SPECIFIC DETAILS OF THIS DISAGREEMENT ARE AS FOLLOWS: (USE REVERSE SIDE IF NECESSARY) AWARD Management Union Arbitrator ELEMENTS Rating Pts. Rating Pts. Rating Pts. , ' GUID'~E RECEIVED O~ i 19 b ':t ~s-O D~ 120 A~ACHED WRITTEN SUBMISSIONS: ~ The Union ~ The College ~IGNA~RES: FOR THE UNION Fg~NAGEMENT i qt, o9.. o~ ( (Date) ARBIT~USE: Sept. 24, 199i Oct. 15, 1991 ~~aring Date Award Date SIGNATURE