HomeMy WebLinkAbout1984-0393.Bouchard.84-10-31æÓ×Å òÇØÓÙÓÛÐ ê×ÆÓ×Å
DECISION
This is a classification case, The grievor, who currently'
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is classified as an [nvironmental Technician Zli, claimed the classification
of Systems'Offices II, ~ffec%iwe January 1, 1983. For reasons which follow,
the grievance is dismissed.
In 1979, the grievor was hired by the Air Quality Support
Section of the Southeastern Division of the Ministry as an Air Quality
Instrument Technician. In this capacity, the grievor's initial respon-
sibilities involved taking, care of the equipment at six monitoring stations
that the Ministry operated for purposes of monitoring air polution, etc.
Because some of the stations were very far away from the office in Cornwall,
e.g., there was one station located in ·Ottawa, the grievor's duties req~/ired
him tO spend a lot of time in travelling.
At.this point.in time, none of the stations was automated.
The instruments at each station had to be calibrated by hand. If the calibration
were to disclose that 'an instrument had been recording improperly, the information
that was collected' prior to this test would have to be discarded as useless.
Moreover, when repairing an instrument which was found to be malfunctioning,
the grievor would be required to use considerable amounts of "guess work",
thereby disrupting, for a considerable period of time the equilibrium of
· highly sensitive instruments.
It seems that at about the time the grievor was hired, Mr.
MacBeth, Chief, Laboratory Services and Air Quality, for the Southeastern
Region, was contemplating the possibility of automating many of the operations
that were required to be performed at each station via computer technology.
There was some indication in the evidence that this might have played a role
in hiring the grievor, since he possessed considerable ~xpertise in the field
of computer technology. Together with the griev0r and one other employee
in Cornwall, Mr. MacBeth planned a strategy for implementing this type of
automation.
The evidence left little doubt that in the execution of this
strategy, the grievor play'ed the dominant role. Mr. MacBeth testified that
he had little expertise in the computer area. He relied upon the grievor
to plan, design, build, and place into operation the computerized syste_~s
which would accomplish the objectives that he found to be desirable. These
.Objectives essentially were to obtain continuous monitoring from a central
location of the measurements occurring at each station; to obtain virtually
instantaneous notificatios of~ ~ny unusual increase in certain types of pollution
~n ~ particular area; to be able automatically to calibrate the instrttmentation
at each station; and, to obtain virtually instantaneous notification of mal-
functions in any of the measuring equipment.
Over the years from 1979 to 1983, the grie~or devoted increas-
ing amounts of time to this project. As the project progressed, he found that
he was able to do this because the automation that had already been achieved
was beginning to free up increasingly greater amounts of time that otherwise
would have been spent manually checking each monitoring station. The grievor
estimated that over this period of time the amount of time that he devoted
to the project grew from 25% to 75% of the time that he spent on the job.
Apparently, in late 1982, the grievor discussed with Mr.
MacBeth the possibility of obtaining a new job description which would reflect
the change in the nature of his duties due to the automation which was taking
place. Mr. MacBeth agreed, and began to draft a revised position
specification that he believed took account of the change. He showed the
position specification to the grievor before it was sent to the Personnel
Office for evaluation. At that time, the grievor apparently agreed with what
Mr~ MacBeth had written.
The grievor testified that when the new position specification
came back with his existing classification of Environmental Technician III
attached thereto, he was shocked. He indicated in his testimony that while
he did agree with what Mr. MacBeth had written in the position specification.
regarding his duties and responsibilities, he disagreed with the percentages
that Mr. MacBeth allocated to individual groupings of duties. In particular,
the grievor disagreed with the allocation of 20% to a grouping of duties which
essentially described the work which he was performing in connection with the
automation project. As previously indicated, the grievor testified that at
the time, these duties were taking up 75~ of his time on the job. He filed
the grievance leading to the present arbitration.
At the hearing, the Union contended that because 75'% of the
grievor's time was spent in planning, developing, building, etc. the computerized
units for the automation project, the bulk of his job resembled more closely
that of a person falling within the scope of the Systems Officer series
of the class standards. This is the series encompassing those persons
in positions requiring "knowledge and skills in such areas as computer
programming, computer software and hardware, data base technology, data
communications, ...[etc.]." Beca'use this description matched completely
the knowledge and skills that the grievor exercised in the automation project,
the Union submitted, this is the series that should govern the allocation
of the grievor's Position specification.
Without making any binding determination of the matter, it
might be ~aid that the foregoing would be a strong argument on behalf of the
grievor if the evidence disclosed that in the foreseeable futu/e he would
continue to devote to the automation project the same amount of time as he
had in the past. This, however, does not appear to be so. The g~ievor
testified, for example, that the project was almost completed and lacked
but a few finishing touches. Mr. MacBeth testified that he anticipated that
the 20% that he allocated to the utilization of the'grievor's expertise in
computer technology would dwindle down in the next several years as a result
of the completion of the project, and also as a result of implementation of
a planned Ministry~wide computeiized network which would render redundant
many of the systems that had been installed as part of the project. Mr.
MacBeth added that he believed that gradually, this component of the grievor's
duties would blend.into that part of his job allocated to performing preven%ive
maintenance.
The impression that the Board derives from this evidence seem
to be that the automation project was a form of special assignmen't in which
skills that the grievor possessed but might not otherwise have utilized were
put~ to use. This project cannot be considered to have formed part and parcel
of the duties regularly to be expected of the grievor. There was no evidence
to indicate that a similar project of similar scope would be allocated to the grievor
in the future. While the grievor may perform in the future some of the functions
that he performed in executing the project, e.g., in modifying new equipment
to fit into the computerized system, the evidence indicates that the primary
orientation of his job will remain maintaining and servicing air quality
monitoring instruments.
In light of this, there appears to be little doubt that the
position of the grievor is excluded from the Systems Officer series. The
preamble to the class standard for this series expressly excludes "[p]ositions
which may perform some of the above [computer-orientedt functions, but whose
primary orientation and skill base are in other areas such as...science ....
In light of the observations of the Board regarding the primary orientation
of the job of the grievor, it would appear that this exclusion was devised
with jobs such as that performed by the grievor in mind. Despite the grievor's
impressive level of knowledge and skills in computer technology, it must be
concluded that his position is excluded from the Systems Officer series
because ~t5 primary orientation and skill base are in the scientific area
and not in the area to wkich the class 'standard for the Systems Officer series
is directed.
The grievance is dismissed.
DATED at London, Ontario, this 31st day of October, 1984.
Roberts, ¥ice Chairman
Best, Member
A. Reistetter, Member