HomeMy WebLinkAbout1992-2499.Stecko.93-06-02
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, EMPLOYES DE LA COURONNE
ONTARIO
/)- CROWN EMPLOYEES DEL 'ONTARIO
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I' 1111 GRIEVANCE
COMMISSION DE
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SETTLEMENT REGLEMENT
BOARD DES GRIEFS
180 DUNDAS STREET WEST SUITE 2100 TORONTO, ONTARIO. M5G IZ8 TELEPHONE/TELEPHONE f416) 326-1388
180, RUE DUNDAS OUEST BUREAU 2'00 TORONTO fONTARIO) M5G IZ8 FACSIMILE /TEU:COPIE (416) 326-1396
2499/92
IN THE MATTER OF AN ARBITRATION
Under I
THE CROWN EKPLOYEES COLLECTIVB BARGAINING ACT I
Before .. I
THE GRIEVANCE SETTLEMENT BOARD
BETWEEN
OPSEU (Stecko)
Grievor
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The Crown in Right of ontario
(Ministry of Revenue)
Employer
BEFORE J. Devlin Vice-Chairperson I
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FOR THE N. DiSalle . i
GRIEVOR Grievance Officer
ontario Public Service Employees Union ;
FOR THE K. Cribbie
EMPLOYER Labour Relations Officer
Ministry of Revenue
BEARING April 21, 1993
May 18, 1993
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This matter involves a claim for call back pay for work
performed on June 27, 1992.
The Grievor, John stecko, is employed as a Fuel and
Tobacco Tax Inspector. He carries out the bulk of his duties at
the place of inspection although, from time to time, he also
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performs work at home or in his car.
The Grievoris last scheduled shift prior to June 27th
was on Friday, June 26th and his next scheduled shift was on
Monday, June 29th. On saturday, June 27th, the Grievor was
assigned to on-call duty as a result of which he was required to
respond within a reasonable time to a request for recall to the
workplace or for the performance of other work.
The Grievor testified that shortly atter leaving his
home to go shopping on June 27th, he received a signal on his
pager and in accordance with Ministry policy, he was required to
respond to this signal by telephone within one half hour. As a
result, the Grievor returned home where his manuals were located
and dealt with the matter entirely by telephone, which took
approximately 15 minutes. The Grievor was paid one half hour of
overtime for this work and the Union claimed that, instead, he ""' ~ :.}"';}-::~.
ought to have received call back pay.
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The subject of call back pay is dealt with in Article
14.1 which provides that an employee who leaves his place of work
and is subsequently called back to work prior to the starting
time of his next scheduled shift shall be paid a minimum of 4
hours pay at time and one half his basic hourly rate. Article
16, which deals with on-call duty, further provides that where an
employee is recalled to the workplace or performs other work as
required, call back payor overtime pay, respectively, shall be ,
substituted for the on-ca~l premium.
It is apparent, therefore, that the parties have
distinguished between circumstances in which an employee on-call
is required to return to the workplace and those in which the
work performed does not involve recall to the workplace. It is
only in the former case that the call back premium is payable and
this, in my view, is consistent with the jurisprudence of this
Board which provides that the call back premium is intended to
compensate an employee for the expense and inconvenience of being
required to return to the workplace outside his regular hours.
Although, in. this case, the Grievor performs some of
his work at home, making telephone calls from that location does
not involve the attendant disruption of a recall to the workplace
contemplated by Article 14. In any event, even if the Grievor's
home were characterized as the workplace for purposes of call
back, it is not clear that the Grievor was required to return
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home to respond to his pager o~ June 27th In this regard,
although the Grievor testified that his manuals w~re located at
home, he did not indicate that these wer~ necessary to, the
performance of his work and, at on~ point, he conced~d that he
could have responded to his pager by making a telephone call from
th~ shopping centre to which he was proceeding from his home.
Moreover, although there was some indication that on
two occasions in the past, the Grievor claimed call back pay for
having performed work on the telephone when assigned to on-call
duty, on both occasions, it would appear that the Grievor
received compensating leave at his straight time rate rat~er than
time and one half his hqurly rate as provided in Article 14.1.
In any event, I find. that the two occasions described do not
constitute a sufficient past practice to serve as a reliable aid
to interpret~tion or, alternatively, to support the application
of the doctrine of estoppel.
In the result, ,f()r the reasons set out, the grievance
of Mr. Stecko is hereby dismissed.
DATED AT TORONTO, this 2nd day of June, 1993
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Vice Chairperson
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