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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1983-0456.Acton.85-05-31IN THE MATTER OF AN ARBITRATION Under THE CROWN EMPLOYEES COLLECTIVE BARGAINING ACT Before' THE GRIEVANCE SETTLEMENT BOARD Between: Before: For the Grievor: For the Employer: Hearings: OLBEU. (Dianne ActOn) Grievor - and - The Crown in Right of Ontario (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) Employer K. P. Swan Vice Chairman L. Robinson Member W. A. Lobraico Member G. Beaulieu Counsel Union Consulting Services M. P. Moran Counsel Hicks Morley Hamilton Stewart Storie Barristers 6 Solicitors December 5 & 19, 1983 January 11, 1984 li -2- DECISION The present grievance, which was filed by Ms. Dianne Acton, on July 19, 1983 is a classification grievance. It raises, however, a very difficult factual problem of applying the employer's classiffcation guide to the duties of a particular job, and also raises an important issue of principle, because of the assignment of a higher classification to another very similar job. Ms. Acton's grievance is really a test case on'behalf of all of the six Payroll Clerks at the employer's head office. All of these employees are presently classified as Clerk Grade 3, and in her grievance Fis. Acton seeks reclassification to Clerk Grade 4. In her griwance, she offers the. following rationale for this reclassification: Due to the complexity and responsibility of the payroll clerk's job, I feel that we should receive Clerk 4 pay. Toward this end a new job description was submitted to the Board and our request was refused. Also, our job is of a fluid nature and changes often. We have acquired many extra jobs in addition to our original duties. During the three days of hearing in this matter, we were presented with a substantial amount of written documentation, largely composed of the kinds of payroll documents used by the grievor in her day-to-day work. We also received lengthy oral testimony from the grievor herself, as well as from other witnesses, explaining this documentation and putting it into the context of the classification of her job. It would be very difficult, in the context of a written award, to do real justice to the sheer mass of this material. Nevertheless, WE shall attempt to summarize the findings of facts, and the application of !.hosc findings to the classification -3- guide, upon which we have based our decision in this matter. The employer's classification guide, which was prepared by an outside consultant and put into operation in 1978, is a form of job evaluation system. A number of evaluation criteria is specified, and a~level definition is given for each criterion at each grade of the classification. The system is, therefore, a form of factor analysis, although it'lacks one significant ingredient of factor analysis systems, the absence of which makes this a particularly difficult arbitration to decide. While it is obviously intended that the classification officer evaluating a particular job should evaluate that job under each of the criteria listed, there is no system to weight the criteria or to assign a value to each of them. It is not surprising to find, in assessing any one job, that it will require significantly more of an incumbent in one area than in another. In this system, however, there is no my to balance off a low rating in one criterion with a high rating in another criterion, so as to find an appropriate grade level for the job as a whole. The evaluation criteria used are decision making/c&plexit contacts, supervision given, supervision received, and entrance qualifications. The classification guide also includes two "whole job" factors as well, entitled Summary of Responsibility Level and Typical Duties. In the Clerk series, the level definitions for Clerk Grade 3 are as follows: -4- EVALUATION CRITERIA SUMMARY OF RESPONSIBILITY LEVEL TYPICAL DUTIES DECISION MAKING/ COMPLEXITY CONTACTS SUPERVISION GIVEN SUPERVISION RECEIVED ENTRANCE QU;.LIFICATIONS CLASSIFICATION CLERK GRADE 3 This level covers positions performing clerical tasks of some complexity. The work requires a background knowledge of regulations, statutes and Board operations. Duties may ~include creation, maintenance and processing of files and records (i.e. breakage and claims forms, establishment licensing files, receivals forms, personnel files etc.). Other duties may include preparation of stan- dard factual reports or memoranda based on routine compilation of data. May operate office machines in execution of duties. May handle telephone calls and personal callers. May also do a small amount of typing. Initiative is needed in following up on errors Andy making necessary-corrections. Limited judgment is applied in selection and inter- pretation of data and in proposing options within a framework of policy or practice. For the majority of positions, contact is limited to staff in the work unit or to other LCBO/LLBO personnel. Contacts outside LCBO/LLBO are usually on straightfotiard and factual issues. In some cases, clerks at this level'will over- see the work of a small team - for intermittent periods of time, providing guidance when needed. work is performed under supervision. 'Instruc- tions are clearly delineated at the beginning of the assignment. Because of general ex- perience and knowledge of the work environment, there is little need for detailed guidance or instructions. Work is reviewed only period- ically for adherence to-established policy and procedure. In some instances it is possible to only~ spot check completed assignments. Completion of two years secondary schooling or equivalent. A minimum.of 2 years of re- lated clerical experience. For the Clerk Grade 3 job, the following al-e the comparable excerpts from the classification guide: EVALUATION CRITERIA SUMMARY OF RESPONSIBILITY LEVEL TYPICAL DUTIES DECISION MAKING/ COMPLEXITY CONTACTS SUPERVISION GIVEN SUPERVISION RECEIVED ENTRANCE QUALIFICATIONS - 5 - CLASSIFICATION CLERK GRADE 4 This level covers positions performing a variety of responsible clerical tasks of moderate complexity. The work requires an extensive understanding of regulations, statutes and LCBO/LLBO policies. Duties may include evaluating completed documents and forms and assessing extent of variation from pre-determined guidelines, (i.e. clearance of shipments, forecasting stock requirements, matching invoices, design and registration of forms). May maintain complex bookkeeping records and may prepare statistical reports and interpretive corres- pondence. Other related du~ties may include serving as lead clerk in coaching junior staff. Decision making is required on variations from the established guidelines. May also make decisions concerning selection and analysis of data and work methods and proced- ures. Decisions requiring major departures from established practices are referred to supervisors. Depending on the tasks of the work unit, positions will have frequent and varied con- tacts within the LCBO/LLBO and externally al- though they will not be spokespersons for their group. May oversee a small team of junior staff by assigning and checking work, resolving en- countered difficulties, explaining procedures, and maintaining discipline. Work is performed under general supervision but staff are expected to exercise initiative in recommending solutions to problems. Know- ledge of procedures, policies and practices is assumed so guidance is only required when matters depart from established policy and procedures. Completion of four years of secondary schooling or equivalent. A minimum of 3 years of related clerical experience. -6- In the process of advancing her claim for a higher classification, the grievor prepared a Position Identification Questionnaire on a form prepared by the employer for this purpose. That document was prepared by the grievor in consultation with all of her co-workers in the Payroll Clerk jo6. As is the usual practice, this document was reviewed by Ms. Gayle Chapman, a job analyst with the employer since 1975. Ms. Chapman eventually produced her own version of the questionnaire, in the course of which she took out what she called.some of the "subjective comments" and put it into a _"proper job evaluation format". During the course of the hearing, certain questions were raised as to which of these two documents was the more accurate. While.we will have more to say about individual issues below, we think we should Ijegin with a finding that, in general, we prefer the employer's version of this document to the griever's version, if only 6ecause the griever's version is written in a subjective and argumentative way in some places, which is of little assistance in coming to grips with the factual issues of the job content. The Payroll Clerk job requires the maintenance of a pay and deduction ledger for permanent and temporary employees; each clerk looks after approximately 100 stores and the employees in those stores. Posting and amendment of the payroll records must be made in. each pay period so that the employees will receive their pay on time. - 7 - This requires the payroll clerk to reflect in the payroll documents changes in employment status, beginning with hiring and ending with termination, and all cbanges.in wage levels, benefit plan-payments- and deductions, and voluntary payroll deductions of several sorts. In addition, overtime and absences for regular employees, as'well as hours worked by part-time and temporary employees, must be controlled witbin the two week pay period cycle. The system is essentially computer-operated, and a substantial number of the change and reporting forms are machine readable. There are also, however, a substantial number of forms which have to be done by hand, for example, upon termination or retirement. There are also reports to be made to various governmental agencies such as Workers' Compensation, ' Unemployment Insurance and Canada Pension Plan officials. In comparing the level of definitions for the Grade 3 and Grade 4 evaluation criteria, we found the two "whole job" level definitions of very little assistance. Under Summary of Responsibility Level, for example, the only guide to setting a job at one level or another is whether the clerical tasks being performed are "of some complexity" or constitute "responsible" clerical tasks of "moderate complexity". The one aspect of the general summary which is of some assistance,is the extent of knowledge required of regulations, statutes and board operations. In our view, what is required of these employees is clearly "background knowledge", rather than "extensive - 8 - Similarly, the level definititions of Typical Duties are not of much assistance, because they are so generally described, although, once again, there is an impression in favour of the Grade 3 classification rather than the Grade 4 classification. From our review of the evidence, it does not appear to us that the duties of this job include "evaluating completed documents and forms and assessing extent of variation from pre-determined guide- lines", nor does it require statistical reports or interpretive correspondence. On the other hand, we are satisfied that the technical duties under the Grade 3 level definition are somewhat inadequate to describe the duties of this particular job. Once ref~erence is made to the job factors, the comparison of the job to the two classification definitions becomes rather easier. Under Decision Making Complexity, the essence of the difference between the two level descriptions appears to be that the Grade 4 level requires decision making within a range of prescribed options, while the Grade 3 requires only initiative in ensuring the correction of one's own work and the application of limited judgment in selection and interpretation of data. There appears to be no doubt that the bookkeeping methods and forms used by these employees are complex in nature,, requiring extensive cross-checking. Because many of the forms setting out the raw data on which the payroll documents are based are originally prepared at the local level, errors may creep into the system through no fault of the -'.-r~~~-/ k.. L .^_._^ \I^r,,,.-,-t.r,7rrrr -9- the most that can be said about the complexity of this job is that it is at the very high end of the grade 3 level definition. The kinds of decisions which are made by the Payroll Clerk are really very straightforward in nature, although to be fair they sometimes require sensitivity and concern for the welfare of employees involved in, for exaple, a recovery of arrears. Most of the decisions described by the grievor in her job description, however, are really choices among clearly laid-out alternatives, and the correct choice is almost - .invariably spelled out for the employee. Under the Contacts,criterion, the classification level definitions are really of very slight assistance, mostly because of the vagueness of the definition. Those employees are in contact on a regular basis, with a large number of individuals both inside and outside the employer's organization. Apart from contact with the U.I.C. offices, however, outside contacts are intermittent and usually limited to the provision of data from payroll records when disclosure of such data is authorized. On balance, we are.of the view that the epithet "straight forward and factual" describes the kinds of contacts actually made better than "frequent and varied". It is true that these employees do a substantial amount of their work in contact with othei- people, but i,t is important to look at the quality of those contacts as well as the quantity. While the contacts with the store managers llndoubtedlv require a certain deqrce of tact and sensitivity - 10 - in sorting out errors, and the outside contacts require a certain discretion and attention to confidentiality, it seems to us on all the evidence that the same kinds of contacts are basically routine exchanges of information, without any requirement of interpretive discussion. In short, although once again, the job is at the high end of Grade 3,-we think that it fits more easily into the Grade 3 level description than into the Grade 4. Under Supervision Given, the grievor had listed a very substantialsupervisory load, based on 100 store managers "reporting directly" to her. Ms. Chapman had refused to accept this charac$erization of the work, and had deleted all of the grievor's assertions. In our view, Ms. Chapman is correct in this. The relationship the grievor has to the store manager is merely a service relationship, and has nothing whatever to do with supervision. While she may assist in clearing up errors in reports coming from store managers, we do not think that the relationship which she has to those managers can possibly be described as supervisory. The level definitions for Supervision Received are based upon the distinction between "supervision" and "general szupervision". While those terms are often described and defined in classification systems, they are not defined here. The evidence appears to suggest that the payroll clerks are not supervised at all tines in their work: once they have become familiar with the job, there is no supervisor looking over the employees' - 11 - shoulders as they do their work. On the other hand, there is a supervisor in the work area at all times, to whom problems may be referred and from whom directions, changes in procedures, decisions onmatters referred, and instruction on changes in regulations or policies are provided. When special calculations are required to be made, the practice is that one employee will do the calculations, and another employee will recheck the calculations, after which a cheque will be raised with the approval of the supervisor. It is very difficult to characterl'ze supervision of this sort as supervision or gene-1 supervision; it plainly falls somewhere in between the two. In our view, however, the remainder of the level definition for supervision received at the Grade 3 level appears to fit exactly the present job. Employees are subject only to periodic review, which probably would~result only from a complaint or error, and so the employees work largely independently. They don't, however, appear to exercise initiative in recommending solutions to problems, as is required by the Grade 4 level definition. The employees work independently; they do not work on 'their own. " This completes a discussion of the individual factors, since entrance qualifications were not an issue in this dispute. It would appear from the discussion above that we, in common with certain of the management witnesses, are of the view that this job is very close to a level 4; it is a "very high" Grade 3 job. The onus of establishing that a job is incorrectly classified is, however, on the union, and we are satisfied that the extensive evidence presented and I I. ..__ -.‘-..1 . . . . . . ".-._. r "C U.. Dn3311 :r>l? ‘.,~i, 1 F-1 1 r.hnrt~ nf __~~ - 12 - establishing that fundamental point. We have, therefore, come to the conclusion that, on the basis of the classification guide, and the evidence of the job as actually performed, the employer's decision to classify the job as Clerk Grade 3 cannot be impugned, and on this basiswe would therefore deny the grievance. There is, however, another issue, one which raises questions of principle. Some time before this grievance was file~d, an issue had arisen in respect of a seventh payroll clerk, job. In December, 1982, a Ms. A. Collin retired from a job entitled Senior Payroll Clerk and classified as Clerk Grade 4. This job was virtually identical to the work being performed by all of the other Payroll Clerks, except that the Senior Payroll Clerk was responsible for performing the paroll for head office personnel, and officers and board members. Traditionally, this access to payroll information relating to the senior management and personnel had been used to justify a Grade 4 classification. Prior to the posting of this job, there was a request for a job evaluation and a.position identification questionnaire was prepared. That questionnaire was in evidence, and it is difficult to see any sub&antial distinctions between it and the documents used in the present grievance. The evaluation went through the usual process, and the salary committee took the view that the usual process, and the salary committee took the view that the Correct classification was at the Clerk Grade 3 level. At this point, Mr. B. Paladichuk, the Assistant Director - 13 - of Finance, intervened in the process. He argued to the salary committee that the position should be at the Clerk Grade 4 level because of the confidentiality issue, the requirement to deal directly with senior management and board members, and certain minor technical differences because of management compensation'metbods. Ultimately, apparently for the reasons just set out, Mr. Paladichuk was successful in convincing the salary committee that a Grade .4 classification ought to be aksigned. When the job was posted, it was eventually filled by a Ms. Rowena Tieche. She was assigned a Clerk 4 classification, and is indeed the only Clerk 4 in the Payroll Department. Her job duties are essentially those being performed prior to her retirement by Ms. Collin. Ms. Tieche gave evidence at the hearing on behalf of the.union, and.it is fair to say that the only difference which she could identify as material between the work which she performs and the work which the Payroll Clerks perform was the particular sensitivity of handling head office salaries, including executive salaries, as wellss filling in for either the assistant supervisor or the supervisor when one of those two persons is absent. The Grievance Settlement Board has, on a number of occasions, recognized that where persons doing identical work to that performed by a grievor have been put into a higher classification, that is significant evidence of the correct classification for the grievor as well. The notion of equal pay for equal work is at t~hr very basis of job - 14 - evaluation systems, and the Board has always been careful to ensure that the principle is applied in classification grievances. What, then, .is the effect of the classification of Ms. Tieche's job at level 4, when the grievor is only at level 3 for doing essentially the same work? There are, of course, two possibilities: either Ms. Tieche's classification is correct; or it is not. If it is correct, it seems that that result comes only from the special level of sensitivity identified in her job because she deals with executive compensation and the payroll recordsfor senior management. We must say that we find this a somewhat questionable proposition. With the greatest of respectti the senior management personnel of the employer,. we do not think that they require any greater degree of confidentiality about their payroll records than do any other employees. Everyone's payroll records ought to be confidential, and in such a sensitive area as personal finances, there are simply no degrees of confidentiality which can be admitted. In other words, it is not that senior management are not entitled to all of the confidentiality which they get: it is simply that individual employees are surely entitled to exactly the same level of confidentiality. If confidential information is the only justification for the higher classification therefore, we think that the higher classification must be in error. There was, also, mention of the assignment from time to tine of supervisory duties to Ms. Tieche, in the absence of the supervisor or the assistant supervisor. .We recc~j ved vel; little evidence about thins, sin,-e it on!~) - 15 - arose in cross-examination of Ms. Tieche. It does not appear to have been part of the original justification put forward by Mr. Paladichuk, but that does not totally disqualify it for consideration in the joS evaluation process. Whether it was so considered or not is simply not before us in evidence. While there might therefore be some justification for a higher classification for Ms. Tieche, on the evidence which is before us it does not appear that the process by which she was given the higher level led to a correct decision. Since we must proceed on the basis only of the evidence before us, we think we must treat this issue as if she were wrongly classified. We stress that her classification is not a matter Before us, and.not a part of our jurisdiction; nevertheless, because of the way in which the arguments were advanced by the union, we are required to come to some conclusion as to the correctness of her classification in order to deal with the question of the griever's classification. In circumstances where the Grievance Settlement Board is justified that a classification is wrong, is it proper nevertheless to use that classification to justify the reclassification upwards of another employee? In our view, we do not think that it is. Classification is an inexact science, and it may be that an employer will apply then classification criteria differently from case to case: where that has occurred, and where it appears that a grievor is disadvantaged by a more stringent application in his or her case than in the qreat majority of other cases, there is an argument for an upward clnssjfication adjustment. 1 . ..^.. .,a. ?.,>,.,. ?I_ .2'.'7iln:r~",! - 16 - on a number of occasions in the past, and undoubtedly will do so again. In the present circumstances, however, where one employee appears to have been given a windfall in the classification system because of what appear to us to be inadmissible factors, factors covered neither by the classi- fication guide nor by the general principles of job evaluation, we think it would be incorrect to pass that windfall to other employees as well. While the assignment of a higher classification to another employee doing similar work may be evidence that the job of the grievor should be classified at the higher levef, the evidentiary value of that fact is completely undermined once it has been made to appear to the Grievance Settlement Board that the higher classification is the incorrect one, rather than the lower classification. In other words, whatever persuasive value the fact of Ms. Tieche's higher classification may have had, that persuasive value is vitiated by our finding, at least on the evidence before us, that she is misclassified. Finally, we wish to make once again the observation that the vagueness of the classification guide and the failure of the system to provide any weighting from one factor to another makes it extremely difficult to provide an impressionistic response to the issues raised by the mass of evidence and lengthy submissions in this case. In the result, after a very careful review of the evidence and submissions, we have come to the conclusion that the union falls just short of establishing that the griever's job should he classified at Grade 4. In coming to that conclusion, WC wish to observe I - 17 - that we certainly intend no slight to the gr ,ievor . She was obviously a very well qualified and very able employee, one who is no doubt of considerable value to the employer. Job evaluation systems, however, are designed to evaluate jobs being performed, rather than the persons performing them. In the result, therefore, this grievance is denied, and the classification of the grievor as Clerk Grade 3 is confirmed. DATED at Toronto, Ontario, this 31st day of May , 1965. "L. Robinson" (Dissent to follow) L. Robinson, Member v W. A. Lobraico, Member