Fellow Member,
An Institute grievance was filed on March 23 to address the company’s failure to properly implement the newly agreed provisions in the collective agreement ratified on July 28, 2017.
Flex Work Arrangements (FWA) were incorporated into the collective agreement under article 32 (Hours of Work), Article 33 (Telework) and in a Memorandum of Understanding for a reduced work week on a trial basis.
The company continues to ignore reasonable requests for FWAs under our agreement, fails to inform PIPSC if they are denied and does not consult on the specific circumstances of the denial. A grievance meeting has been scheduled, to be held in early May, in Ottawa. Should management fail to give reason to and remedy our concerns, we may proceed to binding arbitration on the matter.
PIPSC would like to clarify any misunderstanding regarding the status of this issue.
- Your PIPSC representatives completed consultation with the company in November 2017 on recommendation criteria for consideration of FWAs and proposed process including a Request Form.
- We are not working on, nor did we agree to, a different blanket approach for Engineering and Information Management.
Moreover, amendments to the Canada Labour Code concerning FWAs received Royal assent during the last week of December 2017 and will likely come into effect sometime in 2018. These will set the minimums that all employers subject to the Code will have to meet. We have tried, though bargaining, to get ahead of the new statutory requirements. Management has not respected their contractual obligation to date.
Sincerely,
NCR Office
PIPSC