Hello CUPE 391
My phone has been ringing constantly as members voice their outrage re: The posting of the shelver position on the Bulletin Board. This position does not begin until January 2008.
The new LAI’s that were hired in July and oriented in October do not seem to be able to cover all the shifts available for LAI’s according to the HR Director. Recently 5 LAI’s were promoted to LAII positions. There are now 5 vacant LAI positions. The branches are crying out for more LAI’s to be hired. According to HR this is the reason for posting the shelver position before it comes into being 2008. What is supposed to happen, according to Clause 8.4.1 of the collective agreement: when a regular full-time position vacancy occurs or a new position is created, the Employer shall, for a period of seven (7) days, post notice of the position on all bulletin boards in the Employer’s offices and branches with in 4 weeks of the vacancy. The Employer is violation of clause 8.4.1 because they have not and will not post the LA I vacancies as per the collective agreement. The HR director admitted that these positions will not posted. Three excluded staff were present.
What is the Union to make of this? We have recently had workshops designed to assuage the symptoms of anger after a strike. We are having LAI and LAII forums to soothe the library assistants fears and build for the future. The pre-advertising of the shelver position on the bulletin board has effectively wiped out any of our tentative movements towards building a better relationship. What were they thinking?
Apparently they were thinking that though the system is short of LAI’s, they can avoid filling their hours (as per article 8.4.1) by jumpstarting the adverstising for bookshelvers by over one month. This is not what we call healing relationships or managing the staff shortage. This is fact, a violation of the contract as there is no argument for not filling those positions when we are short of LAI’s to do the work. Our past practice has been that written arguments have to presented when positions are not being filled during the timelines suggested by the article of the Collective Agreement. The Union would far sooner be forging collaborative relationships with management then writing yet another grievance. This behaviour makes it an uphill slog.
In solidarity
Alex
P.S. After several conversations with Management today, they have agreed to send out an email to staff explaining their position but will not pull the shelver position on the bulletin board and replace it with 5 postings for 5 LAI positions.