2 total
Grievance dismissed; travel time to out-of-province fire assignment was responsibility-free and not compensable as overtime.
The union grieved that a seasonal Fire Crew Leader should have been paid overtime rates rather than travel time rates for time spent travelling to a forest fire assignment in British Columbia outside of his regular working hours.
The employer argued that the travel was essentially responsibility-free and thus properly compensated at straight time under the collective agreement's travel time provisions.
The arbitrator reviewed the jurisprudence and concluded that the sole test for determining whether travel time constitutes work is whether the employee had actual job responsibilities during the journey.
Finding that the grievor had no such responsibilities while travelling by rented van and chartered plane, the arbitrator dismissed the grievance.
Board has broad interim relief powers under SPPA despite LRA limits, but relief denied here.
The applicant union sought interim relief to prevent the exclusion of certain employees from the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act pending a decision on the merits.
The Board held that while section 98 of the Labour Relations Act, 1995 limits interim orders to procedural matters, section 16.1 of the Statutory Powers Procedure Act grants the Board a broader, general power to make interim orders related to its jurisdiction, which prevails due to the override provision in section 32 of the SPPA.
However, the Board declined to grant interim relief in this case, primarily because the applicant was unwilling to proceed expeditiously with a hearing on the merits.
