GSB# 2018-3240

UNION# 2018-0368-0297

IN THE MATTER OF AN ARBITRATION

Under

THE CROWN EMPLOYEES COLLECTIVE BARGAINING ACT

Before

THE GRIEVANCE SETTLEMENT BOARD

BETWEEN

Ontario Public Service Employees Union (Cassibo)

Union

• and -

The Crown in Right of Ontario (Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services)

Employer

BEFORE

Gail Misra

Arbitrator

FOR THE UNION

Dan Sidsworth Ontario Public Service Employees Union Grievance Officer

FOR THE EMPLOYER

Samantha Gray Treasury Board Secretariat Employee Relations Advisor

HEARING

February 26, 2019

DECISION

1The Employer and the Union at the Central East Correctional Centre agreed to participate in mediation-arbitration in accordance with the Local Mediation-Arbitration Protocol that has been negotiated by the parties. Should mediation not result in resolution of a grievance, pursuant to the Protocol, they have agreed to a mediation-arbitration process by which each party provides the Arbitrator with their submissions setting out their respective facts and the authorities they may be relying upon. This decision is issued in accordance with the Protocol and with Article 22.16 of the collective agreement, so that it is without precedent or prejudice to any other matters between the parties, and is issued without written reasons.

2Jill Cassibo filed a grievance dated December 14, 2018 claiming that she should have been allowed to work 3.5 hours of overtime on December 13, 2018. The Grievor is an OAG -08 support staff at the Central East Correctional Centre, working in the Programs Department. She relies in part on the Programs Department Overtime Protocol and on Articles 2 and 3 of the Collective Agreement. The Grievor maintains that she was the more senior employee and had less overtime hours than did the worker who was assigned the overtime.

3The Grievor works as an Admin Assistant-Clinical Services (Social Work and Addictions). There are two other Admin Assistants providing admin support to the Programs Department: One is the Admin Assistant-Deputy Superintendent Admin, and the other is the Admin Assistant – Rehabilitative Services (Rehab/Chaplaincy/Library/Nilo/Volunteer). The Admin Assistant – Rehabilitative Services (Rehab/Chaplaincy/Library/Nilo/Volunteer) is Amber Swatson.

4Ms. Swatson had been working on a time-sensitive project that had to be completed on December 13, 2018. As the system had been down that day, it was taking longer to get the project completed. The manager asked Ms. Swatson if she could stay to complete the project, which was related to the ASCU Discharge program updates and short sentence notifications, and which the manager had assumed would take about a half hour of overtime to complete. This work is part of Ms. Swatson’s assignment, and is not part of the Grievor’s work assignment. Ultimately, Ms. Swatson had to work two hours of overtime in order to complete the project.

5According to the manager, it would have been inefficient and disruptive to have had to change the assignment so that the Grievor would have been assigned to do the overtime work on a time sensitive project that she was not familiar with. It would have taken time to explain both the work, and the point at which Ms. Swatson had reached by the end of the work day. In addition, at the time, the manager believed the work would only take a further half hour beyond Ms. Swatson’s regular hours of work.

6The Programs Department Overtime Protocol does not apply to the OAG staff. While the Employer has management rights to decide when overtime is required, even if it has to distribute overtime in a fair and equitable manner, that is subject to its right to ensure that all its operational requirements are met. Having considered the submissions of the parties, I find that it was reasonable in the particular circumstances that day for the Employer to assign the overtime work to the other Admin Assistant and not to the Grievor. As such, the grievance is denied.