Job Retention is new for RSMCs. Since RSMCs are now paid the derived hourly rate of Letter Carriers, there could be an incentive for Canada Post to contract out bargaining unit work. CUPW needed to ensure the work that RSMCs perform every day is protected.
Why Was This Needed?
CUPW argued that there was little protection for bargaining unit work in the RSMC Collective Agreement and no protection against contracting out.
The Corporation argued in front of Arbitrator MacPherson that any point of call that did not belong to Urban Operations went to RSMCs, so there was no need to have anything like this in the Collective Agreement.
The Arbitrator agreed with us!
Contracting Out
CUPW argued that the improvements to the RSMC Collective Agreement from the Pay Equity award would make it increasingly tempting to contract out RSMC work and would not encourage CPC to work toward a collaborative labour-management relationship.
CPC argued it was essential to have the ability to engage contractors to meet its service commitments, and therefore, she should not award anything that would prohibit the use of contractors.
The Arbitrator agreed with us!
What is Job Retention?
This new appendix ensures that the work currently performed by bargaining unit employees will be protected. However, in certain circumstances, after making every reasonable attempt, there is not enough employees to do the work, the Corporation may temporarily assign work to other persons.
For new points of call, the appendix will work in conjunction with Appendix “E” of the Urban Collective agreement to ensure the work is attributed to the correct bargaining unit.
Any new types of activities that are agreed to by the CUPW and CPC, could also be assigned to employees in the bargaining unit provided they are not already the work of another bargaining unit or managerial in nature.
Another Step Forward
Finally, RSMCs have some real protection. Job retention, along with the job security language (see Bulletin #164), offers real protection from our work being contracted out or losing our jobs in a restructure and being sent home without pay.
In Solidarity,