Letter of Agreement Thirty-One (LOA #31) of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) details provisions for the Union and the Company to meet and confer for the purpose of discussing such things, including but not limited to, the staffing and utilization of employees within and across bid area and work areas, targeted staffing levels and the creation of relief or utility crews.
As per our previous discussions pertaining to LOA #31 you will find listed below terms for local implementation of LOA # 31 and confirms the parties’ mutual understanding regarding the Staffing and utilization of manpower.
Transferring of Employees Between Work and /or Bid Area(s)
- The company will not assign or reassign employees from one bid area or work area to another to cover known outages – for example, scheduled vacations (bid or VAC-DAT), leaves of absence, training, OJI, sick leave (when there is advanced notification of no less than eight (8) hours prior to the beginning of the shift in question and the sick leave call-out allows the overtime office at least one hour or more to react to such call-out during normal hours of operation [0600-2300] ) etc., unless and until the overtime call out process for that shift has been exhausted.
- The Company reserves the right to utilize “idle crews” to cover outages prior to calling overtime. An idle crew shall be depicted as a crew(s) that may be inactive due to a cancellation or change in work load involving scheduled hanger mod line, priority service visit (PSV), low priority visit (LPV) and/or heavy check work.
- When the Collective Bargaining Agreement allows for the temporary transfer of an employee(s) between bid and/or work area(s) the employee to be transferred shall be determined by offering the temporary transfer to the senior interested employee. If there are no interested employees the junior man in the work and/or bid area shall be assigned the temporary transfer.
Staffing Levels
- The Company agrees to meet with the Union to review staffing levels, based upon the needs of the Company prior to each shift bid. The parties will meet to confer about shift/day off patterns and staffing levels prior to the posting of the shift bid pursuant to Article 7.K.2.
- Nothing in this Agreement shall be construed as the Union’s right to dictate staffing levels. Notwithstanding, the Company agrees to consider and respond to all reasonable requests from the Union and shall, upon request, provide an explanation in the event a request is denied.
Stipulations
- The Union and its members reserve the right to object and grieve any abuse or misuse in the practice of this Letter of Agreement.
- Any deliberate or purposeful disregard for this Letter of Agreement shall constitute a bypass in violation of the overtime distribution procedures set forth in the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
- This Letter of Agreement shall not conflict with nor affect the interpretation or application of the Collective Bargaining Agreement unless expressly adopted in writing by authorized representatives of the Company and Union.
- Resolution of grievances pertaining to this LOA whether by settlement or award of the System Board or by any Arbitrator’s decision shall prevail.
Should either party wish to alter or amend this local agreement, they may indicate their desire to negotiate a change upon written notice. Either party may serve notice of its desire to negotiate modifications to this agreement.
If this accurately reflects your understanding, please sign and return one copy of this letter to me.