Unilateral change to Illness absence Policy 2009
The arbitrators ruling on the above subject had some valuable points on this well established past practice.
1. The Company had a duty to negotiate this mandatory bargaining subject.
2. The Company had bargained this policy in the past and is obligated to bargain any changes now.
3. The policy, (although it is not written in the CBA) is a well established practice used by the Company and the Union as the policy to establish availability discipline.
4. The change from occurrences to days is unreasonable and identified, therefore a violation of the CBA.
The arbitrator also quoted an interesting point that I think the membership should know.
“The Company cannot make its relationship with the union into one where it has unfettered management rights simply by proclaiming that to be the case, any more than it can avoid acknowledging that it has bargained with the union by using words like “understanding” and “notification”.”
