Friday May 10 2019
We have now completed 12 days of hearings on our collective agreement(s) arbitration.
Day 10
The tenth day of the arbitration consisted of the expert testimony from Dr. Richard Shillington on the percentage of coverage for letter carrier routes. Some of the key issues about this formula are:
- It is based on data that is over 30 years old
- Mail volumes have changed dramatically which impacts the calculation of percentage of coverage
Day 11
The eleventh day of the arbitration began with testimony from Sister Aimee Stewart, an RSMC from Marmora, ON. Sister Stewart testified on the difficulties of finding her own replacement. She also mentioned that in addition to this inconvenience, RSMCs must train their replacement and cover all the costs of this training, without even knowing if the replacement will be available when needed or will stay on after the training.
Day 11 finished with the testimony of Barb McMillan, a RSMC and a member of the negotiating committee. Sister McMillan testified about RSMC compensation, route restructures, maximizing the number of routes at 8 hours, and post-retirement benefits.
Day 12
This day began with the cross-examination of Sister McMillan. We then continued with evidence from Brother Brahm Enslin a RSMC from Saskatoon, SK. Brother Enslin testified about working more than his Schedule A hours almost every day and the fact that he does not get paid for this extra work.
We finished day 12 with testimony from Sister Nancy Beauchamp, a RSMC and Chief Negotiator for the RSMC unit. Sister Beauchamp testified about pay for all hours worked, including overtime, pension on extra hours, up to 8 hours per day and coverage of all absences.
