| What’s
at stake? Key bargaining issues.
#3 – Seniority
Seniority is your protection against favouritism and abuse.
The labour movement knows it is a fair way to make certain
decisions.
OPAC wants the right to ignore seniority in layoffs and promotions.
If there must be layoffs in a workplace, they should be done in
reverse order of seniority. The last hired should be the ones to go,
and the people who have made the longest commitment to the workplace
should be retained.
We had layoff by absolute seniority in the OPS. If you can’t do
your job, the employer can discipline or fire you. If you are losing
your job through no fault of your own, seniority ensures a fair
system. Anything else is open to abuse.
Promotions
Where two candidates are
relatively equal, the deciding factor should be seniority. The more
senior candidate gets the job. The more junior one will have another
chance at promotion later.
Nobody suggests that incompetents be protected. Employers have
plenty of ways of dealing with workers who cannot or will not do the
job.
Senioriy = fairness
A hire date is a clear
criteria. And it is a fair one. OPAC says it is prepared to recognize
seniority. And in a sense that is true. It is prepared to recognize
that someone who has worked in this bargaining unit for 20 years has
more seniority than someone with 10 years service. But OPAC is not
prepared to have that mean anything.
Seniority must have meaning
When it comes to promotions or
layoffs, OPAC wants to use "skill, ability, qualifications and
experience." After it is through assessing you on those four
criteria, it is prepared to take seniority "into
consideration." And that means that if you have equivalent
"skill, ability, qualification and experience" and greater
seniority, you can easily miss out. It’s only a consideration, after
all. It doesn’t mean anything.
When your employment is at stake, you need a clear way of measure.
That’s seniority. And it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got
that meaning in the collective agreement.
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