Three jails, Cobourg, Haileybury and L’Original,
were closed. The inmates were moved to other jails more than 40
kilometers away. The Union grieved that employees had the right to
follow their work, and the Union won. The next question was how many
employees were entitled to be relocated.
The employer argued that no one was entitled to
relocation because no new positions were required. The receiving jails
had been operating below capacity, with unfilled positions, and now
those positions were simply being filled. The employer could choose
how to fill them and did not need to use the employees from the closed
jails.
The arbitrator rejected the employer’s argument
and ruled that the surplussed employees were entitled to fill the FTEs
of work assigned to the new jails.
The arbitrator held:
While I agree that it is theoretically possible
for the employer to transfer work to an inefficient operation,
therefore requiring no additional workers, in this case the evidence
is clear that additional people were needed in the receiving jails.
It is not necessary for the union to show that new posts were
created by the transfer of work or that additional beds were needed.
It is enough to show that additional "bodies" were needed
to do the extra work after the work was transferred. For all these
reasons I hereby declare that pursuant to Article 13, the affected
correctional officers from the closing jails are entitled to be
offered positions on the basis of seniority in the receiving
institutions as follows:
- L’Original correctional officers are entitled to: nine (9) FTE
positions at OCDC. etc...
This means that the number of employees entitled to
move to a new location under Appendix 13 is counted by looking at the
actual amount of work that moved, and not by counting the number of
new positions management chooses to create.
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