The Job Evaluation Project
Every OPSEU
member in the OPS is getting a new job description. But
not right away.
Under Appendix
34 of the new collective agreement, OPSEU and the Ontario
government agreed to update the job classification system
in the OPSEU bargaining unit.
Our current
job classification system is out of date. Technology has
changed, management has changed, and jobs have changed.
These days, job descriptions don’t reflect the work we
actually do.
The Job
Evaluation Project will not create new pay rates. Pay
rates will be negotiated during the next round of contract
talks.
The current
collective agreement expires at the end of December 2008.
No pay adjustments will happen before then unless required
to maintain pay equity.
For a full
explanation of the Job Evaluation Project, read the
Question-and-Answer document at
http://www.opseu.org/ops/frontlines
/frontlinesfeb142006attach.htm
March 2, 2010 Although negotiations for a new gender neutral and pay equity compliant job evaluation system were halted over a year ago, OPSEU staff and the Job Evaluation team have been busy working to deal with ongoing problems.
more...
November 6, 2009 The Ontario Public Service Employees Union has filed a
challenge under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms hoping to resolve a
long-standing inequity affecting thousands of workers employed directly by the
Ontario government.
more…
March 11, 2009 Despite attempts by the union to proceed
with the Job Evaluation process as defined in Appendix 34, we were forced stop
the process on Oct. 2, 2008.
At issue was the employer’s refusal to agree to a joint process
of collecting job information and rating/scoring jobs. OPSEU has filed a
complaint with the Pay Equity Tribunal on this.
At the end of 2007, the Total Compensation Strategy Branch was
ignoring concerns about the need for a pay equity compliant terms of reference.
OPSEU then started bargaining with the Employee Relations Division.
OPSEU looked at several different ways that this project could
continue but the stumbling block was management concerns about member
involvement. In an October 2, 2008 letter, OPSEU informed Assistant Deputy
Minister David Logan, that we needed to be confident with the process of
collecting job information (an important issue to OPSEU members who are working
within outdated class standards).
OPSEU has been willing to look at creative approaches such as
the employer’s method of benchmarking jobs and writing job descriptions.
However, OPSEU believes that members need some kind of dispute mechanism process
to question the validity of the job information collected and/or the
determination of job classification based on that information. The employer
disagrees with our position on a dispute mechanism, which has left us at an
impasse.
Although the legal process may be a long one, we take pay equity
seriously and refuse to waste any more time with this employer.
We will keep you updated as information becomes available.
February 29, 2008 Since the last update
the JE team (Including OPSEU members John Watson and Spencer Mitchell) has
been working on writing and testing the tool that will be used for job
evaluation and pay equity in the OPS. The Joint Working Group has been
working diligently to do the work outlined in Appendix 34.
In mid-2007 Nichola Martin joined the OPS team as the OPSEU staff person.
Nichola was hired by the union as a negotiator with pay equity expertise.
Article 34 requires the job evaluation process to be pay equity compliant.
It is the union’s position that for the process to be pay equity compliant
the union needs to be involved in more than just testing the job evaluation
tool.
We are presently discussing with the employer how to proceed on a process of
joint job evaluation that will be both pay equity compliant and that will
also be used by the employer to do job evaluations for classification
purposes. OPSEU clearly expects this job evaluation process to maintain pay
equity.
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