April 29, 2020 - Your Union is grieving Shaw’s recent lay-off action on several fronts, as the company conducted the lay-off in a manner that contradicts the Collective Agreement in several ways. 

You have recall rights under the Collective Agreement which are valid unless you intentionally waive them. As such, you are not required to sign any offer letter in order to retain these rights, as indicated by Shaw. It is sufficient to send an email to gagan.gill@sjrb.ca to indicate that you are invoking your recall rights under Article 10.04, based on the information Shaw provided in their flow chart Monday and your rights under the Collective Agreement. 

The Union considers that your recall rights are not limited to one year, as indicated by Shaw via email. There is no language in the Collective Agreement that restricts your rights to recall when you are laid off under Article 6. They last for as long as you want to retain them. 

It is the Union’s position that the company is intentionally mischaracterizing the nature of the lay-off when they cite “redundancy” under Article 10 of the Collective Agreement as their reason for the lay-off. The appropriate method would be for them to use the standard lay-off language under Article 6. They are doing this because they hope that the Article 10 Automation language will allow them to retain their contractors while laying off Unit 60 members, and depriving you of the full extent of your recall rights. 

These actions are being grieved. While we know that the grievance process is not quick, it is the Union’s legal tool to force the company to respect the terms of the Collective Agreement as written, not as they wish it was written. 

In Solidarity, 

USW Local 1944