Brothers and Sisters,
I hope everyone had a well deserved rest during the Christmas Holiday. For those members who were laid off during the week of January 5th to January 11th instruction on applying for E.I. benefits were attached to your pp 51 2019 pay stub. If you have issues with applying for your E.I. benefits contact the Union Benefit office for any assistance.
Rebalance in Chassis
With the Flex and MKT no longer in production, there will be many changes to the production requirements in the Chassis department.
- Elimination of Flex & MKT jobs
- Reduced JPH (Jobs Per Hour) from 66 to 52
- Rebalance of jobs
- Elimination of relief jobs in the Chassis department
- Work Group realignment
The production changes will affect many of the members of the Chassis department. Those members of the Chassis Department who lose their current job will be apart of an open job canvass. The open jobs that each individual gets to select from is dictated by article 15:31 of the CBA as well as pages 49 and 53 of exhibit B. Any jobs that are not selected during the open job canvass will be posted in accordance with our negotiated posting procedure.
Job Changes
During the Holidays and the layoff week there has been many job station changes and reallocation of job elements in the Chassis Department. Any issues or concerns you have related to training, job station layout, tooling , time , ergonomic or safety inform your supervisor right away. As I have mentioned in past reports, if there are issues on the job we have the negotiated 10 Step procedure that was negotiated in 1976. The language was negotiated to help resolve job related issues and stop premature discipline. You can find this language on page 11 of Exhibit B.
Members rebalanced out of MP&L, Body and Pre-Delivery
For those members who have been rebalanced out of their previous department and sent to the Final Area either Trim or Chassis you will be deemed a pending post. It is important to note that you have one year call back rights to your base department. If during the next year you bid on a job and are deemed the successful applicant on the job you would then forfeit those call back rights.
Working to Find Solutions
Since the Local Leadership was notified about the production actions taking place at OAC we have had many meetings with all levels of management to try and minimize the hardship that our members will have to deal with. As many know the company has rescinded the indefinite layoff notice for some of our members. This was directly related to the Union successfully having the Company agree to transfer those members who came to Oakville from Local 200 back to Windsor. Also 5 of our members who were put on lay-off notice were hired at the Bramalea Parts depot as preferential hires rather than having the Bramalea site hire people off the street while our Oakville members were going to be laid off.
With such a major change to the production schedule in the plant there has been the reduction of jobs. The In-plant Committee and Steward body has continued to argue against job reductions and we have been able to successfully get the company to agree to maintain jobs that were originally slated for reduction.
Amendment Meeting
A reminder that our Local amendment meeting is February 9th. This meeting is an important meeting to put forth our ideas as we try to shape the future here in Oakville.
Marc Brennan
UNIFOR Local 707, Chassis Committee person
Vice Chair Ford Council
Ext. 3335
1(289)681-7654
