Brothers and Sisters,
This report is to give all the members working in Chassis an update regarding our current state in the department.
Indefinite Lay-off
As of February 3rd the plant has a total of 375 Active members on indefinite layoff. Out of those members who were laid-off 160 of those were members who were working in Chassis either the A shift or B shift. The Benefit office with the help of the Presidents office put together a seminar for our laid-off members to help them through the unemployment process. The in-plant committee and the entire leadership will continue to work for a solution to get our members back to work as soon as possible.
Transfers From Body Shop/ MP&L/ Pre-Delivery
243 members from the Body shop who did not have enough seniority to retain work in the Body shop were sent to the Final area. These members were put into both Trim and Chassis. Understandable that this change in department and in their scheduled hours has had a negative effect on most if not all. To date the company has recalled four members back to the Body shop in order of seniority.
MP&L transferred 12 members to the Final area and Pre-Delivery transferred 15 members to the Final area. All these members who were reduced from their departments maintain one year recall rights back to their previous department. This upheaval to our members lives was made worse by the fact that the company originally assigned members who were reduced out of their departments with no consideration of shift from where they were coming from. When the Union leadership heard what the company was planning on doing we made every effort to have our members being reduced from a department at least be able to stay on their preferred shift.
Rebalance and Open Job selection
The manpower churn in Chassis was massive. During the open job canvass in the Chassis department over 150 job selections were completed. These job selections were completed in order of seniority in the classification that each individual were entitled to select a job form. The Chassis Union leadership did review the canvass that was conducted by the company. When errors were found during the review process or when identified by our members we made the company correct those errors. There were also 6 ownership challenges. The IE’s (industrial engineers) and Unifor Production standards reviewed the work allocation and determine ownership based on percentage of work content.
Current RTO (Required to Operate)
#2 shift – 372
#3 shift – 369
Job Postings
Jobs that were not selected during the open job canvass or that became available after the canvass was completed through attrition will be posted. The jobs will be posted in accordance with our posting procedure laid out in exhibit B of our collective agreement .
Job Issues
With so many changes to the jobs in the Chassis department and with the amount of manpower churn job related issues are being identified. It is important to note that we had the 10 step procedure negotiated in 1976 to stop premature discipline. This process also give our members an opportunity to inform the company about any and all issues you may have on the job. You can find this language on page 11 of exhibit B. If your issues are not being addressed but you feel that the work content on the job is greater than you are able to complete the operator has the option of putting the job under dispute. We recommend that if you put the job under dispute that you do that during step 2 of the 10 step procedure so that there is a Union Steward present.
Vacation Sheets and Scheduling
With the announcement of a two week shutdown pp28 (June 29- July 5) and pp 28 (July 6- July 12) our members will now be able to plan their vacation moving forward. Vacation scheduling sheets will be handed out for our members to book vacation that they are entitled to over and above the 80 hours set aside for summer shutdown.
Amendment Meeting
Reminder that we have our Local amendment meeting at 10am Sunday, February 9th. This meeting will give us an opportunity to set the direction for 2020 bargaining. I encourage all our members to come out and be a part of the process.
Marc Brennan
UNIFOR Local 707 –Chassis Committeeperson
Vice Chairperson Ford Council
(905) 845-2511 Ext. 3335
1(289)681-7654
