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View cases - Stewart McKelvey

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normal operation of the conditions and terms of employment in the collective agreement”(Renaud, at para. 26).[95] With respect to the impact on employee morale of exempting Mr. Pannu from theemergency procedure, there was evidence that employee concerns prompted the WCB inspectionthat led to Mr. Pannu’s removal as Recaust Operator. However, as I understand that evidence, itshows that the recaust employees were very worried because it was not certain who would do theemergency shut down on Mr. Pannu’s shifts. Since there is now a written emergency procedurein place, it could easily expressly designate the persons who are to perform the shut down on Mr.Pannu’s shifts, so there would not be any more uncertainty on Mr. Pannu’s shift than on anyother shift. The more significant impact on other employees, in my view, is the change in whomust put on an SCBA and perform the emergency shut down on Mr. Pannu’s shifts. This is bestaddressed in considering the factor of risk, to which I now turn.[96] If a relief Recaust Operator and a relief ARO are designated to perform an emergencyshut down instead of Mr. Pannu on his shifts, there will be some increase in the magnitude ofrisk, as they will not have his years of experience. While such substitutions are accepted bySkeena when workers are absent, implementing this accommodation will mean that on one ofevery four shifts, or 25% of the time, less experienced persons will be responsible for anemergency shut down, should the need arise. Further, under the current scheme, only the mostsenior (and therefore most experienced) Utilitymen and AROs are trained as relief workers.Presumably, working in a relief capacity during worker absences allows them to graduallyincrease their job experience in the relief positions. Thus, the relief AROs and RecaustOperators who substitute during absences acquire, over time, the job experience that is importantin trouble-shooting during an emergency. However, if this existing pool of relief workers is notsufficient to fully staff Mr. Pannu’s shifts (and it is implicit in Mr. Vatcher’s evidence that it isnot), then training additional relief AROs and Recaust Operators will mean training lessexperienced Utilitymen and AROs. Further, those individuals will be less likely to increase theirjob experience in the relief positions, as they will generally not be called upon to assume themexcept in an emergency. Thus, there will be some real increase in the magnitude of the risk bothbecause less experienced people will be responsible for performing the shut down more of the24

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