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4[15] When an employee is working or available to work, he is said to be on the “workingboard”. The “working board” includes all employees who are not on lay off. Employees on the“working board” are either on “assignments” or in a“pool”.[16] An employee who is on the “working board” can also be said to have been “set up”. Thedecision to “set up” an employee is made following discussions between managers at the terminalwhere the employees are supposed to be set up and the union. The decision is based on thenumbers of employees needed to perform the work that is expected.[17] There is also another board, which forms part of the “working board”, but which isdesignated as the “spare board” or “emergency board”. Employees on this board will only becalled to work to fill in when other employees are either on vacation or unavailable to work forany other reasons.2010 CHRT 23 (CanLII)[18] Running trades employees work on a mileage basis. The working board is adjusted onweekly basis so that each employee can do approximately 4,300 miles a month. When doing theadjustment of the working board, CN will look at the previous week to see how many miles weremade by the employees. They will divide this number by 4,300 and the result will indicate thenumber of employees that would potentially be needed for the following week.[19] At all relevant times to this matter, Conductors in the Western Region of Canada wererepresented by the United Transportation Union (“UTU”). The Western Region includes all ofCN’s rail terminals from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Thunder Bay, Ontario. The applicablecollective agreement for Conductors in the Western Region is Agreement 4.3 (the “CollectiveAgreement”).c) The changes made in 1992 and the creation of the furlough boards[20] In 1992, technological changes allowed CN to do away with the car at the tail end of thetrain, which is more commonly known as the “caboose”. This decision prompted the eliminationof the position of brakeman. After this decision, Conductors, who used to work in the “caboose”,