Vancouver City Council

ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT

Date: June 13, 2003
Author: D.Craig
RTS No. 03405
CC File No. 1360
Meeting Date:June 24,2003

TO: Vancouver City Council

FROM: General Manager, Human Resources Services

SUBJECT: Conversion of Auxiliary Positions to Regular Full-time and Regular Part-time Positions - Regular Seasonal Employee's Committee

RECOMMENDATIONS

THAT effective June 24, 2003, City Council approve the conversion of 19 existing auxiliary CUPE 15 positions to regular status (4 regular full-time and 15 regular part-time) within existing departmental budgets, as outlined in the attached Appendix "A" to this report and subject to review and classification by the General Manager, Human Resource Services

CITY MANAGER'S COMMENTS
The City Manager recommends approval of the foregoing.

COUNCIL POLICY

Council approves the establishment of all regular positions except where such authority has been delegated to the Park Board as part of their Global Budget Arrangement.

PURPOSE

This report seeks Council approval to convert a number of existing auxiliary positions falling within CUPE 15's jurisdiction to regular full-time or regular part-time status.

BACKGROUND

This report arises out of a series of meetings held with CUPE Local 15 following the last round of collective bargaining in which it was agreed that a joint Union/Management committee (`the Regular Seasonal Employee's Committee') would be struck to review the Union's concerns regarding auxiliary staff makeup throughout the organization.
More specifically, it was agreed that the joint committee would review the schedules and status of those employee's working "thirty (30) hours per week, over a twenty-six (26) consecutive week period and review the hours of work, shifts and combination of shifts, of existing Auxiliary Employees to determine whether they are assigned to the correct Employee Definitions under the Collective Agreement."
It was agreed that following the review, the joint committee would make recommendations to Council and the Park Board concerning specific positions which should be considered for a change in status from auxiliary to regular part-time or regular full-time.
The review has now been completed and the joint committee has identified those positions it feels should be established as regular.

DISCUSSION OF ISSUES

As a result of the joint committee's review, and subject to Council or Park Board approval, there will be a number of auxiliary employees who will become regular employees.
Each of the positions recommended coincides with basic year-round operational requirements, does not create operational or programming inefficiencies, does not result in significant additional staffing costs, and helps to resolve some of the issues brought forward by CUPE Local 15 with respect to the use of auxiliary employees.
Bearing the above in mind, the joint committee is recommending, per the attached spreadsheet (see Appendix A), to create 15 regular part-time positions and 4 regular full-time positions.
This will occur for some automatically, as CUPE Local 15 has agreed to forego the posting process outlined in the collective agreement in cases where a position or set of hours being regularized has been assigned to a specific auxiliary employee for a period of 24 months or more.
Converting various auxiliary positions/hours to a regular employee status will not have a significant impact upon an incumbent's wages or benefits. However, the Union and the Employer have agreed that the Transitions language in Schedule B of the collective agreement will be applied to those auxiliary staff converted to a regular status.
Therefore, some minor additional costs may be incurred as employees move from receiving a percentage in lieu of benefits to actual benefit plans with the City.
Additionally, it should be noted that auxiliary employees converted to a regular status will have subsequent access to the lay-off, recall, and bumping provisions outlined in the City/CUPE Local 15 collective agreement.

BUDGET ISSUES

Funding of the auxiliary hours and/or positions reviewed by the joint committee has been previously approved by Council as part of each Business Unit's Temporary/Auxiliary Help budget. Therefore, additional minor costs will be absorbed within departmental auxiliary help budgets.

PERSONNEL IMPLICATIONS

Some auxiliary employees will be immediately converted to a regular status, while others may have to be posted following the normal procedures outlined in the collective agreement as mentioned above.

SUMMARY

The joint review process has been a positive exercise that has resulted in identification of nineteen (19) positions (for which there is existing budget funding and continuing regular work requirements) as well as building on the parties abilities to work together to resolve issues of concern.
The positions outlined in the attached Appendix `A' are recommended for conversion to regular status.
This report has been provided to CUPE Local 15, and they have confirmed that they are supportive of this recommendation.

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