B.C. apprentice grieves treatment after not being paid as millwright

Worker succeeded trainer who left company in 2013

When he replaced a millwright during an apprenticeship at a British Columbia mill, the employer should have paid him at the non-certified rate and not the apprentice rate, argued the employee.
Dan Sherwood worked for Weyerhaeuser since 1996, and began an apprenticeship to become a millwright at the company’s Princeton, B.C., plant in October 2012.
Sherwood was assigned to apprentice under Jack Kachenko, millwright, but Kachenko left the company in June 2013. 
No permanent replacement was ever hired for Kachenko and Sherwood effectively took over the job as millwright, argued the union, the United Steelworkers (USW), Local 1-423, and he should have been paid $0.50 per hour less than the certified journeyman rate, as per the collective agreement.
On Jan. 12, 2017, Sherwood filed a grievance.
After Kachenko left, a planer technician was assigned to be available to Sherwood should the need arise, but Sherwood was given the main responsibility to maintain the same planer that Kachenko was responsible for. 
The technician also left the company in February 2014.
In December 2016, Sherwood approached Trevor Mackenzie, maintenance supervisor, and said he should be paid the non-certified journeyman rate of pay because he was doing the same job as a millwright ever since Kachenko left.
After Mackenzie took the request to management, the issue was studied because nobody else with the employer was being paid by the non-certified rate. 
Management concluded that the stipulation in the collective agreement stemmed from an earlier version that was created to address new rules around certification in the province.
Arbitrator John Kinzie allowed the grievance. 
“(Sherwood) is to be compensated for the difference between the non-certified journeyman millwright’s rate of pay and his apprentice rate from the date he received his trades qualification certificate in October 2017 and began receiving the certified rate retroactive to 14 days prior to Jan. 5, 2017, the date the grievor took his grievance up verbally with Mackenzie,” said Kinzie.
While he legitimately began his time as an apprentice on a training basis, Sherwood’s work after Kachenko left showed that he was working as a millwright, according to the arbitrator. 
“Initially, I can accept that he was learning from doing the job on an independent basis including consulting with operations staff and planning and organizing the work he had to perform ,” said Kinzie. 
“However, after several months of performing that same job on the same basis, I am satisfied that there wasn’t a ‘genuine training purpose’ any longer. By then, he would have known the job and would have been performing the full scope or central core of its duties for some time,” said Kinzie.
“The employer had simply decided to replace Kachenko in the planer infeed area with the grievor, after it had failed in its efforts to find a replacement for him,” said Kinzie.
The case was “unique,” said the arbitrator which necessitated the unusual ruling. 
“That need for a replacement coupled with the capabilities of the grievor resulted in the unique solution of an apprentice replacing a journeyman,” said Kinzie. 
“That unique solution then resulted in the cessation of (Sherwood’s) continued training and his becoming the journeyman responsible for the maintenance and repair of the planer infeed area ,” said Kinzie. 
“That result in turn justified the need to pay the grievor the wage rate based on the actual work he was performing, i.e., the work of a journeyman,” said Kinzie.
Reference: Weyerhaeuser and the United Steelworkers, Local 1-423. John Kinzie — arbitrator. Kim Thorne for the employer. William Clements for the employee. June 22, 2018. 2018 CarswellBC 1646
 

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