File Photo (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By James Peters

City of Kamloops

Arbitrator rules City of Kamloops broke collective agreement with bylaw restructuring, orders negotiation

Aug 16, 2023 | 5:35 PM

KAMLOOPS — An arbitrator has ruled the City of Kamloops’ 2020 restructuring of its Bylaw Services Department violated the collective agreement with its unionized employees but has stopped short of ordering the restructuring be reversed.

In September 2020, the city announced positions for its bylaw officers and custodians at Kamloops RCMP cells would be eliminated and replaced by Community Services Officer (CSO) positions.

The new CSO positions would work toward peace officer status, requiring greater training and for applicants to pass a fitness test. In addition, CSOs are subject to irregular schedules and work rotations.

CUPE 900, the union that represents the affected employees, grieved the restructuring. It argued the city should have worked together with the employees before imposing the change and added employees would be performing essentially the same duties with more stringent prerequisites.

The union noted only 17 of the 32 affected employees were hired into the CSO-Training Opportunity positions. Of those, only seven went on to become CSOs.

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On its side, the city argued it was within its managerial rights to make the changes unilaterally, and said it was under public pressure to act on the mounting issues of homelessness and public disorder.

The B.C. Labour Relations Board sent the issue to arbitration in December, 2020. Arbitrator Andrew Sims issued his decision this week.

Sims declared the City of Kamloops did, indeed, violate agreement by pushing through the restructuring. However, he stopped short of ruling that the changes should be undone or that the affected employees should be compensated.

Instead, Sims ordered the city and the union to negotiate resolutions to the areas in which the moves were non-compliant.

Both the City of Kamloops and CUPE 900 have issued news releases responding to the ruling.

“The decision acknowledges the City’s right at law to restructure the department but disagrees with how the new structure was implemented,” says the city’s release. “We will review the options provided and work with the union and individual employees on the path forward.”

“Our concern was, and continues to be, the implementation process of the restructuring plan and that the terms of the collective agreement were being broken,” said CUPE Local 900 President Ken Davis. “We wanted to work collaboratively with the City to ensure the implementation plan was fair and respected workers’ collective agreement rights, but that wasn’t how the process unfolded.”

Both Davis and the city have committed to working together to negotiate solutions to the areas singled out by Sims.

“We believe that working together can produce better solutions to the challenges facing our community, and hope that we can build on our mutual goal of providing quality public services to Kamloops residents, businesses and visitors,” said Davis.

“Recently, the Attorney General and the Ministry of Public Safety have expressed a keen interest in the City of Kamloops’ approach and our desire to attain Peace Officer status for our Officers, which is also a step towards a tiered policing model,” noted the city. “By taking this arbitration decision into consideration and working together to move forward, we hope to continue to provide an exceptional example of the efficacy of the CSO model.”