Bulletin
TST-CF Express: Employer-forced unpaid closure violates collective agreement
December 17, 2021
To: All MoveUP members at TST-CF
This notice is for our members based in Quebec and Ontario.
Your union has called on your employer to immediately clarify their recent notification regarding their planned office closures on December 31 (Ontario) and January 3 (Quebec) and have informed them it is a violation of the collective agreement to not pay our members for those days.
Your collective agreement stipulates that regular employees shall receive a minimum of 37.5 hours of work per week. By attempting to force unpaid leave, it would mean regular employers would be only provided 30 hours of work for the affected weeks which is a violation of the collective agreement. We have demanded the employer indicate how they plan to ensure our members are still compensated for the days they have decided to close their office.
The decision to close the office on the aforementioned days was a decision made by your employer and was not made in consultation with our union. It should also be noted that this is the first time, to our knowledge, the employer has chosen to shut down its operations on those dates.
We have asked your employer to reissue their communication to workers to make it clear it was their decision alone to close and have requested they respond to us by the end of business day on Thursday, December 16.
We will have a further update for you as soon as possible.
In solidarity,
Mike Novak
Union Representative