¶ … Petrie's layoff on March 20, 1997 and Smith's retirement on April 3 of the same year, the number of workers in the glass room was reduced from five to three. The company compensated for the loss of labor by having the remaining employees work overtime hours and using temporary staff. The issue arises from the fact that despite the shortage of workers in May and June, Petrie was not reinstated in his former position; instead, the management chose to use temporary workers and overtime hours to fill in the void created by the departure of Petrie and Smith. The Union's acknowledgement that the necessity of having more employees would not be solved by implementing the strategy of overtime work and temporary employees came on June 11 (423) in the form of a meeting. However, the company continued accumulating overtime and temporary time until October, prompting the union to demand that Petrie be restored to his position between June 11 and October 11 at which point the company's usage of overtime and temporary time ceased. The position of the Union is supported by Article 12, Section 9 discussing the seniority of employees, which purports that openings must be filled by recalled laid off employees in accordance of their seniority. According to the...

Article 12.9 applies to Petrie perfectly, as it states "As openings occur in the classification from which an employee was removed due to a reduction in force, he or she will be returned to that classification in seniority order" (423). The Union insists that even if the need to fill overtime hours is temporary, such a need must be filled first and foremost by recalling laid off employees and not by assigning overtime hours to existing workforce.
In contrast, the management maintains its sole control over the number of employees working and the hours of work performed per Article 3.2, including "the assignment of work or overtime, the right to select, hire, lay off, rectify, upgrade, downgrade, promote, transfer, discipline, suspend or retire" (423). The company's position is further supported by Article 19, Section 6, which details the distribution of overtime work, "The Company will attempt to assign overtime to the employee who has been performing the work during the regularly scheduled work hours, insofar as it is practical and does not interfere with production efficiency" (424). Given its right to decide how to…