January 26, 2021
Time in Position on a Midnight Shift
On March 6, 2020, CATCA communicated that we were withdrawing from the Fatigue Safety Action Group (FSAG) as fatigue was not adequately being addressed, and mitigations being put in place were not in the best interests of CATCA members and safety. Further to this, there has been little to no activity on fatigue as the Global Pandemic continues. Last fall, and now into the winter, NAV Canada and CATCA have had dialogue attempting to restart discussions and begin Committee work, however this time CATCA has specifically requested to work independently with NAV Canada. We made this suggestion as our experience on the FSAG was one of frustration considering working conditions for other employees and Collective Agreements were not in line with ours. The suggested corrective actions cannot be a one size fits all solution.
One of the recommendations from the Corrective Action Plan (CAP) was duty limits on midnight shifts. The FSAG group made recommendations that CATCA representatives on the committee did not agree with. We had further conversations with the Company in early 2020 and “due to objections raised by CATCA, the decision was made to delay the implementation of this duty limit pending further review”. That further review has not occurred and much to our disappointment, last week we received a letter from NAV Canada advising that a recommendation from the Corrective Action Plan (CAP), which has been unilaterally implemented by NAV Canada, will move forward. A decision to implement a three hour maximum time in position on a midnight will take effect on February 8th. While all groups were included in the discussions at FSAG, CATCA is the only group affected.
Until this communication was released CATCA had attempted to stop NAV Canada from implementing this decision. However, NAV Canada has simply disregarded our requests and insists on implementing the changes which CATCA vehemently opposes. CATCA will be communicating our opposition to this arbitrarily imposed measure to the regulator, Transport Canada, further updates will follow.
On Behalf of the Executive Board;
Doug Best Scott Loder
President Executive Vice President
Click here for the PDF.