Review Committee Role

The Plant Job Review Committee (Review Committee) gathers job facts for the Job Study Record form and completes the Request for Job Evaluation form. The Review Committee's participation fosters a sense of accountability and ownership at the operational level.

Who is on the Review Committee?

The Review Committee is a four(4) person committee that consists of two(2) representatives of management and two(2) representatives of the employees. Further to the make-up of the committee, at least one(1) representative of management must be a member of the plant salaried management staff, and at least one(1) representative of the employees must be an employee of the plant whose job is subject to either the BC Interior Sawmill & Poleyard Job Evaluation Plan. Management may choose their second representative from amongst persons not employed at the plant, and the union may do likewise. The only provision otherwise is that neither party may choose as their second choice on the Review Committee any person who is employed as a Job Evaluator by the Interior Forest Labour Relations Association or by USW.

What does the Review Committee do?

They gather the facts about job functions for the Evaluators. The Review Committee is responsible for seeing that all requests for job evaluation or job re-evaluation are adequately and accurately documented before being passed to the Industry Job Evaluation Committee for further action. The Review Committee receives a Request for Job Evaluation form from either an individual employee, or by local management and then fully completes the description of job functions. Descriptions of job functions are referred to as a Job Study Record. The Review Committee may even initiate a request for job evaluation or re-evaluation. Ultimately, the role of the Review Committee is to ensures the agreed upon facts regarding job function are documented correctly, processed with appropriate endorsements and passed on to the Industry Job Evaluation Committee using the proper mailing guidelines.

What kind of decisions does the Review Committee make?

Hopefully, all decisions regarding job content made will be unanimous. Decisions of the Review Committee respecting the appropriateness of the request for evaluation or re-evaluation, or respecting the adequacy and accuracy of documents should in fact be by unanimous agreement. The Review Committee should strive to complete this process with agreement in all cases. Failing such agreement, the Review Committee shall at the request of any one of its members immediately forward the Request for Job Evaluation, together with any other documents on which there is unanimous agreement, to the Industry Job Evaluation Committee and will then have no further responsibility for documenting that request. Furthermore, if the Review Committee is in agreement that a request for job evaluation or re-evaluation is not a valid request, the request is then abandoned and a explanation is communicated by the Review Committee to the individual who made the submission.

Did someone say we got paid to do this?

Well... the answer is both yes and no. The Company shall reimburse any of its hourly-paid employees for time lost while acting as a member of the Review Committee. They will also paid for any time lost while a Review Committee member presents information regarding his own job before a regularly convened meeting of the Review Committee. The Company is not obligated however, to remunerate employee representatives who are not part of its hourly-paid workforce. In most cases, the Review Committee member volunteers a great deal of time through their own volition.

What is the Industry Job Evaluation Committee or Sawmill Evaluation Committee?

In the northern interior region, collective agreement language refers an Industry Job Evaluation Committee while the southern interior collective agreement language refers to a Sawmill Evaluation Committee. Essentially, both these committees represent a team of two Evaluators and are commonly referred to as the Evaluation Committee. The Evaluation Committee consists of one(1) member representative of the Industry Management and one(1) member representative of USW. The function of this two(2) person Evaluation Committee is to assume general responsibility for the bi-lateral administration of the job evaluation programs, and provide a final and binding decision on requests for job evaluation or re-evaluation submitted to it. The Evaluation Committee in the northern interior has one person from Council of Northern Interior Forest Employment Relations (CONIFER) and one from the USW, while the Evaluation Committee from the southern interior has one person from the Interior Forest Labour Relations Association (IFLRA) and the same USW person that is on the northern interior Evaluation Committee.