Postings are now up.
Anyone who posted to the battery plant has their postings rights locked up for 18 months.
By our contract if the company forces you to move out of your job of record (reduction, medical placement, grandfather, job movement, etc) you get your posting rights back.
Battery have done some movement of jobs, and they are also doing their first reductions (launch team) so specific members of battery do get their posting rights back.
With the original Battery Agreement, if you posted you are locked in for 18 months. If you post to the Battery Department now you are locked in until the same end date as the original Battery postings – therefore approximately 6 months have passed since Battery production members first arrived in Battery, so you are locked in for another 12 months – the agreement was always 18 months locked in and we count backwards after the first start date.
The initial 18 months was an agreement to allow Battery Department a learning curve; get training done, settle the department so we could learn the procedures and give the department time to gain some experience and get our quality up to the level we are known for. We will have a discussion at bargaining in September to try and reduce the 18-month window.
Battery have now just begun to produce their first Main Pack Line fully contained batteries for our Brightdrop. To ensure our quality and standards are met, the department has asked for a large number of extra process strengtheners. We have started calling more members in to work during their layoff weeks for the next 3 months to help ensure these initial batteries are built correctly. This will allow another 36 members to work full time over the next approximate 3 months.