As city police ready to transition to 12-hour work shifts, Bombardier employees are saying goodbye to seven-day work weeks.
Employees at the local plant had been working either four 10-day shifts or three-12 hour shifts per week since April 2012, but starting Feb. 8 the workers will be back to a five-day work week.
Unifor Local 1075 president Dominic Pasqualino said the employees voted in favour of the shift change during their last contract negotiations because Bombardier officials said it was what they needed at the time.
"We were happy to try to help out the company in any way possible to make the schedules and we did that," said Pasqualino.
New management decided to go back to the five-day work week and gave the employees the four months notice required.
Pasqualino said the more than 1,000 employees affected had mixed reactions to the change.
Some members loved working a three or four day work week.
"Some other people find it quite disruptive and they're happy to go back to the five-day work week," said Pasqualino.
The Thunder Bay Police Service started making the switch to 12-hour shifts this week; the move is a one-year pilot program where either the police service or the Thunder Bay Police Association has the right to opt out after a year.
In October, Chief J.P. Levesque said he hoped the change would cut down on overtime costs and the 12-hour shift model would work better with the force's move to zone policing.
The change affects 108 patrol officers, 36 communication officers and 19 records officers.
