7.01       All employee's in service of the Company for one [1] year, or longer, shall be granted two weeks vacation per year with full pay or 4%, whichever is greater. Vacations to be taken at the time stipulated by mutual consent of employee's and the Company. All employees will be entitled to two [2] consecutive weeks of vacation between the week in which June 15 falls and the week in which August 31 falls, inclusive. During this prime period, a minimum of twenty [20%] percent of the employees in the branch shall be permitted to schedule holidays each week. Employees to state their selected periods by April 1.

7.02       All employee's shall, after completing three [3] years of service with the Company, receive three [3] weeks vacation per year with full pay.

7.03       All employee's shall, after completing eight [8] years of service with the Company, receive four [4] weeks vacation per year with full pay.

7.04       All employee's shall, after completing fifteen [15] years of service with the Company, receive five [5] weeks vacation per year with full pay.

7.05       All employee's shall, after completing twenty [20] years of service with the Company, receive six [6] weeks vacation per year with full pay.

7.06       All employee's shall, after completing twenty-five [25] years of service with the Company, receive seven [7] weeks vacation per year with full pay.

7.07       To compute the three [3], eight [8], fifteen [15], twenty [20], twenty-five [25] years of service mentioned respectively in paragraphs 7.02 - 7.06 above, for the purpose of qualifying date for the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh weeks of vacation, such service shall be considered to have commenced on January 1 of the year in which the employee commenced employment.

7.08       In the case of employee's receiving three [3], four [4], five [5], six [6] or seven [7] weeks vacation, one [1] week, two [2] weeks, three [3] weeks, four [4] weeks, or five [5] weeks, whichever is applicable must be taken outside the period detailed in Article 7.01. The employee must record by January 31 the dates on which he wishes to take these service holidays. The Company may request that service holidays be arranged so that the efficient operation of the Company is not affected, e.g. availability of Class I Drivers etc.

7.09       Employee's must take their vacations during the calendar year in which they become eligible for such.

Effective April 1, 2004, when an employee is unable to take his vacation before the end of the calendar year due to being disabled on a WCB or WI claim, the Company will permit the employee to carry over, for a maximum of 104 weeks, all unused vacation days.

Any unused vacation being carried over shall be scheduled and taken subject to operational feasibility and after the employee has returned to full-time duties. It is agreed however, that any carryover vacation time will not be scheduled during prime time periods and will be scheduled when operationally feasible.

At the option of the disabled employee, he may request that his WCB or WI payments be topped up to 100% of full regular gross pay with the vacation entitlement being discharged based on one [1] hour of vacation for one [1] hour of top up.

If the employee does not return at 104 weeks, and he has not received any top up during his claim, the vacation entitlement will be paid out.

In no event shall the employee be entitled to receive more in combined compensation and vacation wages than he would have received were he not in receipt of such disability payments.

7.10       The Company will post the vacation schedule in a place where the employee's can have access to it.

7.11       In the event an employee becomes ill or injured in excess of three [3] days after having commenced his vacation, such that he qualified for Weekly Indemnity coverage, he may request as outlined below to postpone his remaining days of vacation in order to enroll in the Weekly Indemnity Plan.

1. The employee shall advise his supervisor of his illness or injury and make arrangements to have the Weekly Indemnity form completed.
   
   
2. All approved requests will result in the employee's remaining days of vacation being cancelled, as prescribed above, the day after the request is received. The remaining vacation time shall be scheduled at a time mutually agreeable to the Company and the employee.
   
   
3. Any vacation pay held by the employee for the cancelled period shall be returned to the Company and re-issued for the re-scheduled vacation period.
   
   

7.12       Notwithstanding the provisions of Article 7.01 to 7.09, an employee must have actually worked seven hundred and twenty [720] hours including all hours on Workers Compensation in the previous vacation year to be entitled to his full vacation pay. Employees who have worked less than seven hundred and twenty [720] hours including all hours on Workers Compensation shall receive the vacation pay to which they would otherwise be entitled under Article 7 pro-rated to reflect the ratio of the hours actually worked to total working hours (i.e. regular entitlement x hours worked divided by 1992). Time on Workers Compensation is to be counted as hours worked strictly for the purposes of this Article.