7.01       All employees's in service of the Company for one [1] year, or longer, shall be granted two [2] weeks vacation per year with full pay or 4%, whichever is greater. Vacations are to be taken at the time stipulated by mutual consent of employee's and the Company. All employee's will be entitled to two [2] consecutive weeks of vacation, between the week in which June 15th falls and the week in which August 31st falls, inclusive. During this prime period, a minimum of twenty percent [20%] of the employee's in the branch shall be permitted to schedule holidays each week. Employee's are to state their selected periods by April 15th.
(Refer also to Letter of Understanding No.10)

Vacations will be scheduled in order of seniority on the employee's posted booking date. If an employee does not submit their vacation request by their posted booking date, their vacation request will then be honoured on a first-come first-served basis.

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] and 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 1st 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 February 15th 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 1 Drivers etc. The process for scheduling of service holidays will be in accordance with 7.01 [a].

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

All outstanding vacation time not scheduled by appropriate dates (in accordance with 7.01 and 7.08) shall be assigned by the Company scheduler where operationally feasible. Any outstanding vacation not scheduled will be assigned on September 15th of each year.

Effective April 1st, 2004, when an employee is unable to take his vacation and/or vacation bonus 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 and vacation bonus 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 and/or vacation bonus 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 an updated vacation schedule, on the 15th of each month, 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 rescheduled vacation period.
   
   

7.12       Notwithstanding the provisions of Article 7.01 to 7.09, an employee must have actually worked seventy two [72] days including all days on Workers Compensation in the previous vacation year to be entitled to his full vacation pay. Employee's who have worked less than seventy two [72] days including all days on Workers Compensation shall receive the vacation pay to which they otherwise would be entitled under Article 7 pro-rated to reflect the ratio of the days actually worked to total working days (i.e. regular entitlement X days worked divided by 197). Days on Workers Compensation is to be counted as days worked strictly for the purposes of this Article.