Article 28.01 states: “Teachers shall be responsible for providing their own transportation between their place of residence and their normal place of employment.”
Interpretation
Teachers are responsible for providing their own transportation between their residence and their normal place of employment. Clauses 28.03 and 28.04 define the meaning of “normal”. These two clauses require that the normal place of employment is either the school where the teacher spends the greatest portion of his/her time or, where the time spent by the teacher is divided equally between two or more schools, the Superintendent or delegated designate shall determine which of those schools is to be stipulated as the normal place of employment of the purpose of determining distance under Article 28.
Once the normal place of employment is determined in accordance with the criteria provided in Article 28, the Employer is not required to pay any travel allowance for any kilometers travelled up to the distance between the teacher’s place of residence and the normal place of employment. For example, if the teacher’s normal place of employment is school A, and school A is twenty kilometers from his/her place of residence, the Employer is not responsible to pay any allowance for the twenty kilometers travelled to and from school. If school A, the normal place of employment, is twenty kilometers from the teacher’s place of residence and the teacher is also scheduled to teach during the school day at school B, which is on the same route that leads towards the teacher’s place of residence, the teacher would not receive any travelling allowance if no additional kilometers would be travelled over and above what would normally be required to go from the place of residence and the normal place of employment, that is, school A.
A teachers shall be paid a travel allowance for any kilometers travelled which are in excess of the number of kilometers required to travel between the teacher’s place of residence and the normal place of employment. For example, if a teacher’s normal place of employment is school A and he/she is assigned to teach also at school B which is an additional five kilometers beyond the normal twenty kilometers required to travel between the normal place of employment and the teacher’s place of residence, those additional kilometers must be paid by the Employer; so, if school A is twenty kilometers away and school B is another five kilometers, the teacher would receive a travel allowance for ten kilometers travelled on that day because there would be an additional ten kilometers travelled beyond the normal travelling distance between the normal place of employment and the teacher’s place of residence. Regardless of which direction the teacher would have to travel in the performance of his/her regular duties, the number of kilometers which would be considered for travel allowance would be those kilometers travelled in excess of the total amount of kilometers required to travel to and from the teacher’s place of residence and the normal place of employment.
There has been some question regarding the application of Article 28 in those cases where a teacher teaches in a different school each day and there is no travelling required during the day to another school. Once the normal place of employment is fixed in accordance with Article 28, any additional kilometers travelled beyond the normal kilometers required to travel from the teacher’s place of residence and the normal place of employment must be paid by the Employer. For example, if the teacher’s place of employment is school A which is twenty kilometers away from his place of residence and, on a different school day, the teacher travels to school B which is fifteen kilometers from his/her place of residence, no travel allowance is required. If, however, the teacher travels to school C on a different day and that school is twenty-five kilometers from the teacher’s place of residence, the teacher would receive an allowance for the additional ten kilometers.
Teachers requesting further information on Article 28 or any other article under the Collective Agreement, are requested to contact any administrative staff member of the NBTF either by telephone or by email.
Information is also available on the NBTf web site at www.nbtf-fenb.nb.ca. Visit the site regularly.