Bruce Budd

The Pay Equity Office (PEO) brought a motion for the early dismissal of two applications filed by the employer, GL&V Process Equipment Group Inc., which objected to a Review Officer's order regarding pay equity.

The PEO argued that the employer's applications should be dismissed due to delay and abuse of process, as they were filed after the deadline set by the Tribunal in a previous decision.

The Tribunal dismissed the PEO's motion, finding that the employer's delay was reasonably explained by the parties' ongoing negotiations to settle the outstanding issues, including the gender dominance of certain job classes.

The Tribunal concluded that the employer's conduct did not amount to an abuse of the Tribunal's processes and noted that the PEO failed to demonstrate any actual prejudice resulting from the delay.

The parties requested an adjournment sine die.

The Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal granted the request, noting that the matter would be dismissed without further notice after one year unless a party requested it be rescheduled.

The Pay Equity Office applied for an order compelling the employer to comply with Review Officer orders.

The employer conceded non-compliance but had not filed an application objecting to the merits of the orders.

The Tribunal set a peremptory date for the compliance hearing and provided a final deadline for the employer to file an application objecting to the merits of the orders.

The applicants filed multiple applications before the Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal against their union and employer.

Following a letter from the lead applicant, the Tribunal dismissed the applications.

A related application between the union and the employer remained adjourned sine die.

The Dufferin-Peel Roman Catholic Separate School Board brought a motion to dismiss the pay equity applications of two employees in the Planner 1 job class, arguing the position was gender neutral.

The Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal reviewed historical incumbency and gender stereotypes of the field of work.

Finding that the Planner 1 job had one male and one female incumbent during the relevant statutory period and did not involve traditionally female stereotypical work, the Tribunal concluded the job class was gender neutral.

Consequently, the Tribunal lacked jurisdiction to consider the rating of the jobs, and the Board's motion to dismiss the applications was granted.

A group of Registered Practical Nurses (RPNs) filed a re-Application challenging a deemed approved pay equity plan negotiated by their union and the hospital.

The union brought a motion to dismiss the re-Application.

The Tribunal found that the RPNs failed to meet their pleading obligations by not detailing allegations that the plan failed to comply with the minimum standards of Part 1 of the Pay Equity Act.

Concluding that the applicants had a fundamental misunderstanding of the Act and that there was no prima facie case to meet, the Tribunal granted the motion and dismissed the re-Application.

Following a previous decision ordering reinstatement, the Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal resumed the hearing to resolve three outstanding issues regarding the respondent's reinstatement.

The Tribunal ordered that the respondent be reinstated to the Deputy-Clerk position without the need to undergo a competition process, as she already met the minimum qualifications.

The Tribunal also determined that her retroactive wages for 1997 should be calculated based on the Deputy-Clerk salary of $38,000.

The applicant local union filed an application against the employer and the parent union alleging flaws in the development of a pay equity plan, including a failure to accommodate language difficulties.

The employer and parent union brought preliminary motions to dismiss the application.

The Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal dismissed the application, finding it lacked jurisdiction because the statutory preconditions of exhausting the Review Services process had not been met.

Furthermore, the Tribunal held that the application failed to disclose a prima facie case, as the allegations primarily concerned internal union democracy and human rights issues rather than contraventions of the Pay Equity Act.

The Corporation of the City of Peterborough objected to a Review Officer's order requiring the implementation of a pay equity plan negotiated with the Professional Fire Fighters Association.

The employer argued the comparison system and job data collection were flawed and gender-biased.

The Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal found that the parties erred in treating each rank of Fire Fighter and Fire Alarm Operator as separate job classes, concluding there is only one job class for each.

The Tribunal also found the job data collection and comparison system inadequate.

Rather than ordering the parties to renegotiate, the Tribunal appointed a Review Officer to assist in settling the plan using the Tribunal's findings on job classes and job content.

One member dissented, arguing the parties' agreement on job classes should have been respected.

The applicant Village sought to revoke a Review Officer's Order which found that the Village had penalized the respondent Clerk-Treasurer for exercising her rights under the Pay Equity Act, contrary to section 9(2).

The respondent had objected to the exclusion of a male comparator from the Village's pay equity plan and filed a complaint.

Shortly after, the Village placed her on probation and subsequently dismissed her, citing poor performance in her accounting duties.

The Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal dismissed the Village's application, finding that the performance evaluation process and the ultimate dismissal were tainted by anti-pay equity animus.

The Tribunal ordered the successor municipality to reinstate the respondent to a reasonable alternative position and to compensate her for lost wages with interest.

The applicant, a Business Systems Analyst, alleged that her employer violated section 9(2) of the Pay Equity Act by penalizing her for her pay equity activities.

She claimed she suffered harassment, denial of training, poor performance appraisals, and ultimately termination as a reprisal.

The employer argued that the applicant's position was made redundant as part of a legitimate, organization-wide downsizing and technological restructuring.

The Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal found that the employer successfully discharged its onus to prove that the termination and other actions were unrelated to the applicant's pay equity activities and were not tainted by anti-pay equity animus.

The applicant's application was dismissed, and the employer's application to set aside the Review Officer's order was allowed.

In a pre-hearing conference regarding pay equity complaints, the Tribunal clarified that the adequacy of the design of the employer's job evaluation system was not subject to review, but rather its application to the job content.

The Tribunal also ordered the employer to disclose individual committee members' evaluation notes, finding them arguably relevant since the employer intended to lead oral evidence to explain how certain job content was rated.

The Tribunal provided directions on the procedure for calling expert witnesses.

Le requérant, un groupe d'employées, a demandé le réexamen d'une décision du Tribunal de l'équité salariale rendue le 28 juin 1996.

Le requérant alléguait que le Tribunal avait outrepassé les limites de la question préliminaire en concluant qu'il n'avait pas démontré une violation des exigences minimales de la Loi.

Le Tribunal a rejeté la demande de réexamen, concluant que le requérant n'avait pas satisfait aux critères de réexamen.

La preuve que le requérant souhaitait présenter était disponible lors de l'audience initiale, mais son avocate avait choisi de ne pas la soumettre.

De plus, le requérant n'a pas démontré de changement de circonstances ni que la décision était mal fondée en droit.

The union and the employer filed applications regarding a Review Officer's Order concerning their pay equity plan.

The parties had negotiated a Memorandum of Agreement in 1990 which they intended to serve as a pay equity plan.

The Tribunal found that the agreement failed to comply with the Pay Equity Act in several fundamental ways, including failing to consider benefits in job rates, failing to directly compare female to male job classes, and using pay equity adjustments for both male and female job classes to achieve internal equity.

The Tribunal concluded that no valid pay equity plan existed and ordered the parties to negotiate a new plan in compliance with the Act.

The Law Society of Upper Canada applied to the Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal.

The Tribunal directed the Law Society to post and distribute a notice to affected employees by a certain date.

The Law Society failed to post the notice in a timely manner and failed to send it to former employees.

The Tribunal found the notice ineffectual and ordered the Law Society to post, distribute, and mail a new notice by October 15, 1996.

The Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation brought a motion for disclosure of information from the Ottawa Board of Education regarding job rates and benefits in pay equity plans.

The Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal ordered the Board to disclose the itemization of benefits, the formulas used for determining salary and benefits portions of the job rate, and the methodology for converting benefits to a common denominator.

The Tribunal found the remainder of the disclosure request premature pending the filing of amended pleadings.

The parties reached a written settlement of all pay equity matters pursuant to s. 25.1 of the Pay Equity Act.

The employer objected to the union's request to dismiss the employer's reconsideration application, and both parties suggested ways for the Tribunal to endorse the record to reinforce the settlement's finality.

The Tribunal declined to issue any order, finding that the settlement was binding and subsumed the reconsideration request, making any further order unnecessary.

The applicants, Housekeeping and Junior Dietary Attendants, sought a pay equity adjustment, alleging that the employer and union contravened the Pay Equity Act by arbitrarily redesignating their job classes as gender-neutral and that the certification and subsequent plan amendments constituted changed circumstances.

The respondents brought a motion to dismiss for failure to establish a prima facie case.

The Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal found that the gender classification of the Housekeeping positions was an area of discretion and the pleadings did not establish that the agreement was unreasonable.

Furthermore, negotiated pay equity amendments do not constitute changed circumstances in the establishment.

The application was dismissed.

The Pay Equity Office requested a reconsideration of a Tribunal decision that dismissed its referral application as moot after the employer and union reached a binding settlement.

The Office argued it was denied the opportunity to make submissions and that the decision was wrong in law.

The Tribunal declined to reconsider, finding the Office had opted not to participate in the hearing and had not demonstrated any error in law or compelling circumstances to justify reopening the matter, especially since the pay equity plan had already been posted and adjustments paid.

The Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation (OSSTF) became the bargaining agent for two units of the Ottawa Board of Education and sought to negotiate new pay equity plans, arguing that certification constituted a changed circumstance and that the existing plans contravened the Pay Equity Act.

The Tribunal held that for the unit previously covered by a non-union plan, certification was a changed circumstance requiring the plan to be split, but for the unit that already had a union plan, a mere change in bargaining agent was not.

The Tribunal further held that an allegation of a contravention does not automatically trigger a duty to negotiate; a contravention must first be proven under the Act.