K. S. Brennan

The employer applied under section 5 of the Labour Relations and Employment Law Amendment Act, 1995 for a declaration that the existing bargaining unit, which combined full-time and part-time employees, was not appropriate for collective bargaining.

The union opposed the application, arguing that a community of interest existed between the two groups.

The Board heard expert evidence that the nature of part-time work has evolved, with part-time employees now sharing similar interests to full-time employees.

Finding that the full-time and part-time employees performed the same work under virtually identical terms and conditions, the Board concluded that a substantial community of interest existed.

The employer's application to split the bargaining unit was dismissed.

The union applied for certification and won a representation vote.

The employer challenged the vote on three grounds: that the 40% threshold for ordering the vote should have been based on the actual number of employees rather than the union's estimate; that the union committed fraud by intentionally understating the number of employees in its application; and that providing ballots only in English and French violated the section 15 Charter rights of an employee who misunderstood the ballot due to language difficulties.

The Board dismissed the 40% threshold and Charter arguments, finding that the statute permits reliance on the union's estimate and that language difficulties do not constitute discrimination under section 15.

However, the Board found an arguable case for fraud and scheduled a hearing on that issue.

The applicant union applied for certification to represent a bargaining unit consisting solely of Geographic Full-Time (GFT) secretaries employed by the responding hospital.

The hospital argued that the GFT secretaries did not constitute an appropriate bargaining unit and should be included in a larger unit of all clerical and administrative employees.

The Ontario Labour Relations Board found that while GFT secretaries had some distinct characteristics, such as precarious job security tied to individual physicians and a history of separate association, creating a separate bargaining unit for them would cause undue fragmentation and serious labour relations problems.

The Board concluded that the proposed unit was not viable for collective bargaining and dismissed the application.

The applicants filed an application for termination of bargaining rights.

The Board requested submissions on the timeliness of the application.

The union provided a document showing a conciliation officer was appointed on December 8, 1995.

The applicants argued it was unfair to apply the Board's rules regarding the application date and alleged the union sought conciliation to thwart the application.

The Board found no compelling reason to waive its rules and noted it is not improper for a union to time a conciliation request strategically.

The application was dismissed as untimely.

The applicant employer filed a complaint under section 96(7) of the Labour Relations Act, alleging that the respondent union breached a settlement agreement by distributing a memorandum to employees regarding the termination of a union organizer.

The employer argued that during settlement discussions, the union's counsel made oral representations that the matter would not be raised again, creating an estoppel.

The union brought a motion to dismiss the application for failing to disclose an arguable case.

The majority of the Board dismissed the application, holding that section 96(7) only applies to the written terms of a settlement and cannot be used to enforce oral representations.

The Board found that the written settlement did not preclude the union from communicating with employees about the matter.

The union filed multiple applications for certification for different bargaining units of the employer.

The employer argued that the union was abusing the process to impose a statutory freeze on terms and conditions of employment, and requested that the Board impose a bar on further applications or order a representation vote.

The Board found no evidence of duplicitous conduct by the union, noting that the appropriate bargaining unit was genuinely in dispute.

The Board declined to impose a bar or order a vote, granted leave to withdraw the earlier applications, and issued a certificate to the union for the agreed-upon bargaining unit.

The applicant union sought leave to withdraw its application for certification after the Board identified a potential irregularity in the membership evidence.

The employer opposed the withdrawal, arguing that the Board should proceed with the application on its merits to investigate the alleged forgery, especially since the union filed a second, identical application on the same day it sought to withdraw the first.

The Board held that the union's decision not to rely on the questionable membership evidence inherently carried the penalty of losing that support and delaying its certification efforts.

The Board found no abuse of process and noted that any limitation on employees' ability to oppose the second application arose from the statutory framework, not the union's conduct.

Following its usual practice when a request to withdraw is made after a meeting with a Board Officer, the Board dismissed the application.

A dissenting member would have denied the request to withdraw, noting that the union was not abandoning its claim to represent the employees.

The employer applied to combine two bargaining units.

The union raised a preliminary objection that the Board lacked jurisdiction under section 7(1) of the Labour Relations Act because the two units were represented by different local unions.

The Board found that neither local had proven its trade union status before the Board, nor had there been a declaration of a transfer of jurisdiction from the national union to the locals.

Therefore, the national union remained the bargaining agent for both units, giving the Board jurisdiction to consider the combination application.