Marilyn Nairn

The complainant, a Health Care Manager at a correctional facility, filed a grievance claiming entitlement to temporary pandemic pay.

The Province had announced pandemic pay for eligible frontline workers, but explicitly excluded management personnel under O. Reg. 241/20.

The employer had also provided a separate pandemic pay measure for Sergeants and Staff Sergeants, which did not extend to Health Care Managers.

The Public Service Grievance Board dismissed the complaint, finding it had no jurisdiction to create a new term or condition of employment, as the complainant was a manager and thus excluded from the pandemic pay regulation and the specific policy for Sergeants.

The complainant filed a grievance alleging that a competition for temporary manager positions was fundamentally flawed and that she had been subjected to sexual harassment.

The sexual harassment allegation was conceded as untimely.

Relying on an external investigation report, the Board found several flaws in the competition process, including inconsistent interview panels, unposted requirements, and disproportionate weight placed on interview performance.

However, because the complainant acknowledged she performed poorly in the interview relative to others and would not have been the successful candidate regardless, the Board declined to order the competition re-run and terminated the proceedings.

A group of Deputy Superintendents filed a complaint alleging unfair compensation regarding standby and on-call duties under the Management Compensation Plan.

The matter was adjourned sine die in 2017.

In 2019, the Board inquired about the status of the complaint, warning that failure to respond by a specified deadline would result in the complaint being deemed abandoned.

After receiving no indication from any named complainant that they intended to pursue the matter, the Board found the complaint abandoned and dismissed it.

The complainant, a Sergeant, filed a complaint with the Public Service Grievance Board alleging excessive discipline.

The employer raised a preliminary objection that the complaint was filed prematurely under O. Reg. 378/07.

The Board found that the complaint was filed three days before the expiry of the mandatory 30-day dispute resolution period.

As the statutory timelines are mandatory and the Board has no discretion to relieve against them, the Board concluded it lacked jurisdiction and dismissed the complaint.

The Employer raised a preliminary objection that the complainant's grievance regarding workplace discipline was filed out of time under Regulation 378/07 of the Public Service of Ontario Act, 2006.

The Board directed the complainant to respond, but the complainant requested an adjournment because his representative was unavailable for medical reasons.

The Board granted the adjournment, noting it had inadvertently failed to copy the complainant on its earlier direction, and ordered the complainant to file a written response to the timeliness objection by a specified date.

The complainant failed to attend a scheduled mediation before the Public Service Grievance Board.

The employer attended and made submissions.

The Vice-Chair directed that the matter be rescheduled for med/arb and ordered the complainant to provide full written particulars of his complaints at least 60 days prior to the next scheduled date.

The employer reserved the right to seek dismissal if the complainant fails to attend the rescheduled date.

A group of Sergeants at a correctional centre filed a grievance seeking enhanced overtime pay for time spent working during a labour disruption.

The employer had paid enhanced overtime for certain periods but required a 40-hour straight-time threshold to be met each week and ceased enhanced overtime payments on the second weekend, claiming normal operations had resumed.

The Public Service Grievance Board found that the employer correctly applied the 40-hour threshold for regular scheduled hours.

However, the Board held that the Sergeants who remained at the facility over the second weekend to perform clean-up and preparation work were still engaged in labour disruption related work and were therefore entitled to the enhanced overtime rate until the end of the approved period.

The employer requested disclosure of Crown Brief records in a related criminal matter for use in a grievance arbitration.

On consent of the parties, the Public Service Grievance Board ordered the Crown to disclose specific statements from the Crown Brief to the employer's counsel, subject to the Wagg screening process.

The Board further ordered that the records be shared with the employee's counsel and sealed from the public record pursuant to the Public Service of Ontario Act, 2006 and the Statutory Powers Procedure Act.