Mary Anne McKellar

The Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal varied its decision dated December 18, 2009, which had directed the responding party to pay pay equity adjustments to 11 former employees.

The Tribunal acknowledged it had failed to consider affidavit evidence identifying a twelfth employee owed adjustments.

The Tribunal varied the Review Officer's Order to direct the responding party to pay $19,303.13 in trust for the twelfth employee, subject to post-judgment interest.

The applicant union sought to quantify and enforce a Review Officer's order regarding retroactive pay equity adjustments owed by the respondent employer.

The respondent failed to participate in the proceedings.

Based on an affidavit provided by the applicant detailing the amounts owed to eleven former employees, and despite a late objection from a principal of the respondent who provided no alternative calculations, the Tribunal varied the Review Officer's order to specify the exact amounts owed and directed the respondent to pay them within 30 days.

The applicant union sought to recover pay equity adjustments owed to its members by their former employer.

After the employer failed to comply with a Review Officer's order, the union provided an affidavit calculating the employer's liability for eleven former employees.

The Tribunal issued a notice of intent to issue a final decision directing the employer to pay the calculated amounts, unless either party objected by a specified date.

The Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal issued a decision to correct a typographical error in its previous decision dated February 18, 2009.

The reference to an Order dated January 7, 2009, was amended to refer to the Order dated July 21, 2006.

The applicant union challenged the respondent school board's method of implementing pay equity adjustments for female job classes with multi-step pay grids.

The school board had pro-rated the adjustments at each step based on the relationship between the step rate and the maximum job rate.

The Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal held that section 9(3) of the Pay Equity Act precludes pro-rated adjustments for multi-step pay grids attaching to female job classes capable of occupation by multiple incumbents.

The Tribunal directed that each step of the pay grid must be adjusted by an equal dollar amount to preserve internal arithmetic relativity and avoid partial pay equity.

The applicant failed to contact the Registrar to obtain a hearing date following a previous decision.

The Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal adjourned the matter sine die until November 1, 2009, noting that it would be deemed terminated if neither party sought to proceed by that date.

The applicant sought reconsideration of a Tribunal decision dismissing his application as an abuse of process.

The underlying application attempted to re-litigate the gender predominance of a single-incumbent position, which had already been determined in an earlier proceeding.

The Tribunal dismissed the request for reconsideration, finding that the applicant was merely attempting to re-argue his case using submissions he had the opportunity to make prior to the dismissal.

The applicant union sought to recover retroactive pay equity adjustments on behalf of its members from their former employer.

Because the union could not determine the exact amounts owed to individual employees, it requested that the Tribunal summons the employer's principal to attend a hearing with the necessary documents.

The Tribunal directed the union to obtain a signed summons from the Registrar, complete it, and serve it personally on the principal in accordance with the Tribunal's Rules of Practice and the Statutory Powers Procedure Act.

The applicant employer filed an application objecting to a Review Officer's order directing it to implement pay equity and pay interest on any adjustments.

The employer sought more time to comply and argued the Review Officer lacked jurisdiction to order interest.

The Tribunal adjourned the application sine die to allow the employer to complete the required tasks, noting it was premature to address the interest issue until the principal amount of any adjustments was determined.

The employer requested an extension of time to comply with a Review Officer's order, which the Tribunal had previously directed it to comply with in a final decision.

The Pay Equity Office opposed the request, noting the employer's history of delaying implementation.

The Tribunal declined to reconsider its final decision and refused to extend the time for compliance, warning the employer that failure to comply could result in enforcement proceedings in court.

The applicant School Board objected to a Review Officer's order calculating the respondent's retroactive pay equity adjustment.

The Review Officer had awarded the maximum adjustment for each year of service, regardless of the respondent's actual salary or grid placement.

The Tribunal found that the School Board's approach of pro-rating the adjustment to maintain the proportional relationship among salary rates was permissible under the Pay Equity Act.

However, the Tribunal recalculated the amount owing based on the respondent's actual paid salary relative to the job rate, directing the School Board to pay the outstanding balance with interest.

The employer objected to a Review Officer's order directing it to prepare and post a proxy pay equity plan retroactive to January 1, 1994, claiming it had already satisfied its obligations under the Pay Equity Act in 1996.

The Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal noted that the proxy provisions were repealed between 1995 and 1997, making it unclear why a proxy plan would have been prepared in 1996.

The Tribunal directed the employer to provide further submissions and documentation clarifying when it prepared its plan and how it achieved pay equity before providing notice to affected employees.

The Tribunal previously directed Gian Daycare Limited to file written submissions explaining why its application should not be dismissed and why it should not be ordered to comply with a Review Officer's Order.

Gian failed to file any submissions.

Consequently, the Tribunal dismissed Gian's application and granted the Pay Equity Commission's application, directing Gian to comply with the Review Officer's Order.

The applicant objected to a Review Officer's Order directing the respondent Hospital to amend its non-union pay equity plan to include female job classes performing services for the applicant's clients.

After the Tribunal previously determined the positions were not casual, the parties agreed that the Hospital could be treated as the employer.

The Tribunal confirmed the Review Officer's Order without a hearing, varying only the timelines for compliance due to an outstanding judicial review application.

The applicant filed an application with the Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal.

The Tribunal noted that the matters raised had not been the subject of a complaint or investigation by the Pay Equity Commission.

The applicant was invited to provide submissions but failed to do so.

The Tribunal dismissed the application for lack of jurisdiction, as the matters had not previously been dealt with by the Pay Equity Office.

An individual wrote to the Tribunal seeking to participate in the ongoing proceedings.

A responding party objected, stating he was not acting as an agent for others and that only the initial respondents should participate.

The Tribunal noted a pending judicial review application that could impact the hearing.

Given that the next hearing dates were in January 2004, the Tribunal found it premature to resolve the individual's status and deferred the decision, directing the Registrar to provide the individual with copies of the file.

The applicant requested reconsideration of a preliminary decision which found that the work performed by health care aides dispatched by the applicant was not casual work under the Pay Equity Act.

The Tribunal declined to reconsider the decision, finding that the applicant was merely attempting to re-argue its case without demonstrating an error of law or new evidence.

Furthermore, the Tribunal noted that the reconsideration request was premature, as the identity of the employer had not yet been determined.

The request for reconsideration was denied.

The Applicant sought an extension of time to file a request for reconsideration of a previous Tribunal decision, citing recent awareness of the new Rules of Practice which introduced a time limit.

The Tribunal granted the extension, noting that while reconsideration is an extraordinary remedy and decisions are intended to be final, it was prepared to relieve against the strict application of the time limits in this case because it was the first request under the new Rules and the delay was not excessive.

The applicant objected to a Review Officer's order directing the hospital to amend its pay equity plan to include female job classes that performed services for the applicant's clients.

As a preliminary issue, the Tribunal considered whether the health care aide positions could be designated as casual under subsections 8(3) and 8(4) of the Pay Equity Act.

The Tribunal found that the work was performed on a regular and continuing basis, and therefore the positions could not be designated as casual.

The matter was relisted to determine whether the applicant or the hospital was the true employer.

The applicant requested that a key witness be permitted to provide evidence by affidavit rather than viva voce testimony due to her age, heart condition, and stress.

The Pay Equity Hearing Tribunal denied the request, noting that proceedings are adversarial and require cross-examination to test assertions.

The Tribunal directed the applicant to provide specific medical evidence if it wished to renew the request, and outlined potential alternative methods for adducing the evidence, such as video conferencing or written interrogatories.