Richard Brown

The union sought access to documentation in the Data Room referred to in the Request for Proposals for the Central North Correctional Centre.

The Grievance Settlement Board ordered that the union be granted access to review specific documents, including the classification system description, food services details, and performance frameworks.

The order stipulated that union counsel must maintain possession of all copies, destroy working copies at the close of the hearing, and use the documentation solely for the litigation of the grievance.

The union filed policy grievances regarding the transfer of two psychiatric hospitals to the broader public sector.

Affected employees received job offers from the receiving facilities and were deemed to have resigned from the public service.

The dispute centered on whether employees with between one and five years of service were entitled to severance pay under the collective agreement.

The arbitrator found that the collective agreement was ambiguous regarding whether the deemed resignation occurred during the surplus notice period.

However, because the right to severance pay existed prior to the addition of the transfer appendices and was not clearly negated, the arbitrator concluded that the employees were entitled to severance pay.

The union grieved the employer's decision to transfer two psychiatric hospital facilities to a new employer on separate dates, arguing it would adversely affect employees' seniority rights.

The union contended this was an improper exercise of management discretion.

The Grievance Settlement Board dismissed the grievance, finding no evidence that the employer's decision was made in bad faith or for anything other than the legitimate governmental objective of facilitating a smooth transition.

The union filed grievances on behalf of six employees whose jobs became surplus following the reorganization of social assistance programs.

The employer raised four preliminary objections: that the grievances were barred by a prior memorandum of agreement, that the health and safety claims were barred by a prior union grievance settlement, that the Board lacked jurisdiction to review management's workload decisions absent improper motive, and that the grievors lacked standing to challenge other employees' workloads.

The Grievance Settlement Board held that the memorandum of agreement barred claims under article 20 but not article 6, and dismissed the remaining three preliminary objections, allowing the grievances to proceed.

The grievors sought a catch-up monetary increase following the expiration of the Social Contract Act.

The employer argued that paragraph 7.5 of the Sectoral Framework Agreement explicitly prohibited any service catch-up for merit increases or grid movement after the expiry of the social contract.

The union did not contest this position.

The arbitrator agreed with the employer that, in the absence of a dispute between the parties to the collective agreement, there was no jurisdiction to hear the grievance.

The grievance was dismissed.

The parties agreed to minutes of settlement resolving a dispute over the review and transfer of employee personnel files.

The settlement established a process for employees to review their files with human resources staff and request the removal of documentation relating to union and discretionary leaves prior to the file being transferred to a new employer.

The Grievance Settlement Board issued a consent award incorporating the terms of the settlement.

The grievor, a warehouse worker, was off sick on a Friday when the employer assigned Sunday overtime.

The employer did not call the grievor at home to offer him the overtime, relying on a practice of not bothering sick employees, and instead hired temporary agency workers.

The Grievance Settlement Board found that the employer violated the collective agreement by failing to offer the overtime in rotation, as it would have been reasonable to call the grievor.

Because the work was lost to the bargaining unit by being assigned to an outside agency, the Board awarded monetary compensation rather than an in-kind overtime remedy.

The union filed a group grievance on behalf of unclassified correctional officers, nurses, and a cook, claiming they were improperly denied stand-by or on-call pay.

The union argued that the employer's requirement for these employees to be available for short-notice shifts amounted to stand-by or on-call duty under the collective agreement.

The Grievance Settlement Board dismissed the grievance, finding that while the employees were required to maintain a level of 'general availability', they were not disciplined for occasionally missing calls or refusing shifts.

Therefore, they were not required to maintain the specific states of readiness that would entitle them to stand-by or on-call pay.

The union grieved the employer's scheduling of casual employees, arguing that a senior casual employee available from 12:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. should have been scheduled for that entire period instead of overlapping shifts being assigned to different employees.

The Grievance Settlement Board dismissed the grievance, finding that the collective agreement does not fetter the employer's power to fix the start and finish times of shifts.

Because the grievor could not provide the services of two people during the one-hour overlap, he was not available for the entirety of the established shifts.

The parties agreed to a consent award resolving policy grievances related to the transfer of governance of psychiatric hospitals.

The settlement sets out the process for transferring personnel, WSIB, and employee health files, including employees' rights to review and request removal of documents from their files prior to transfer.

The Vice-Chair remained seized of any disputes regarding the completeness of the transfer agreements.

The union filed a grievance on behalf of paramedics claiming entitlement to enhanced severance pay and pay in lieu of notice following the transfer of ambulance services from the Ministry of Health to a regional municipality, which contracted the service to a hospital.

The union argued the transfer fell under Schedule D of the collective agreement, or alternatively, that the paramedics were entitled to surplus benefits under Schedule B because their seniority was not fully carried over for bumping purposes at the new employer.

The Grievance Settlement Board dismissed the grievance, finding the transfer fell under Schedule B and that the seniority carryover provision did not require the new employer's seniority system to provide identical bumping rights as the Ontario Public Service.