The employer applied to the Ontario Labour Relations Board to resolve a jurisdictional dispute regarding the assignment of waste rock haulage work.
The work had been assigned to members of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers of Canada (CEP), but the United Steelworkers of America claimed the work for its members based on a prior arbitration award.
The Board found that the prior arbitration award was ambiguous and that the employer's long-standing past practice of assigning the work to the CEP, along with considerations of efficiency and stable labour relations, favoured maintaining the assignment to the CEP.
The Board upheld the assignment to the CEP and ordered the Steelworkers to refrain from requiring the employer to assign the work to its members.