Employment and Labour Law

The applicants alleged a sale of a business from Ably to Turner and sought a related employer declaration.

Ably, a concrete floor installation business, ceased operations shortly after the union acquired bargaining rights.

The four partners of Ably were subsequently hired by Turner, a competitor.

The Board found that the skills, contacts, and reputation of the four partners constituted the assets of Ably, and their hiring by Turner amounted to a sale of a business under section 63 of the Labour Relations Act.

Turner was declared bound by the provincial collective agreement.

The related employer application was dismissed.

The Board also found Ably violated several sections of the Act, while complaints against Turner were dismissed as premature.

Counsel for two of the respondents requested an adjournment of a scheduled hearing date due to a scheduling conflict with another matter before the Board.

The Board noted that the hearing dates had been agreed upon by the parties and that counsel had accepted the retainer in the other matter knowing of the conflict.

The applicant union refused to consent to the adjournment.

The Board dismissed the adjournment request, finding that the scheduling conflict was of counsel's own making and did not justify an adjournment.

The applicant union council referred a construction industry grievance to the Board under section 124 of the Labour Relations Act, alleging the employer violated the Pipeline Agreement by assigning swamper work to a member of the Teamsters instead of a labourer.

The Teamsters intervened, arguing the grievance was a jurisdictional dispute and that the applicant lacked status to grieve.

The Board found that the applicant was not a party to the Pipeline Agreement, which was strictly between the International union and the employer association.

Because the applicant was merely an affiliated bargaining agent and not a party to the specific collective agreement, it had no status to bring or refer the grievance.

The grievance was dismissed.

The applicant union referred a grievance to the Board under section 124 of the Labour Relations Act.

The parties had previously signed Minutes of Settlement in which the employer acknowledged violating the collective agreement by failing to make required remittances and agreed to pay $11,432.44.

The employer failed to appear at the hearing and failed to pay the agreed amount.

The Board found it had jurisdiction to enforce the settlement, declared the employer in violation of the collective agreement and the settlement, and ordered the employer to pay the agreed damages plus interest.

The applicant, a working foreman, applied under section 57 of the Labour Relations Act to terminate the respondent union's bargaining rights in the industrial, commercial, and institutional sector of the construction industry.

The union challenged the applicant's status, arguing he exercised managerial functions.

The Board found the applicant did not exercise managerial functions.

However, the Board dismissed the application because it was not satisfied that the petition supporting the decertification expressed the voluntary wishes of the employees.

Given the applicant's supervisory role over the employees and his remarks about hoping the employer would reimburse his legal fees, the Board concluded that employees might have signed the petition out of concern that refusing to do so would jeopardize their employment.

The applicant union filed displacement applications for certification at two hospitals.

The intervener union objected that the applications were untimely under the Labour Relations Act and the Hospital Labour Disputes Arbitration Act (HLDAA).

The Board found that because the interest arbitration process under the HLDAA had commenced and the resulting collective agreements were either not yet finalized or finalized within 90 days of the two-year statutory period, the open periods were delayed by operation of section 10(12) of the HLDAA.

Consequently, the applications were dismissed as untimely.

The Board declined the intervener's request to impose a bar on future applications by the applicant.

The applicant union applied for certification for a bargaining unit of employees at the respondent's shop.

The parties disputed whether four employees participating in a federal Work Sharing Program should be classified as full-time or part-time, and whether separate full-time and part-time bargaining units were appropriate.

The Board found that the employees in the Work Sharing Program were historically full-time employees subject to a temporary reduction in hours to avoid layoff.

Concluding that there was no history of part-time employment and that all employees shared a community of interest, the Board determined that a single all-employee bargaining unit was appropriate and granted the certificate.

The applicant union referred a grievance to the Ontario Labour Relations Board, alleging the respondent employer breached the Teamsters provincial agreement by failing to apply its provisions to dump truck drivers hauling excavated material on and from a construction site.

The parties asked the Board to determine a preliminary question: assuming the project falls within the industrial, commercial and institutional (ICI) sector, is hauling excavated material on and from the project covered by the provincial agreement?

The Board majority held that the drivers were 'teamsters engaged on on-site construction' within the Ministerial designation, and therefore fell within the scope of the provincial agreement, even when hauling material to off-site locations.

One Board member dissented.

The union applied for certification of a tag-end bargaining unit including Operations Supervisors at Transit Windsor.

The employer argued that the Operations Supervisors exercised managerial functions and should be excluded under section 1(3)(b) of the Act.

The majority of the Board found that the Operations Supervisors exercised significant disciplinary powers, including issuing warnings and suspensions, which created a conflict of interest with bargaining unit employees.

The Board concluded that the Operations Supervisors exercised managerial functions and excluded them from the bargaining unit.

A dissenting member would have included them, finding their disciplinary role to be merely administrative.

The union referred a grievance to arbitration under section 124 of the Labour Relations Act concerning the interpretation of a meal allowance provision in the provincial collective agreement.

The provision stated that employees required to stay overnight shall receive a meal allowance of $30.00 per day for each day they are away.

The employer argued the allowance should only cover meals the employee could not have in the normal manner, excluding breakfast on the first day and dinner on the last day.

The Board agreed with the union's interpretation, finding that the provision established a flat per diem rate payable for each work day the employee is away, regardless of their normal eating pattern.

The applicant employers' organization sought accreditation as the bargaining agent for certain employers in the residential sector of the elevator construction industry.

The Board had to determine whether several employers should be included on the Schedule E list of employers, which required analyzing whether their work constituted 'construction' (repair) or 'maintenance'.

The Board found that the work of four challenged employers constituted construction work, bringing the total number of employers on the list to eleven.

Because the applicant only filed representation evidence for five of those eleven employers, the application for accreditation was dismissed pursuant to section 127(2) of the Labour Relations Act.

The complainant, a millwright, alleged he was discharged contrary to section 24 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) after refusing to work due to alleged isocyanate exposure.

The employer maintained the discharge was for failing to provide satisfactory medical evidence for an extended absence, triggering an automatic loss of seniority under the collective agreement.

The Ontario Labour Relations Board found no breach of section 24(1), concluding the discharge was not a reprisal for the work refusal but resulted from the unauthorized absence.

The Board further declined to exercise its discretion under section 24(7) to substitute a lesser penalty, noting the complainant's work refusal was not bona fide and he had abused the statutory rights provided by the OHSA.

The applicant trade union applied for certification for a bargaining unit of plumbers and steamfitters employed by the respondent in the ICI sector province-wide and in non-ICI sectors in Board Area 20.

The respondent argued for a broader geographic area and for the inclusion of employees performing plumbing work who were not qualified journeymen or apprentices under the Apprenticeship and Tradesmen's Qualification Act.

The Board held that the applied-for geographic area was appropriate.

The Board further ruled that only qualified journeymen or apprentices could be counted as employees in the bargaining unit for a compulsory certified trade.

The Board directed that certificates issue to the applicant.

The applicant union applied for certification to represent dependent contractor taxi drivers and filed an unfair labour practice complaint alleging the respondent employer terminated 11 drivers for union activity.

The employer claimed the terminations were strictly for economic reasons due to a downturn in business.

The Board found the employer's economic justification insufficient to explain the specific selection of the 11 drivers, all of whom had recently signed union cards.

The Board inferred anti-union animus, ordered the drivers reinstated with compensation, directed the posting of a notice, and issued a certificate to the union.

The union applied for a direction that a first collective agreement be settled by arbitration, while a group of employees applied to terminate the union's bargaining rights.

The Board determined it was appropriate to consider the first contract application first.

The Board found that the employer engaged in surface bargaining, refused to recognize the union's bargaining authority, and adopted uncompromising positions without reasonable justification.

The employer's conduct, including delaying bargaining and refusing to provide accurate wage information, demonstrated a failure to make reasonable efforts to conclude a collective agreement.

The Board directed the settlement of a first collective agreement by arbitration and dismissed the termination application.

One Board Member dissented, arguing the termination application should have been considered first.

The applicant union referred a construction industry grievance and applied for a related employer declaration under section 1(4) of the Labour Relations Act against three corporate respondents and an individual.

The parties agreed the corporate respondents met the statutory preconditions for a section 1(4) declaration, leaving the Board's discretion as the sole issue.

The Board found that a non-unionized company pre-existed a numbered company created with the union's knowledge to perform work on a specific unionized job site.

Finding no evidence that work destined for the unionized company was redirected to the non-union company to erode bargaining rights, the Board declined to exercise its discretion to issue the declaration and dismissed the applications.

The complainant requested an adjournment of a scheduled hearing under section 24 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act because his counsel was unavailable.

The respondent opposed the request.

The Board denied the adjournment, noting the statutory objective of expeditious resolution and the fact that the hearing date was fixed before counsel accepted the retainer.

The Board stated the request could be renewed at the commencement of the hearing.

The applicant union applied for a direction that a first collective agreement be settled by arbitration under section 40a of the Labour Relations Act, alleging the respondent employer took uncompromising bargaining positions and failed to make reasonable efforts to conclude an agreement.

During the hearing, the Board ruled that documents passed between the parties through a conciliation officer were inadmissible under section 111(2) of the Act.

On the merits, the Board dismissed the application, finding that the breakdown in negotiations was caused by the union's intransigence, including its insistence on an expanded recognition clause and refusal to consider the employer's proposals, rather than any unreasonable conduct by the employer.

The complainant, a banquet waitress discharged for theft, alleged that her union breached its duty of fair representation under section 68 of the Labour Relations Act.

The union had referred her grievance to expedited arbitration one day late, leading to a jurisdictional objection by the employer.

The union subsequently withdrew the expedited referral to pursue a three-person arbitration board, but the Divisional Court ultimately prohibited the board from hearing the grievance.

The complainant also rejected a settlement offer against the union's advice.

The Board dismissed the complaint, finding that the union's strategic decisions, including its interpretation of time limits and its advice to accept the settlement, were reasonable and not arbitrary, discriminatory, or in bad faith.

The Ontario Sheet Metal Workers' and Roofers' Conference and Sheet Metal Workers International Association, Local 539 sought reconsideration of a procedural direction by the Board.

The Board had directed that the issue of whether the Carpenters held bargaining rights with Vic West Steel be determined in a section 124 grievance proceeding before proceeding with the Sheet Metal Workers' section 91 jurisdictional dispute complaint.

The Board declined to reconsider its decision, finding that resolving the bargaining rights issue first could significantly alter the perspective of the jurisdictional dispute and potentially reduce costs and delay.