John Wakely

The Perth and Smiths Falls District Hospital applied under section 64 of the Labour Relations Act to merge certain bargaining units following the amalgamation of the Smiths Falls Community Hospital and the Great War Memorial Hospital.

The Hospital argued that the merger resulted in an intermingling of employees, justifying the consolidation of bargaining units represented by CUPE, OPSEU, and ICTU.

The Board dismissed the application, finding that while services and management had been integrated, there was no significant intermingling of employees or transfer of job opportunities between the two locations that would call into question the logic of the existing bargaining structures.

The Tribunal considered a preliminary objection regarding whether an application must be processed through Review Services before being filed with the Tribunal.

The Tribunal ordered that notice of the preliminary objection be given to the Pay Equity Office to obtain its views on the ramifications of not following the process set out in the Pay Equity Act.

The applicant union applied for certification of a unit of part-time office and clerical employees at the respondent hospital.

The parties disputed the geographic scope of the bargaining unit.

The respondent sought to restrict the unit to the municipality of Belleville, while the applicant sought a unit without geographic restriction, mirroring the existing full-time unit.

The Board applied its policy of mirroring part-time units with full-time units to avoid a multiplicity of bargaining units.

Finding that more than fifty-five percent of the employees in the unit were members of the applicant, the Board granted the certification.