M. Patrick Moran

The applicant sought judicial review of a preliminary ruling by the Ontario Labour Relations Board regarding the arbitrability of a grievance.

The Divisional Court quashed the application as premature, applying the general rule that courts will not entertain judicial review of preliminary rulings while tribunal proceedings are pending, absent exceptional circumstances.

The court found no exceptional circumstances to justify bifurcating the ruling from the merits.

The parties reached a settlement during the hearing of a jurisdictional dispute and a related grievance referral concerning the assignment of supplementary steel work at the Bruce N.P.D. The Board granted leave to withdraw both applications on the conditions set out in the parties' Minutes of Settlement, which confirmed the past practice of assigning supplementary steel on civil drawings to the Iron Workers and on mechanical drawings to the installing trade.

The Minister of Labour referred two questions to the Ontario Labour Relations Board regarding the authority to appoint a conciliation officer for a collective agreement between the applicant union and the responding employer.

The employer argued that it was bound by the provincial agreement negotiated by the employer bargaining agency and that a separate conciliation officer was redundant.

The Board advised that the Minister has the authority to appoint a conciliation officer, but only for the purpose of assisting the parties in renewing the portion of the collective agreement that applies to work outside the industrial, commercial, and institutional (ICI) sector of the construction industry, as the authority to bargain for the ICI sector is vested in the designated bargaining agencies.

The grievor, an elevator mechanic with 13 years of industry seniority and 5 years of service with the employer, was discharged after leaving a construction site early without notifying the employer.

Two other employees who engaged in the same conduct received two-day suspensions.

The employer justified the discharge based on the grievor's prior disciplinary record, which consisted of a written warning and a two-day suspension issued simultaneously six weeks earlier.

The Board found that while the grievor engaged in serious culpable conduct, discharge was too severe a penalty given his length of service, the simultaneous issuance of his prior discipline, and the lack of clear communication regarding the employer's progressive discipline policy.

The Board substituted the discharge with a disciplinary suspension.

The Ontario Labour Relations Board granted a consent adjournment of the matter to February 26, 2001.

The union filed a grievance alleging the employer improperly laid off seven Toronto-based employees out of seniority order, arguing that less senior employees working in Sudbury (International territory) should have been laid off first.

The employer maintained that the northern employees were outside Local 50's jurisdiction and therefore not subject to bumping by Toronto members.

The Ontario Labour Relations Board dismissed the grievance, finding that the collective agreement's seniority and layoff provisions must be read in conjunction with its jurisdictional clauses.

The Board concluded that Local 50's jurisdiction and the associated employment preferences do not extend into International territory, meaning Toronto members could not exercise seniority to bump northern employees.

The applicant union filed a jurisdictional dispute under section 99 of the Labour Relations Act, 1995, challenging the responding employer's assignment of removing and replacing loose concrete blocks over boilers at a nuclear power plant to the responding union (Boilermakers).

The applicant claimed the work should have been assigned to its members, while an intervenor union argued for a composite crew.

After reviewing the employer's past practice evidence, the Board declined to change the assignment and confirmed the work was properly assigned to the Boilermakers.

The applicant union applied under section 43 of the Labour Relations Act, 1995 for a direction that a first collective agreement be settled by arbitration.

The union alleged that collective bargaining had been unsuccessful due to the employer's refusal to negotiate contracting, subcontracting, and job security provisions.

The Board found that bargaining had been slowed by confusion over the scope of the union's bargaining rights, but that the employer had made a verbal proposal on the issues.

The Board concluded that it did not appear that the process of collective bargaining had been unsuccessful and dismissed the application.

During a jurisdictional dispute consultation, the Vice-Chair sought submissions on whether a Board Member should continue on the panel given his past employment as a senior official in Ontario Hydro's labour relations area.

One of the responding unions objected, arguing a reasonable apprehension of bias.

The Board dismissed the objection, finding that the Board Member had no actual involvement in the specific 1979 dispute being relied upon, and his general background and experience in construction labour relations at Ontario Hydro did not create a reasonable apprehension of bias.

The applicant union filed a grievance and an unfair labour practice complaint after a union member, dispatched to work for a subcontractor at an Ontario Hydro nuclear facility, was denied security clearance by Ontario Hydro and subsequently laid off.

The union alleged that Ontario Hydro's refusal to defend the application of its security clearance policy in the grievance proceedings violated sections 56, 57(1), and 70 of the Labour Relations Act.

The Board dismissed the unfair labour practice complaint, finding that Ontario Hydro was not the employer of the dispatched worker and had no contractual obligation under the collective agreement to substantiate the subcontractor's decision not to hire.

The Board further held that a general contractor or owner requiring the removal of a subcontractor's employee for security reasons does not constitute unlawful interference with trade union representation.

The applicant union referred a grievance to the Board alleging that the employer violated the collective agreement by assigning certain engraving machine work to the intervenor union and by holding a mark-up meeting.

The employer and intervenor raised preliminary objections, arguing the grievance was untimely, was actually a jurisdictional dispute, and should be deferred to the Canadian Plan for the Settlement of Jurisdictional Disputes.

The Board struck out the portion of the grievance regarding the mark-up meeting as untimely, but found the work assignment portion was an ongoing grievance.

The Board concluded the substance of the grievance was a jurisdictional dispute and adjourned the application sine die to allow the matter to be resolved by the Plan, as a reference had already been made to it.

The union applied under section 43 of the Labour Relations Act, 1995 for a direction that a first collective agreement be settled by arbitration.

The parties had reached an impasse over the employer's insistence on an 'elect to work' scheduling model, which the employer claimed was necessary to remain competitive in the home care market.

The Board found that the collective bargaining process had been unsuccessful due to the uncompromising nature of the employer's position without reasonable justification, particularly given the employer's refusal to provide financial data to substantiate its claims of competitive necessity.

The Board directed the settlement of a first collective agreement by arbitration.

The applicants, two construction trade unions, applied for certification to represent their respective trades in the industrial, commercial and institutional (ICI) sector and all other sectors of the construction industry in Board Area 3.

The parties disagreed on the appropriate bargaining unit descriptions, particularly regarding the exclusion of pre-existing bargaining rights held by the Power Workers' Union (PWU) and the applicants' own rights in the electrical power systems sector.

The Board determined that the electrical power systems sector bargaining rights should be excluded by reference to the specific collective agreements rather than the sector itself.

The Board found the Labourers' proposed bargaining unit appropriate with slight amendments, but rejected the U.A.'s proposed unit because it inappropriately sought to incorporate a jurisdictional accord that the employer had not agreed to.

The grievor, a construction labourer at a nuclear generating station, was discharged after being found in possession of marijuana and admitting to smoking it at work.

The union grieved the discharge, arguing that the employer's investigation violated the grievor's Charter rights and that his drug use was rooted in an addiction requiring accommodation.

The Ontario Labour Relations Board dismissed the grievance, finding that the employer had just cause for discharge given the safety-sensitive nature of the nuclear facility and the employer's zero-tolerance policy.

The Board held that independent evidence established the misconduct regardless of the Charter claims, and there was insufficient evidence to prove the grievor was addicted or had a reliable recovery program.

The applicants, two construction trade unions, applied for certification to represent employees working on a steam pipeline at the Bruce Energy Centre.

The responding party, Ontario Hydro, raised a preliminary objection that the employees were already represented by the applicants under existing Electrical Power Systems Construction Association (EPSCA) collective agreements.

The central issue was whether the work was performed 'on Ontario Hydro property' within the meaning of the EPSCA agreements.

The Board found that Ontario Hydro did not have a sufficient property interest in the lands where the work was performed to bring it within the scope of the EPSCA agreements.

Consequently, the Board ruled that the employees were not represented under the EPSCA agreements on the application date, allowing the certification applications to proceed.

The applicant local union alleged that its parent international union violated section 147 of the Labour Relations Act by altering its jurisdiction without just cause.

The parent union had restricted the local union's jurisdiction to direct employees of the employer, removing its jurisdiction over work performed by contractors, and redistributing that work to other local unions.

The Board held that the parent union had just cause to alter the jurisdiction.

The Board found that the parent union's decision was a fair and reasonable resolution to an ongoing internal jurisdictional dispute, and that returning the local unions to their intended jurisdictional positions would facilitate viable and stable collective bargaining without causing serious labour relations problems.

The application was dismissed.

The applicants sought an order confirming the assignment of hand digging and backfilling work at the base of transmission towers to members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 1788.

The Labourers' International Union of North America, Local 1059, claimed the work should have been assigned to its members.

The Ontario Labour Relations Board confirmed the assignment to the IBEW, finding that the digging and backfilling functions were not severable from the other functions performed by the IBEW crew.

Assigning the work to the Labourers would result in serious inefficiencies, as the digging and backfilling constituted only a minor portion of the overall work.

A dissenting board member would have required further written submissions to clarify the description of the work.

The applicant trade union applied under section 7 of the Labour Relations Act to combine a bargaining unit of maintenance services and plant operations employees with a unit of cleaners.

The employer opposed the combination, arguing that the Board should consider the current government's stated intention to revoke the combination provisions and the declining state of educational sector financing.

The Board rejected these arguments, holding that it must apply the legislation currently in effect and that the combination would promote viable and stable collective bargaining.

The Board directed the combination of the two units.

The applicant union referred a grievance to arbitration and filed an unfair labour practice complaint against the responding employer.

The dispute arose when the employer assigned mechanic's work to an improver helper who had passed his exams, without first obtaining a referral from the union's hiring hall.

When the union refused to issue a mechanic's card due to unemployed mechanics on the out-of-work list, the employer deemed the employee to have resigned for refusing the assignment.

The Board held that the employer violated the hiring hall provisions of the collective agreement by failing to use the union as the first source of job applicants before reclassifying the employee.

The grievance was allowed, and the employee was found to have been terminated without just cause.

The unfair labour practice complaint was dismissed.

The applicant trade union referred a grievance to the Board under section 126 of the Labour Relations Act, seeking damages for the employer's misassignment of work to another union.

The Board had previously ruled in a jurisdictional dispute that the work should have been assigned to the applicant.

The employer argued that Article 8.6 of the collective agreement precluded the Board from awarding damages for a first misassignment of work.

The Board agreed, finding that the collective agreement language prohibited the hearings panel from awarding damages unless specific exceptions applied, which were not met in this case.

The Board declared that the employer violated the collective agreement but awarded no damages.