M. Patrick Moran

The applicant union filed a jurisdictional complaint regarding the assignment of work for the installation of a local area network computer system at a nuclear generating station.

The employer had assigned the work to the responding union's members, who were maintenance workers, rather than the applicant's members, who were construction electricians.

The Board determined that the work constituted construction rather than maintenance, and that the applicant's members possessed the requisite skill and ability.

The Board concluded that the correct assignment of the work in dispute was to the applicant union.

The applicant union filed a construction industry grievance alleging that the responding employer violated the collective agreement by assigning the installation of modular office wall panels to another union without holding a proper mark-up meeting.

The Ontario Labour Relations Board found that the employer breached the collective agreement by failing to follow the required mark-up procedures before commencing the work.

However, the Board declined to award damages for loss of opportunity because the applicant failed to provide evidence that it had unemployed members ready and available to perform the work at the relevant time.

A dissenting board member would have awarded damages, taking judicial notice of high unemployment in the construction trades.

The applicants filed a complaint regarding the assignment of work involving the removal of exterior sheet metal siding for scrap at the Bruce Nuclear Power Development.

Ontario Hydro had assigned the work to the Labourers' International Union.

The Board found that Ontario Hydro's policy and past practice favoured assigning the removal of scrap material to the installing trade up to the first drop point.

The Board declared that the work should have been assigned to the Sheet Metal Workers and ordered that future similar work in the board area be assigned to them.

The applicant union filed a grievance against the respondent employer.

In a prior decision, the Board determined liability but remained seized on damages.

Before the damages issue could be resolved, the original Vice-Chair died.

A new panel, with a substituted Vice-Chair and the original Board members, was convened.

The respondent argued the Board lacked jurisdiction to substitute Vice-Chairs and that the matter must recommence from the beginning.

The Board held it had jurisdiction to continue, as damages appeared to be a discrete issue from liability.

The matter was relisted to determine if the prior decision was sufficiently clear to assess damages without rehearing evidence.

The Electrical Power Systems Construction Association, Ontario Hydro, and Gilbert Steel Limited filed complaints against the Iron Workers Local 721 regarding an alleged unlawful strike arising from the rodmen's refusal to wear belly-hooks.

The union filed a cross-complaint under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, alleging the employer unlawfully penalized the rodmen for refusing unsafe work.

The Ontario Labour Relations Board dismissed the employer's applications, exercising its discretion not to grant relief since the work stoppage had ceased and damages could be pursued through grievance arbitration.

The Board also dismissed the union's health and safety complaint, finding that the rodmen's blanket refusal to wear the belly-hook—even when their assigned work did not require its use—was not based on a reasonable belief that merely wearing the equipment was likely to endanger themselves or others.

During a hearing, the employer sought to introduce a secretly tape-recorded telephone conversation between its vice-president and a union steward.

The union objected on the grounds that the steward was not an officer or agent of the union, and thus the conversation did not fall under the admissions against interest exception to the hearsay rule.

The Board upheld the objection, finding that the steward was not acting within the scope of his stewardship or authorized to make admissions on behalf of the union.

The evidence was ruled inadmissible.

The applicant union referred a grievance to arbitration under section 124 of the Labour Relations Act, alleging the respondent employer violated the collective agreement by having employees perform non-destructive testing at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station without applying the agreement.

The employer argued the agreement only applied to its construction operations, not to non-construction field work.

The Board found the union failed to prove the work in question fell within the scope of the collective agreement, as the evidence did not establish the technicians were engaged in construction operations.

The grievance was dismissed.

The complainant union filed an unfair labour practice complaint under section 89 of the Labour Relations Act, challenging the validity of subcontracting clauses in the respondent union's collective agreements.

The respondent and interveners brought a preliminary motion to dismiss the complaint without a hearing.

The Board found that the complainant had previously filed an identical complaint years earlier, which had been adjourned sine die.

The Board held that the excessive delay in prosecuting the matter and the attempt to litigate the same issues in a new complaint constituted an abuse of process.

The Board exercised its discretion under section 89(4) to refuse to entertain the complaint and dismissed it, while directing the Registrar to relist the original adjourned complaint to determine its status.

The union grieved the employer's refusal to hire a tradesman referred to its Darlington generating station.

The grievor had previously been discharged by the employer for poor performance, but the employer failed to notify him at the time of discharge that he was ineligible for rehire, contrary to its own policy.

The Ontario Labour Relations Board found that the employer's delay in advising the grievor of his no-rehire status was unreasonable and breached the collective agreement.

The Board directed the employer to hire the grievor and pay him two months' compensation.

The complainant filed an unfair labour practice complaint under section 89 of the Labour Relations Act.

The respondent brought a preliminary motion requesting the Board defer the matter to arbitration.

Applying the Valdi deferral doctrine, the Board found that the dispute over a payment to the intervener was essentially a contractual issue that could be resolved by an arbitrator.

The Board granted the motion and deferred the complaint to arbitration, retaining jurisdiction in the event the arbitrator failed to deal with the unfair labour practice issues.

The Minister of Labour referred a question to the Ontario Labour Relations Board regarding his authority to appoint a single arbitrator under section 45 of the Labour Relations Act.

The union had previously initiated the arbitration process under the collective agreement, but the employer argued this referral was premature and subsequently requested a section 45 expedited arbitration.

The Board held that the union's premature referral did not foreclose the employer's timely section 45 request, confirming the Minister's jurisdiction to appoint an arbitrator.

The complainant union filed an unfair labour practice complaint alleging that the respondent employer violated the Labour Relations Act by refusing to provide the salaries paid to each named individual in the bargaining unit prior to collective bargaining.

The employer argued that individual employees might not want their salaries disclosed.

The Ontario Labour Relations Board held that the employer's refusal constituted a breach of the duty to make every reasonable effort to conclude a collective agreement under section 15 of the Act, as the union required the information to formulate proposals and administer the collective agreement.

The Board directed the employer to provide the requested salary information.

The applicant union applied for certification of a bargaining unit of bricklayers and stonemasons employed by the respondent municipality.

The respondent argued that an existing collective agreement with the intervener union covered these employees and acted as a bar to the application, seeking to introduce extrinsic evidence of negotiations to prove this intent.

The Board held that the collective agreement, which defined employees as those on the active payroll and lacked construction industry provisions, clearly did not cover construction bricklayers.

Finding no patent or latent ambiguity in the agreement, the Board refused to admit the extrinsic evidence.

The applicant union sought certification for a bargaining unit of the respondent's office, clerical, and technical employees.

A group of objecting technical employees argued they had a separate community of interest and should be excluded from the unit.

The Board applied its long-standing practice of grouping technical employees with office and clerical staff to avoid undue fragmentation, finding no unique circumstances to justify a departure.

The Board also declined the respondent's request to direct a representation vote under section 7(2) of the Act, holding that the union's support must be assessed across the entire appropriate bargaining unit, not just among the objecting technical employees.

The technical employees were included in the unit.

The union filed a grievance and requested the Minister to appoint an arbitrator under section 45 of the Labour Relations Act.

Subsequently, the employer referred the same grievance to the Ontario Labour Relations Board under section 124.

The Minister referred the question of his authority to appoint an arbitrator to the Board.

The Board held that because the employer was entitled to refer the grievance under section 124, and because the Board's jurisdiction under section 124 was established before the Minister appointed an arbitrator under section 45, the Board had exclusive jurisdiction.

Furthermore, any conflict between the two sections is resolved by section 118, which provides that the construction industry provisions (section 124) prevail.

In an application for certification, the respondent requested that a Labour Relations Officer's Report be amended to include evidence from a witness whose classification was no longer in dispute.

The Board denied the request, outlining its practice that such evidence is excluded unless parties agree otherwise, but permitted the respondent to call the witness at the continuation of the hearing.

The Board also deferred ruling on whether it could compel the production of extra-provincial employees, directing that the threshold issue of territorial jurisdiction be argued first.