Ontario Public Service Employees Union v. The Crown in Right of Ontario (Ministry of Health), 2000 CanLII 20485

Award

This group grievance relates to the following former employees of the Adolescent and Children Services Unit of the St. Thomas Psychiatric Hospital : Sandra Parkins, Joy Colman, Rick Metcalf, Richard Sygar, Jill Meendering-Smith and Candice Parrack.

The grievors claimed that prior to the privatization of their unit Management told them that if they did not want to go with the new employer that they could choose to be surplused. As many of the grievors had significant seniority, this probably would have resulted in the grievors exercising their bumping rights and therefore staying in the employ of the Ministry instead of going to the new non-union employer. The grievors claim that as a result of this representation, they did not pursue job competitions or internal transfers prior to the privatization, as they were confident that they could exercise their bumping rights at the relevant time.

However, at the time of privatization, the employees were not given the right to be surplused, rather they were required to choose between accepting a job at the new agency or to be deemed to have resigned from the public service.

This particular Group Grievance was only one of many such grievances regarding the Reasonable Efforts provisions in the previous Collective Agreement. On November 29, 1999 OPSEU and the Province entered into a comprehensive settlement of all Appendix 9 (Reasonable Accommodation) grievances. Both Mr. Salim for the Ministry and Mr. Pinto for OPSEU agree that this particular Group Grievance is covered by the November 29, 1999 settlement. Unfortunately for these particular grievances, although the November 29, 1999 grievance provided for a lump sum settlement of $2,000,000, none of that money was allocated to these grievors, however all Reasonable Efforts grievances were withdrawn.

This grievance is therefore dismissed.

Dated at Toronto this 25^th day of July 2000.