GSB#1799/99
UNION#00B045, 00B046, 00B047, 00B048, 00B049, 00B050, 00B051, 00B052, 00B053, 00B054, 00B055, 00B056, 00B057
IN THE MATTER OF AN ARBITRATION
Under
THE CROWN EMPLOYEES COLLECTIVE BARGAINING ACT
Before
THE GRIEVANCE SETTLEMENT BOARD
Between
Ontario Public Service Employees Union
(Addae et al)
Grievor
-and-
The Crown in Right of Ontario
(Ministry of Finance)
Employer
BEFORE Barry B. Fisher Vice-Chair
FOR THE GRIEVOR Don Martin
Grievance Officer
Ontario Public Service Employees Union
FOR THE EMPLOYER Fateh Salim
Counsel, Legal Services Branch
Management Board Secretariat
HEARING December 4, 2001.
INTERIM DECISION
This group grievance involves Field Collection Officers and Field Services Officers working at the North York Regional Tax Office of the Ministry of Finance. The essence of the grievance is a complaint that the Ministry has applied a certain travel policy in a discriminatory and arbitrary fashion.
The policy in question is found in a memo dated August 16, 1999 from the then Regional Manager, Services and Collection, in the North York Regional Tax Office. The subject is travel policy. The relevant provisions are as follows:
“As of September 7, 1999 work will be assigned from your work location. FCOs and FSOs are expected to report to their respective offices daily and then travel to any calls that they have to make. FCOs and FSOs are also expected to end their working day at the office.
Affected staff are expected to preplan their field visits and discuss them with their manager. where appropriate managers may authorize a starting point other than the office. This authorization must be received in advance from your manager to begin or end your day at other than your office.
Managers have been instructed to take into account which office the FSO or FCO is assigned at and where they reside when assigning work..”
The Union is not contesting the legitimacy of the policy, only its application. The theory of the grievors’ case is that the Ministry has failed to apply this policy in a consistent fashion so as to constitute discrimination. In essence, the Union is alleging two violations as follows:
The manner in which the policy was supposed to be applied was that the employee would be entitled to charge time and travel from when they left their house to when they arrived at the first work location if that distance was less than the distance it would take going from the employee’s house to the employee’s headquarters. If the distance to the first site was more than the distance to the office, then the employee was not to charge travel or time for the time it took him or her to go to the head office, but then upon arriving at the head office could then charge both time and travel from head office to the first work location. The Union alleges that this policy was not followed in respect to certain individuals but enforced with respect to other individuals and therefore constitutes a discriminatory practice.
The second way in which the Union says this policy has been implemented unfairly is that employees with the consent and acquiescence of their managers have been allowed to charge for the time and travel it takes from going from the headquarters to the first location when in fact the individuals have not gone from the headquarters but rather left from home and gone directly to the first location. This would in effect involve the employee filing a travel claim which was not accurate on its face.
The purpose of this interim order is to require the Union’s to provide sufficient particulars of the discriminatory treatment alleged. I therefore order the Union to provide the Employer with the following particulars by April 30, 2002:
The name of all individuals who the Union alleges either received a beneficial application of this policy or a negative application of the policy. In other words, those individuals who were allowed to charge more than the policy as well as those individuals who were not allowed to charge what the policy provides.
The dates of each occurrence upon which they allege the policy was broken.
The particulars as to which of the above two rules, or any other rules, that the Union alleges was broken, and how it was broken. In other words, if the allegation is that an individual on a certain day was permitted to drive to the first site even though it was a longer distance than it would have been had the individual even been required to commute to work first at his own expense and then bill only from headquarters to the first work location, the Union is to provide full particulars of the allegations.
It is understood that the time frame in which examples are to be drawn are from September 7, 1999 forward being the date the policy was implemented.
At this point in time, I am putting no restriction on the geographic location of these examples so if the Union wants to draw upon examples from across the province that is their prerogative.
The parties have agreed that this matter will be continued on May 28, 2002.
Dated at Toronto, this 19th day of December 2001.