[1981] OLRB Rep. November 1603
0796-81-M International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers, Local 95, Applicant, v. Lewis Insulation Services Inc., Respondent, v. The Master Insulators' Association of Ontario, Incorporated, Intervener.
BEFORE: N. B. Satterfield, Vice-Chairman and Board Members J. A. Ronson and H. Kobryn.
APPEARANCES: S. B. D. Wahl and B. McQueen for the applicant; R. A. Werry for the respondent and the intervener.
DECISION OF THE BOARD; November 10. 1981
The Board issued an interim decision July 30th, 1981 dealing with certain procedural issues in this referral of a grievance in the construction industry under section 124 of the Labour Relations Act. At the commencement of the proceedings when the application came back on for hearing on its merits, Mr. Werry, solicitor for the respondents, advised the Board that he would be seeking to call extrinsic evidence at the appropriate stage of the proceedings. After the applicant had completed its evidence in chief, counsel for the respondents requested that he be permitted to call extrinsic evidence on the grounds that Article X — Living Allowance and Travelling Expenses — of the collective agreement between the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers and the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers, Local 95 and The Master Insulators' Association of Ontario, Inc., ("the agreement") effective from September 10, 1980 until April 30, 1982, contains patent and latent ambiguities. The Board heard the parties' representations and ruled that it would allow extrinsic evidence. As a consequence of the Board's ruling, the parties ultimately agreed that the proceeding should be adjourned until another date and requested the Board to consent to the adjournment and, as well, to issue an interim decision stating the nature of the difficulty caused for the Board by the ambiguities in Article X. The Board consented to the adjournment and this interim decision is in response to the second part of the parties' request.
Article X provides, inter alia, payment of a living allowance to certain eligible employees when they are working a sufficient distance from their residences. The article provides for living allowance to be paid, depending upon the particular circumstances, by either the employer or a trust fund set up for that purpose. The central issue in the grievance is whether payments made to certain individual grievors from the trust fund, on application of the respondent, should have been made by the respondent and not by the trust fund. The answer to this question would seem to rest with the interpretation of the phrase "job site location" in the applicable clause or clauses of Article X, particularly clause 10.06. It was the use of that phrase throughout the article, together with the phrases "job site", "job location" and "job situation" and the word "job", which the Board found to be ambiguous.
Article X is comprised of 17 clauses. The phrase "job site location" appears in nine of these clauses and in one of them twice. The applicant argues that wherever the phrase "job site location" is used it means simply the specific site at which there is work to be performed by employees for the employer, or in this grievance, the respondent. Respondent counsel takes the position that the word "location" in that phrase as it appears in clause 10.06 is capable of multiple meanings and therefore there is a patent ambiguity on the face of the agreement. Counsel argues further that, if the meaning attributed by the applicant to the phrase "job site location" is the correct meaning, then the phrase has the same meaning as the word 'job" and the phrase 'job site". Therefore, according to respondent counsel, the word "location" could be deleted from the phrase 'job site location" without affecting the meaning of the Agreement, except to make clause 10.17 a nullity.
The problem for the Board is that the use of the word location in the phrase "job site location" is capable of a host of meanings and, therefore, so is the entire phrase. At least one of these meanings would make the phrase synonymous with the word 'job" or the phrase "job site".
The noun "location" is given the following meanings in two popular dictionaries:
The Concise Oxford Dictionary:
..... (position in) a particular place;"
Webster's Third New International Dictionary (unabridged):
"a position or site occupied or available for occupancy (as by a building) or marked by some distinguishing feature (such as in: ... a sheltered location;.. . discovered the location of the hiding place; or. .. much of the charm of the house was in its location)".
As those meanings indicate, a "location" could be a very precise location as in the hiding place for some valuable possession like a piece of jewelry, or it could be a large area like a promontory of land on which a house is located affording an unobstructed view of the surrounding area. In a similar way the word "location" in the phrase 'job site location" is capable of a host of meanings ranging, for example, from one floor of a specific structure on which there is work to be performed by employees of the employer, to a defined geographic location in which the employer may have several projects on which there is work to be performed. Some of the potential meanings may be eliminated by the simple application of the rules of construction used in the interpretation of documents, but the Board has not yet reached that stage where it can begin applying those rules. Therefore, this range of possible meanings which could be given to the word "location" is a reasonable indication of the magnitude of the problem facing the Board. While the problem is focused primarily on clause 10.06, however the Board construes the phrase its construction must be compatible with the use of the phrase in eight other clauses, including the one in which it is used twice, as well as with the apparently similar terms like 'job site,", 'job location" and 'job situation".
- The Board in the final analysis will have to rely on all of the evidence, that which it has already heard as well as any further evidence, including admissible extrinsic evidence.