[1983] OLRB Rep. January 7
1776-82-R Service Employees International Union, Local 663 A.F. of L., C.I.O., C.L.C., Applicant, v. Belleville General Hospital, Respondent
BEFORE: Kevin M. Burkett, Alternate Chairman and Board Members F.W. Murray and C.A. Ballentine.
APPEARANCES: D.J. Burshaw and Norman Dunlop for the applicant; John Wakely and Gary V Williams for the respondent.
DECISION OF THE BOARD; January 14, 1983
This is an application for certification in which the applicant seeks to be certified for a unit of part-time office and clerical employees. The full-time office and clerical employees of the respondent are represented by the applicant union and covered by a subsisting collective agreement.
The Board finds that the applicant is a trade union within the meaning of section l (l) (p) of the Labour Relations Act.
The parties are in dispute as to the geographic scope of the bargaining unit. The applicant seeks a unit which is not restricted by a geographical designation. The respondent, on the other hand, seeks to have the bargaining unit circumscribed by the usual reference to the municipality within which the employees for whom the applicant seeks bargaining rights work. As part of the Belleville General Hospital there is an outpatient facility in Trenton, Ontario and a mental health facility in Bancroft, Ontario. Other than for these two facilities, the hospital is situated within the Municipality of Belleville, Ontario. There are no part-time office and clerical employees presently employed at either of the facilities located outside Belleville.
In the normal course, the Board would follow its long-standing practice and describe the unit as encompassing all employees of the respondent within the municipality. However, in this case the unit of full-time office and clerical employees as set out in the collective agreement covering the full-time office and clerical employees is described as "all employees of the Belleville General Hospital employed as office and clerical staff save and except. . . ." There is no municipal designation contained in the bargaining unit description covering the full-time office and clerical employees of the respondent. Generally, the Board attempts to "mirror" full-time and part-time unit descriptions as was made clear in the recently released Sudbury Memorial Hospital case, [19821 OLRB Rep. Nov. 1722 as follows:
"The Board has, absent any unusual factors, generally followed a policy of having part-time units, organized at the same time or subsequent to the full-time unit "mirror" the full-time unit. No cases were cited to the Board where the Board has done otherwise
The primary purpose of the Board's. approach in this regard is to avoid a multiplicity of bargaining units and to thereby foster more effective and more efficient collective bargaining. If we were not to mirror the full-time and part-time office and clerical units in this case, the possibility of two additional part-time units (in Trenton and Bancroft) in respect of the same work locations covered by a single full-time unit, would exist. In these circumstances, we have decided that the part-time unit of office and clerical employees should mirror the full-time unit and accordingly, we hereby find that all office and clerical employees of the respondent employed for not more than 24 hours per week and students employed during the school vacation period, save and except supervisors, persons above the rank of supervisor and persons covered by subsisting collective agreements, constitute a unit of employees of the respondent appropriate for collective bargaining.
The Board is satisfied on the basis of all the evidence before it that more than fifty-five per cent of the employees of the respondent in the bargaining unit at the time the application was made, were members of the applicant on December 24, 1982, the terminal date fixed for this application and the date which the Board determines, under section 103(2)(j) of the Labour Relations Act to be the time for the purpose of ascertaining membership under section 7(1) of the said Act.
A certificate will issue to the applicant.