Ontario Labour Relations Board
[1985] OLRB Rep. August 1183
0986-85-R Teamsters Union Local No. 938, Affiliated with The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, Applicant, v. Data Security Limited, Respondent, v. Group of Employees, Objectors
BEFORE: M. G. Mitchnick, Vice-Chairman, and Board Members A. Grant and L. Collins.
APPEARANCES: Eric del Junco and L. Myles for the applicant; Michael Hines and
Ted Butcher for the respondent; Glenn W. G. Giles for the objectors.
DECISION OF THE BOARD; August 30, 1985
This is the continuation of an application for certification.
The Board has found the description of the appropriate bargaining unit to be all employees of the respondent in the City of Scarborough, Ontario, save and except supervisors, persons above the rank of supervisor, clerical, office and sales staff, persons regularly employed for not more than 24 hours per week and students employed during the school vacation period.
As the Board noted in its August 9th, 1985 decision, the Board has before it a numerically relevant statement in opposition, or "petition", filed by employees in this matter. In fact, as high as the percentage was of employees who signed cards for the Union, a similarly high percentage of employees subsequently signed the petition opposing the granting of certification. Given the overlap, the Board indicated that it would follow its normal practice of seeking the confirmatory evidence of a representation vote, provided it had reason to believe that the "petition" represented a voluntary change of mind on the part of the employees in question. And in that regard, the Board is in accord with counsel for the applicant that the onus of persuading the Board that the evidence supports such a conclusion is on the petitioners.
Following the events of the initial hearing on August 9th, a number of petitioning employee-drivers came forward at the hearing the following week to testify as to the circumstances under which the petition came to be signed. The bulk of that evidence was given by driver Glenn Giles, who had volunteered to represent the petitioners in place of Jeff Dodds (whose position will be discussed below). The business of the company is to provide daily transport and storage of sensitive magnetic financial data. Mr. Giles' evidence is that the employees signed up for the Union over a very short period of time (there are 12 employee drivers in the unit), and that they immediately began to discuss amongst themselves the consequences of what they had done, in particular the consequences of a possible strike on the company's business, and thus on their jobs. So acute was the concern amongst the employees that the Union, according to one of the Union's own supporters and witnesses, arranged for a meeting to take place the Sunday before the Board's Notice of Application was even posted, to try to calm everyone down and clear the air. As the Union's witness, Mr. Myles testified, "I guess at that point everyone had a question in his mind" about the impact of what they were doing. At that meeting the Union's staff organizer answered any inquiries that the employees had, and explained that unless a petition were circulated amongst the employees, the Union would be certified on the basis of the cards that the employees had signed. Mr. Myles testified that when the meeting was over, he no longer heard any concerns being voiced, and that in fact by that time two employees who had appeared to be "shaky" had come on board. Mr. Giles, however, was also at the meeting, and gave a credible account in his own testimony, preceding Mr. Myles', of how a number of the drivers left the meeting in the elevator together. He testified that the talk in the elevator was still over the potential impact of a strike on the company's relationship with the customers, and Mr. Giles testified that the drivers at that point agreed amongst themselves that they would not under any circumstance allow the Union to take them out on strike.
When the Board's Notice ("green sheet") was posted in the workplace the next day, the debate over the issue of unionization intensified. Mr. Feeney, the Operations Supervisor, was anxious to know what it was that had provoked the employees into bringing in a Union, and called a friend of his in management elsewhere for advice. Mr. Feeney's friend told him that he "guessed it was okay to talk to the employees about the application for certification, so long as he did not seem to push them in one direction or another, or talk about how the decision could affect them personally". So Mr. Feeney called a number of employees into his office, one by one, and, according to Mr. Feeney, simply asked them what it was that had prompted the application for certification. Mr. Myles was one of those employees called in, and basically confirmed in his evidence that that was what Mr. Feeney asked. Mr. Myles added that Mr. Feeney also reminded him that the company had to provide uninterrupted service to its customers 365 days a year, but beyond that, testified that Mr. Feeney spent most of the time "beating around the bush", and appeared to avoid answering any of Mr. Myles' questions. That was on Monday.
On Wednesday of that week, with everyone openly discussing the question of the Union, the "Officer Manager", Mrs. Mead, attempted to arrange a meeting after work at which her husband (who does not work for the company) would be present to explain in full the "pro's" and "con's" of having a Union. Mrs. Parsons, the company's "Sales Manager", is also reported to have been discussing this meeting with employees in the parking lot, reminding them, as Mr. Feeney had, of the company's obligation to provide 365-days-a-year service. While neither Mrs. Mead nor Mrs. Parsons have a significant number of employees working under them, Mr. Giles readily conceded that the people in the office are viewed as having a "pipeline" to management, and had a petition surfaced at that meeting, the Board would have difficulty