Graphic Communications International Union, Local 466 v. Guelph Paper Box Company Limited
[1985] OLRB Rep. May 673
0173-85-R Graphic Communications International Union, Local 466, Applicant, v. Guelph Paper Box Company Limited, Respondent, v. Group of Employees, Objectors
BEFORE: Owen V. Gray, Vice-Chairman, and Board Members F. W. Murray and W. F. Rutherford.
APPEARANCES: J. Elliott for the applicant; Brent Foreman and Tom Burn for the respondent; Malcolm Wilson for the objectors.
DECISION OF THE BOARD; May 27, 1985
The name of the respondent is amended to read: Guelph Paper Box Company Limited.
This is an application for certification with respect to a bargaining unit in which 45 persons were employed by the respondent as of the application date. The applicant trade union filed combination applications for membership and receipts (which will be referred to as cards) signed by 36 of those persons. Three cards suffered from defects or difficulties apparent on their face. One of the cards did not indicate the payment of least $1.00 in respect of initiation fees or monthly dues. As a result, that document did not constitute evidence of membership within the statutory definition in section l(l)(l) of the Labour Relations Act. Having regard to the requirements of Rule 73 of the Board's Rules of Procedure, the defect was not one which could have been cured by oral evidence of payment: see P.R. C. Chemical Corporation of Canada Ltd., [1980] OLRB Rep. May 749. The problem with the two other cards concerned their dates: one was dated April 19, 1984 and another was dated April, 1985. Difficulties with dates can be cured by oral evidence: Campbell Soup Company Limited, [1966] OLRB Rep. Mar. 883; P.R. C. Chemical Corporation of Canada Ltd., supra, at paras. 20-23. Jim Elliott, a business agent of the applicant, was its representative at the hearing. His signature appears on the receipt portion of each card filed by the applicant. He advised the Board and the parties that the apparently stale card had been signed on April 19, 1985, not 1984, and that the card dated April, 1985 had been signed on April 22, 1985. The other parties agreed that the Board could accept those allegations as fact without formal proof.
Accordingly, it at first appeared that the applicant could establish membership support sufficient to permit certification without a vote. As the Board had received a timely and numerically relevant statement of desire in opposition to representation by the applicant, the Board embarked on its customary inquiry into the origination and circulation of that statement of desire.
During the Board's examination of Malcolm Wilson, the originator and circulator of the statement of desire, Mr. Wilson testified that he had not met the applicant's business agent, Mr. Elliott, at any time before the hearing. Mr. Wilson was shown the card which he had signed and which bore Mr. Elliott's signature on the receipt portion. Mr. Wilson could not remember whether the latter signature appeared on the card when he signed it, but was sure that he had never met Mr. Elliott. Mr. Elliott was also the trade union official who signed the Declaration Concerning Membership Documents in Form 9 which was filed by the applicant as required by section 6 of the Board's Rules of Procedure. Mr. Elliott said he did not dispute Mr. Wilson's testimony. He admitted that he had not been the collector of two of the cards filed by the applicant. He said the actual collector, a bargaining unit employee, had not signed the receipt portion of those two cards. Elliott claimed he had made the appropriate inquiries of the employee collector, and on the basis of those inquiries had signed his own name on the receipt portion of the two cards in question.
The Board drew to Mr. Elliott's attention the provisions of paragraph 3 of the Form 9 declaration he had signed:
- (Where the documentary evidence consists in part of receipt or other acknowledgements of the payment on account of dues or initiation fees.) On the basis of my personal knowledge and inquiries that I have made, I state that the persons whose names appear on the receipts or other acknowledgments of the payment on account of dues or initiation fees are the persons who actually collected the moneys paid on account of dues or initiation fees and that each member, on whose behalf a receipt or an acknowledgment of payment is submitted has personally paid in money the amount shown thereon his own behalf to the person whose name appears on his receipt or acknowledgment of payment as collector, EXCEPT IN THE FOLLOWING INSTANCES:
(emphasis added)
No exceptions are noted in the space which follows this paragraph. Elliott said he handled the cards the way he did because he did not know what else to do.
- By submitting the membership documents and declaration concerning membership documents in the form he did, Mr. Elliott represented to the Board that he was the person who had actually collected the monies paid on account of dues or