[1986] OLRB Rep. November 1563

1730-86-R Sheet Metal Workers' International Association Local Union 537, Applicant, v. Naylor Group Incorporated, Respondent, v. Group of Employees, Objectors

BEFORE: N. B. Satterfield, Vice-Chairman, and Board Members D. A. MacDonald and J. Redshaw.

APPEARANCES: Arthur L. Moore and Larry O'Neill for the applicant; Carl Peterson, Tom Hitchman and Paul Wrigley for the respondent; Douglas Bowman and Carl Hughes for the group of employees.

DECISION OF THE BOARD; November 13, 1986

1. This application for certification came before the Board as constituted herein for hearing on October 31, 1986. The parties were agreed that the Board, differently constituted, had previously dealt with all matters arising out of the application to the point where the Board had determined the description of the unit of employees which it found to be appropriate for collective bargaining. The description conforms to the requirements of section 144(1) of the Labour Relations Act and reads as follows:

All journeymen sheet metal workers and registered sheet metal apprentices in the employ of the respondent in the industrial, commercial and institutional sector of the construction industry in the Province of Ontario and all journeymen sheet metal workers and registered sheet metal apprentices in the employ of the respondent in all other sectors in The Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto, the Regional Municipalities of Peel and York, the Towns of Oakville and Halton Hills and that portion of the Town of Milton within the geographic Townships of Esquesing and Trafalgar, and the Towns of Ajax and Pickering in the Regional Municipality of Durham, save and except non-working foremen and persons above the rank of non-working foreman.

The parties were further agreed that there were two issues remaining to be determined by the Board as constituted herein:

(1) Whether three persons, Tom Jordan, Rick Laurien and Darryl Lowenberg are included in the unit described above;

(2) the weight, if any, to be given to a statement filed in opposition to the application.

2. With respect to the composition of the bargaining unit, the parties had agreed in the earlier proceedings that three persons, John Anderson, Casey Boers and Richard Janssen, classified by the respondent as sheet metal workers, were not employees coming within the bargaining unit described above because they were neither journeymen sheet metal workers nor apprentices legally entitled to work in the sheet metal trade pursuant to The Apprenticeship and Tradesmen's Qualification Act, R.S.O. 1980, c. 24. For ease of reference, the Board hereinafter will refer to that Act as the Apprenticeship Act. The parties were unable to agree whether Jordan, Laurien and Lowenberg were apprentices within the meaning of that Act and registered sheet metal apprentices as that term is used in the Board's description of the appropriate unit.

3. The Board dealt in the hearing with the statement in opposition to the application ("the petition"), but in this decision it will be dealt with only after the Board has decided the issue with respect to the composition of the bargaining unit.

4. The Board first used the word "registered" in its descriptions of bargaining units comprised of the trade represented by the applicant and its sister locals of the Sheet Metal Workers International Association in its decision in Irvcon Roofing & Sheet Metal (Pembroke) Ltd., [1981] OLRB Rep. Nov. 1594. The bargaining unit description set out above conforms to the description of the bargaining unit set out in Irvcon and is a description which the Board has consistently employed in applications for certification by the Sheet Metal Workers International Association and its affiliated bargaining agents under the construction industry provisions of the Act since the Irvcon decision. The respondent takes the position that the Board's decision in Irvcon, supra, does not reveal what constitutes registration as a sheet metal apprentice. Therefore, in order to decide whether Jordan, Laurien and Lowenberg are to be included in or excluded from the bargaining unit, the Board must first establish what it takes to be a registered apprentice and then decide whether the three persons have satisfied those criteria.

5. The issue calls into play several sections of the Apprenticeship Act, namely sections 1(a), (b), (c) and (d); 7(2); 9; 11; 15 and 17 which read as follows:

1. In this Act,

(a) "apprentice" means a person who is at least sixteen years of age and who has entered into a contract under which he is to receive, from or through

his employer, training and instruction in a trade;

(b) "certified trade" means a trade designated as a certified trade under section

11;

(c) "Director" means the Director of Apprenticeship;

(d) "employer" includes the Crown and any other public authority, the Ontario Apprenticeship Institute and any local apprenticeship committee;

7.-(2) Notwithstanding any of the provisions of this Act or the regulations, the Director may register any person as an apprentice, or grant a certificate of apprenticeship, a certificate of qualification or a certificate of proficiency to any person, who, in the opinion of the Director, is unable by reason of physical incapacity or other circumstances to take or complete the prescribed course of study or training in a trade or apprentice training program.

[emphasis added]

9.-(1) Every person who commences to work at a trade for which an apprentice training program is established but who does not hold a certificate of apprenticeship or qualification in that trade shall,

(a) forthwith apply in the prescribed form for apprenticeship in that trade; and

(b) within three months after commencing to work in that trade, file with the Director his contract of apprenticeship.

(2) Every person who fails to comply with subsection (1) shall, upon the expiration of the period of three months mentioned in clause (1)(b), cease to work in that trade until he files with the Director his contract of apprenticeship or until the Director authorizes in writing the continuation or resumption of such work.

11.-(l) The Lieutenant Governor in Council may designate any trade as a certified trade for the purposes of this Act, and may provide for separate branches or classifications within the trade.

(2) No person, other than an apprentice or a person of a class that is exempt from this section or a person referred to in subsection (4), shall work or be employed in a certified trade unless he holds a subsisting certificate of qualification in the certified trade.

(3) No person shall employ any person, other than an apprentice or a person of a class that is exempt from this section or a person referred to in subsection (4), in a certified trade unless the person employed holds a subsisting certificate of qualification in the certified trade.

(4) When a trade is certified under subsection (1), a person who is working in the trade at the time that it is certified shall be allowed a period of two years from the first day of the month following the month in which the trade is certified to qualify for a certificate of qualification in the trade, if he,

(a) is the holder of a certificate of apprenticeship in the trade; or

(b) satisfies the Director that he has been continuously engaged as a journeyman in the trade for a period of time in excess of the apprenticeship period

for the trade; or

(c) satisfies the Director that he is qualified to work in the trade and meets such other requirements as the Director may prescribe.

15. Every contract of apprenticeship shall, upon its approval by the Director, be registered by him forthwith.

[emphasis added]

17.-(l) A contract of apprenticeship shall not be terminated before the completion of the apprenticeship period provided therein except by,

(a) the death of either party;

(b) consent, express or implied, of the parties; or

(c) cancellation for cause of the contract.

(2) Where in the opinion of the Director the terms of a contract of apprenticeship cannot be fulfilled to the advantage of either party, he may arrange for the transfer of the contract.

(3) The termination, cancellation or transfer of a contract of apprenticeship shall be noted by the Director on the registered copy of the agreement.

[emphasis added]

Section 7 of Ontario Regulation 57 and sections 2 and 11(1) of Ontario Regulation 36 are also relevant to the issue. Regulation 36 is a general regulation under the Apprenticeship Act and Regulation 57 regulates the sheet metal trade under that Act. Those sections provide respectively as follows:

Regulation 36

2. An application for apprenticeship in a trade shall be in the form provided by the Minister.

11.-(1) A contract of apprenticeship shall be in the form provided by the Minister.

Regulation 57

7. Any person who,

(a) applies in the prescribed form for apprenticeship in the certified trade; and

(b) works in that trade for three months or less, is exempt from subsection 11(2) of the Act.

6. The Board has before it, by agreement of the parties, photocopies of the "Application for Apprenticeship in a Trade" and "Contract of Apprenticeship" forms for each of Jordan, Laurien and Lowenberg.

7. The Board also has before it the testimony of Edward T. Jeffree, Regional Administrator for the Toronto Central Region of the Apprenticeship Branch of the Ministry of Skills Development (the "Ministry"). The Ministry was formally known as the Ministry of Colleges and Universities. The respondent's business location comes within the area served by Jeffree's regional office. Jeffree's responsibilities and those of his office include, amongst other things, the responsibility for receiving and registering applications for apprenticeship under the Apprenticeship Act. The exhibits just referred to were processed through Jeffree's branch office.

8. Jeffree described to the Board how applications for apprenticeship are processed through his office. The employee and employer fill out their respective parts of the application, sign them and enter the date of signing. The employer's part includes the date when the employee started employment. The application, together with the required fee is filed with the Ministry's regional office and one of its consultants completes the information in a third part of the form, in consultation with the employee and the employer, signs the form and enters the date of his signature. The information in this part includes an effective date and the hours, if any, to be deducted from the total hours of training as a credit for education or prior experience in the trade. The part of the form to be completed by the consultant also provides for the signature of the consultant's supervisor and the date of that signature. The copies of the three applications which are in evidence before the Board do not bear any supervisor's signature, but it was Jeffree's evidence that he customarily initials each application that is processed through his office.

9. Once an application is properly completed, the branch office prepares the Contract of Apprenticeship form, which is a single, letter-sized page. The principle information filled in by the branch office is the effective date, which is the same effective date as the relevant application bears, the total number of hours of training and instruction which the apprentice undertakes to fulfill, the employer's undertaking to provide the required hours of training and instruction in the particular trade, in this case sheet metal worker, and the minimum wages to be paid for each of five blocks of training and instruction. These rates of wages are expressed in terms of a percentage of the journeyman's rate. The branch also assigns a contract number to the contract and in the appropriate space enters the date when the contract was produced by the branch (the "Production Date"). The contract form also provides for a date when it is "Approved and Registered". None of the three contracts in evidence have that date completed. Once a contract is prepared in this form, it is presented to the applicant apprentice and employer to be dated and signed by them.

10. According to Jeffree, the effective date, which is common to the Application for Apprenticeship and the Contract of Apprenticeship, is the date from which the employer is committed to provide training. The effective date may be a date earlier than the date apprenticeship is applied for because training may have commenced before the application was made. The effective date is the point from which all training and instruction is to be credited to the apprentice, but no hours of training and instruction are credited to the apprentice's record with the Ministry until the formal contract has been signed and returned to the Ministry. Jeffree told the Board that the date which should appear opposite the term "Approved and Registered" would be the date when the signed contract has been returned properly completed to the Ministry. It was his view, however, that apprenticeship began once a proper application had been made, signed both by the applicant apprentice and the employer, the fee paid and the effective date set. It is at that point when Jeffree considers an apprentice to be registered and lawfully entitled to work in the trade. This is because there is a formal undertaking in place, in the form of the Application for Apprenticeship, by the employer to provide a specific period of training and instruction in the trade at not less than stipulated rates of payment for each period of instruction and the employer has been informed by the consultant of the applicable minimum rate to be paid.

11. The viva voce evidence and the Application for Apprenticeship and Contract of Apprenticeship forms filed in evidence respecting Jordan, Laurien and Lowenberg reveal the applications for apprenticeship in the sheet metal trade were made by or for them, respectively, on August 5, 1986, August 27, 1986 and August 25, 1986 and the requisite fee paid. The corresponding dates when their applications were signed by the respondent are September 23, 1986, August 27, 1986 and August 25, 1986. The effective dates assigned by the Ministry to their applications are, respectively, October 28, 1985, August 28, 1986 and June 23, 1986. These dates correspond to their hire dates, except for Laurien whose effective date is one day later than his hire date. Their Contract of Apprenticeship forms display the same effective dates as their applications. The Production Date of each contract is October 21, 1986, the same date recorded for the employee and employer signature on each contract. As noted already, the Contract of Apprenticeship forms do not bear an "Approved and Registered" date.

12. Respondent counsel submits that the context in which the evidence is to be analysed includes both the description of the unit of employees found by the Board herein to be appropriate for collective bargaining and the concern expressed by the Board in its decision in Irvcon, supra. When the analysis is made in that context it leads to a reasonable conclusion that an employee is a registered sheet metal apprentice within the meaning of the Apprenticeship Act and the Board's bargaining unit description when the following conditions have been satisfied on or before the date of making of an application for certification:

(1) the employee has made a proper Application for Apprenticeship in the trade;

(2) the employer has completed properly and signed its part of the application;

(3) the application has been filed with the Ministry together with the required fee; and

(4) the Ministry has assigned to the application an effective date which is not later than the date of application for certification.

13. According to respondent counsel, the Board's concern in the Irvcon case was that it not describe a unit of sheet metal workers which would include persons who were prohibited from working in that trade. That concern, counsel says, is evident from paragraph 9 of the decision in which the Board quotes what is now section 11 of the Apprenticeship Act. The paragraph reads as follows:

9. We are of the view that the disputed employees should not be listed as employees in a bargaining unit. Section 10 of the Apprenticeship and Tradesmen's Qualification Act is quite clear:

10.-(1) The Lieutenant Governor in Council may designate any trade as a certified trade for the purposes of this Act, and may provide for separate branches or classifications within the trade.

(2) No person, other than an apprentice or a person of a class that is exempt from this section or a person referred to in subsection 4, shall work or be employed in a certified trade unless he holds a subsisting certificate of qualification in the certified trade.

(3) No person shall employ any person, other than an apprentice or a person of a class that is exempt from this section or a person referred to in subsection 4, in a certified trade unless the person employed holds a subsisting certificate of qualification in the certified trade.

By Regulation 298/73 the Lieutenant Governor in Council designated the trade of sheet metal worker as a certified trade for the purposes of that Act. It is our view that the appropriate bargaining unit for collective bargaining with respect to sheet metal workers should reflect that designation. Accordingly, in the present case the bargaining unit shall be described in terms of "journeymen sheet metal workers and registered sheet metal apprentices". It follows, therefore, that the three employees in question will not be employees on the list of employees for the purposes of the count.

While the Board found that three persons in dispute were not registered apprentices within the meaning of the Apprenticeship Act, and therefore not in the unit, it does not discuss what, in the Board's view, constitutes a registered apprentice. Counsel points out that the Apprenticeship Act does not employ the term registered apprentice. Counsel argues, however, that it is reasonable to conclude that the Board in Irvcon was simply making sure that the way in which it described the unit appropriate for collective bargaining properly respected the strictures of the Apprenticeship Act as to who could lawfully work in the sheet metal trade. It determined that the bargaining unit should be described to include only persons who were journeymen qualified under the Apprenticeship Act and apprentices lawfully entitled to work under that Act. Therefore, the term "registered" should be read to mean an apprentice who can lawfully work in the trade.

14. That conclusion, counsel contends, is supported by the Board's decision in C T Windows Limited, [19831 OLRB Rep. May 627. In that case, the Board was being asked to apply the principle of the Irvcon decision and find that certain disputed employees were not included in a bargaining unit described in terms of a certified trade. The Board commented as follows at paragraph 6:

6. In the Jrvcon decision the Board had refused to include on a list of employees in the bargaining unit three employees who were performing sheet metal work, but who were neither certified tradesmen nor registered apprentices pursuant to the Apprenticeship and Tradesmen's Qualification Act. The basis for such a decision was section 10 [section 11] of the Apprenticeship and Tradesmen's Qualification Act which prohibits persons other than certified tradesmen or registered apprentices from performing work in a certified trade. The Board, in effect, refused to recognize them as employees in the bargaining unit because they were clearly not lawfully employed in the performance of sheet metal work in view of the Apprenticeship and Tradesmen's Qualification Act.

15. The Board's concern expressed in those two decisions would be satisfied, counsel submits, by the meeting of the conditions outlined in paragraph 12 above because, at the point they are met, the employer is under a contractual obligation to provide training and instruction in the sheet metal trade and at a rate of pay not less than the rate of which the consultant has advised the employer. Thus a de facto contract exists and the employer and employees have met the requirements of section 11 of the Apprenticeship Act. Counsel contends that the judgement of the Provincial Court (Criminal Division) Judicial District of York in R v. Avtar Singh supports the proposition that those conditions constitute a Contract of Apprenticeship. Therefore Jordan, Laurien and Lowenberg would be registered sheet metal apprentices within the requirements of the Apprenticeship Act and within the meaning of the term as it is used by the Board to describe the appropriate bargaining unit for this applicant.

16. Should the Board not find that those conditions constitute a Contract of Apprenticeship counsel argues in the alternative that, where those conditions exist, employees would still be lawfully at work on the date of an application for certification by virtue of section 7 of Ontario Regulation 57 set out above if they were within the first three months of employment. That section exempts from subsection 11(2) of the Act persons who have worked in a certified trade for three months or less and who have applied in the prescribed form for apprenticeship in that trade.

17. If the Board accepts either argument, Laurien and Lowenberg would be included in the bargaining unit which the Board has found to be appropriate and Jordan would be excluded. This would be because, pursuant to counsel's first argument, with respect to Laurien and Lowenberg, Applications for Apprenticeship were signed, filed with the required fee prior to September 12, 1986, the date on which this application for certification was made, and have been assigned an effective date which is not later than September 12th. Therefore, pursuant to counsel's argument, a Contract of Apprenticeship existed as at September 12th, 1986. In the alternative, if the Board finds that no Contract of Apprenticeship exists, as of September 12th, 1986, Laurien and Lowenberg had made proper Applications for Apprenticeship and had been employed for less than three months. Therefore, they were lawfully employed pursuant to section 7 of Ontario Regulation 57 and section 11(2) of the Apprenticeship Act. On the other hand, Jordan would be excluded under the first argument because his Application for Apprenticeship was signed by the employer after September 12th, 1986, and under the second argument because he had been employed in the trade for more than three months at the time his Application for Apprenticeship was made.

18. The Board disagrees with respondent counsel that any of the three employees are apprentices pursuant to the Apprenticeship Act. Section 1(a) defines apprentice to mean "... a person who is at least sixteen years of age and who has entered into a contract under which he is to receive, from or through his employer, training and instruction in a trade". The filing of an Application for Apprenticeship, the payment of the requisite fee and the setting of the effective date for the application, together with an instruction from the Ministry's consultant as to the journeyman's rate on which the employer is to base the minimum apprenticeship rate to be paid to the apprenticeship applicant does not, in the Board's view, constitute evidence of a Contract of Apprenticeship in the common law sense. There is no evidence before the Board that the respondent had undertaken and the employees had accepted a rate of pay which satisfied the requirements of the Act. Nor does the Board read the judgement in the Sing/i case, supra, that such conditions constitute a Contract of Apprenticeship. The defendant Singh was found guilty of having violated the Apprenticeship Act by failing to pay the required rates under a Contract of Apprenticeship. It is clear from the judgement that the Court had before it a formal Contract of Apprenticeship and was not relying simply on the Application for Apprenticeship.

19. Should the Board be wrong and should the conditions cited by counsel be a Contract of Apprenticeship in common law, it is not a Contract of Apprenticeship within the meaning of the Apprenticeship Act. While it may be argued such a contract would satisfy section 1(a) of that Act, other sections of the Act and its Regulations cause the Board to conclude that it does not.

20. It is beyond dispute that section 9 of the Apprenticeship Act applies to a certified trade like the sheet metal trade. Subsection 1 of section 9 requires persons not qualified in the trade to "... forthwith apply in the prescribed form for apprenticeship in that trade; and within three months after commencing work in that trade, file with the Director his Contract of Apprenticeship" (emphasis added). Ontario Regulation 36 requires that an Application for Apprenticeship be in the form provided by the Minister (section 2) and section 11(1) requires that a Contract of Apprenticeship be in the form provided by the Minister. Therefore, in the Board's view, when section 1(a) of the Apprenticeship Act uses the word "contract" in defining apprentice, it is referring to a contract in the form prescribed by the Regulations under the Act. Similarly, this is the form of contract being addressed by section 15 of the Apprenticeship Act when it says "[e]very contract of apprenticeship shall, upon its approval by the Director, be registered by him forthwith". None of the three employees had signed a Contract of Apprenticeship with the respondent in the form prescribed by the Act and its Regulations on or before September 12, 1986. It follows, therefore, that none had filed contracts in the prescribed form with the Director of Apprenticeship for his approval and registration pursuant to section 15. It is not unreasonable to conclude in the circumstances that none of the three were apprentices under the Act and, if they are not apprentices, it follows that they could not be registered apprentices as that term relates to the requirements of the Apprenticeship Act.

21. That conclusion is supported by the Board's decision in Castle Plumbing and Heating Inc., Board File No. 0076-85-R, an unreported decision which issued July 22, 1985. The Board in that case was dealing with an issue respecting two employees who, by the date of making of an application for certification, had applied for apprenticeship in the sheet metal trade, were performing work of the trade and awaiting approval and acceptance of their applications. It was an agreed fact that they became "registered" sheet metal apprentices after the certification application date. The decision is silent with respect to what constitutes becoming registered. It would appear from paragraph 6 of the decision set out below, that the Board concluded that a Contract of Apprenticeship becomes registered at the time it is approved by the Director:

6. It is clear that under the Apprenticeship and Tradesmen's Qualification Act and the regulations thereunder a contract of apprenticeship is registered after the approval of the Director of Apprenticeship and that Messrs. Beek and MacDonald were by the regulations exempt from the provisions of section 9 of the Apprenticeship and Trademen's Qualification Act because they had applied in the prescribed form for apprenticeship in the certified trade of sheet metal worker because they apparently worked in that trade for three months or less before becoming registered sheet metal apprentices. However, on the date of the making of the application they were not registered sheet metal apprentices and in determining the number of employees in the bargaining unit for the purpose of the count under section 7(l), the Board includes only those persons who were within the definition of the bargaining unit on the date of the making of the application. Accordingly, John Beek and Steve MacDonald are not included for the purposes of the count.

22. Respondent counsel argues that the Board need not and should not follow the decision in Castle Plumbing, supra, because it does not address his alternative argument that the operation of section 7 of Ontario Regulation 57 is sufficient to satisfy the Board's concern about not wishing to include in the bargaining unit for purposes of the count under section 7(1) of the Labour Relations Act, persons who cannot lawfully work in the trade. Counsel submits that anyone working in the sheet metal trade on the date of making of the application should be considered prima facie to be included in the bargaining unit unless it is established that they are not lawfully at work in the trade. Persons who have fulfilled the conditions of section 7 of Regulation 57 are exempt from the prohibition set up under section 11(2) of the Apprenticeship Act and are entitled to lawfully work in the trade. Therefore, anyone working in the trade for the employer on the certification application date who has satisfied section 7 would be lawfully at work and the Board should include them in the bargaining unit. As the Board has said earlier in the decision, accepting this argument would include Laurien and Lowenberg in the unit.

23. There is no doubt that the Board has discretion to do as counsel argues, the question is whether that would be the appropriate exercise of its discretion. Section 9(2) of the Apprenticeship Act makes it clear that the effects of section 7 of Ontario Regulation 57 only exempts an employee in the trade for a three month period from the start of his employment in the trade. If the employee fails to file his Contract of Apprenticeship with the Director before the expiry of the three month period, section 9(2) mandates that the employee cease to work in the trade until he complies with section 9(1)(b). Therefore, it may be seen that the act of filing the Apprenticeship Contract with the Director establishes with greater certainty compliance with section 11 of the Apprenticeship Act. While the Board in the Irvcon decision did not explicitly address this issue, it seems to recognize the effect which would come from a filing of a Contract of Apprenticeship with the Director when it states as follows at paragraph 7:

7. In the context of the present case, of course, to adopt the applicant's position would mean that the employees in question are not employees in the bargaining unit. They would not be entitled to any voice in the determination as to whether the applicant trade union should be entitled to represent sheet metal workers, but it also follows that if the applicant trade union were certified they would not be able to continue as employees unless they became registered apprentices.

[emphasis added]

24. Having regard to all of the foregoing, to the provisions of the Apprenticeship Act and its Regulations and to the evidence before the Board herein, those persons who on September 12th, 1986, would be registered sheet metal apprentices in the bargaining unit found herein to be appropriate for collective bargaining, would be those persons who, on or before that date, had, at the very least, filed with the Director a Contract of Apprenticeship in the form prescribed by the Apprenticeship Act and its Regulations. Since no Contract of Apprenticeship in the prescribed form had been filed with the Director by or for Jordan, Laurien and Lowenberg on or before September 12th, none of them were registered sheet metal apprentices on that date. Accordingly, none of them are included in the bargaining unit for purposes of the count.

25. The Board is satisfied that there were eight employees of the respondent in the unit described above on September 12, 1986, and that more than fifty-five per cent of them, at the time the application was made, were members of the applicant on July 12, 1985, 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.

26. A timely statement in opposition to the application ("a petition") has been filed with the Board, however. For reasons given orally in the hearing, the Board finds that the petition expresses the voluntary wishes of those persons who signed it. The petition contains the signatures of a sufficient number of the employees for whom the applicant trade union has filed documentary evidence of membership, to raise doubt whether it continues to enjoy the support of enough of the persons who are its members, within the meaning of section 1(1)(l) of the Act, to be certified by the Board without need for a representation vote. Accordingly, the Board will exercise its discretion under section 7(2) of the Act to direct that a representation vote be taken.

27. Accordingly, a representation vote will be taken of the employees of the respondent in the bargaining unit. All employees of the respondent in the bargaining unit on the date hereof who do not voluntarily terminate their employment or who are not discharged for cause between the date hereof and the date the vote is taken will be eligible to vote.

28. Voters will be asked to indicate whether they wish to be represented by the applicant in their employment relations with the respondent.

29. The matter is referred to the Registrar.