[1987] OLRB Rep. September 1154
0701-87-R; 0702-87-R Ontario Catholic Occasional Teachers' Association, Applicant v. The Lakehead District Roman Catholic Separate School Board, Respondent; Ontario Catholic Occasional Teachers' Association, Applicant v. The Nippissing District Roman Catholic Separate School Board, Respondent
BEFORE: Owen V. Gray, Vice-Chair, and Board Members W. H. Wightman and R. R. Montague.
DECISION OF THE BOARD; September 9, 1987
By decisions dated July 23, 1987, in each of these matters we directed that a pre-hearing vote be conducted and that the Board's notice of the vote be given by mail to the persons whom the parties had identified as eligible voters. In order to facilitate the Board's giving notice in that manner we further directed that the respondent supply the Board with mailing labels containing the names and last addresses known to the respondent of all of the persons on the voters lists. By letter dated August 27, 1987, an official of the applicant has asked the Registrar for "a copy of the mailing list supplied by the employer to the OLRB" in each of these applications. Having regard to the Board's decision in Queen's University, [1987] OLRB Rep. June 925, the Registrar has referred that request to us.
For some time now, the Board has been requiring that respondents to pre-hearing vote certification applications involving occasional teachers provide names and address labels to assist the Board in communicating with affected persons. In Board of Education for the City of York, [1985] OLRB Rep. May 767, the Board addressed the question whether an applicant for certification with respect to a unit of occasional teachers should have access to the information supplied to the Board. It concluded that:
For the reasons then, when an application for certification in respect of occasional teachers is made under section 9 of the Act (the pre-hearing vote section), or a vote of occasional teachers is directed under section 7, the respondent employer will be required to file with the Board a list of the names and addresses of all employees known to it to be in the voting constituency. Such list will be available to any person or party with a direct interest in the campaign. Since this is admittedly a new rule in the test case, we are satisfied that it should be applied prospectively only. Further, since most of the occasional teachers will be geographically dispersed, and have no need to visit a particular school, the representation vote should ordinarily be conducted by means of a mailed ballot.
[emphasis added]
An applicant trade union is clearly a party with a direct interest in the pre-vote campaign. The intent of this new rule was that the lists would be available through the Board after they are filed.
The Board went a step further in Scarborough Board of Education, [1986] OLRB Rep. Mar. 361. There, the applicant for certification with respect to a unit of occasional teachers requested that the respondent be ordered to copy the applicant directly with the mailing list when that list was filed with the Board. After entertaining the submissions of the parties, the Board made the order requested by the applicant. It did not, however, announce as a rule of general application that such an order would be made in every case.
In The Halton Roman Catholic Separate School Board, [1986] OLRB Rep. July 962 the Board abandoned the general rule that balloting in occasional teacher representation votes be conducted by mail, but noted that
The Board's policy that notice of the vote be given by mail to eligible voters and that the names and addresses of those voters be given to the applicant are unaffected by this decision.
- Queen's University at Kingston, [1987] OLRB Rep. June 925 (reconsideration denied by decision dated June 26, 1987) involved an application for certification with respect to the respondent university's full time "support staff." The applicant had requested that a pre-hearing vote be taken. In accordance with the Board's usual practice, after the application was filed a labour relations officer was appointed to confer with the parties with respect to, among other things, all matters relating to the conduct of any pre-hearing representation vote. After that conference had taken place, the applicant wrote to the Board asking that it
direct the respondent to make available to [the applicant] and the intervener a list of names and mailing addresses of all employees in the voting constituency.
The application in that case did not involve occasional teachers. At the parties' meeting with the officer there had been no question of the Board's giving notice by mail, nor any other reference to anyone's needing the addresses of persons named on the voters list for any purpose. In those circumstances, the applicant was raising a novel issue with respect to the conduct of a pre-hearing representation vote for the first time after the meeting with the labour relations officer, without having raised the issue at that meeting. For reasons set out in its decision, the Board concluded that it should not and would not entertain the request when it had not been raised at the meeting with the labour relations officer.
- Here the applicant is not asking that the respondent be ordered to do anything. It is unnecessary for the Registrar to inform the respondent and invite its comments before acting on the request. The rule announced in City of York Board of Education, supra, is that in occasional teacher cases, all interested parties will have access to mailing lists supplied to the Board by respondents. That rule applies to each such case unless the Board specifically directs otherwise. For the very reasons given in Queen's University at Kingston, supra, any request that the Board specifically direct that the applicant not be given access to the mailing list must be raised at the meeting with the labour relations officer held in connection with the application in question. As no such request was made at the meeting in either of these applications, the general rule applied to each of them. For these reasons, on September 4, 1987, we endorsed the record in each of these matters as follows:
For reasons which will be set out in a formal decision, it would be proper for the Registrar to supply the applicant with copies of the mailing lists supplied by the respondent in this matter, as requested in the applicant's letter of August 27th, 1987.
We would add that when a similar request is made in any other occasional teacher application in which mailing lists have been supplied to the Board, it may be honoured by the Registrar without reference to the Board unless the Board has otherwise expressly directed with respect to that particular application.