Ontario Labour Relations Board
[1990] OLRB Rep. March 357
3067-89-R United Steelworkers of America, Applicant v. Wackenhut of Canada Ltd., Respondent
BEFORE: Robert D. Howe, Vice-Chair, and Board Members M. Rozenberg and K. Davies.
DECISION OF THE BOARD; March 20, 1990
- This is an application for certification. In a letter dated March 12, 1990 which accompanied the application, applicant's counsel wrote, in part, as follows:
The address and telephone number listed in paragraph 1(c) of the instant application are the address and telephone number of the respondent's head office. The respondent's employees work at a number of sites in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, Wellington County and Perth County. We are advised that some of the respondents employees attend at the respondents head office every two weeks to pick up their pay cheques, however some employees are paid by direct deposit and do not attend the office on a regular basis. Given these circumstances it is not possible to give notice to all affected employees by posting at the respondents head office and the applicant requests that the Board direct the respondent to post notices at the following sites:
[The letter then lists seventeen sites].
In the alternative the applicant respectfully requests that the Board immediately direct the employer to supply to the Board the addresses of employees in the affected bargaining unit so that service can be effected by mail.
In McLean Security, [1989] OLRB Rep. Oct. 1048, the Board wrote, in part, as follows:
The Board has always recognized that in some employment situations special steps must be taken in order that employees will receive notice of certification proceedings. It does not follow, however, that it is necessary to authorize Labour Relations Officers to travel throughout Ontario posting notices on the premises of the employer's clients. Not only might that raise some difficult legal questions in respect of businesses not themselves covered by the Labour Relations Act (embassies or buildings operated by the Federal Crown, for example), but it still would not insure that the guards would receive timely notice. Such approach would require a significant commitment of Board resources without a concomitant assurance that notice would be effected....
We do agree, though, that a potential problem does exist and that where such problem is identified by either the union or a respondent employer, the Board should modify its general approach as it has done in the case of supply teachers who are called in on an irregular basis and move from school to school. There, too, employees have an irregular work pattern and no fixed place of employment so that postings may not come to their attention. In the case of occasional teachers the Board now routinely requires the employer to prepare and provide to the Board a list of addresses - usually on address labels - so that the Board can send notice, by mail, to the employees in the proposed bargaining unit. Notice by mail is also used in the construction industry where similar problems sometimes arise.
We therefore propose to adopt the following practice when dealing with applications regarding security guards. Where neither the trade union or employer raise any notice questions the Board will follow its usual practice, authorized by the Rules, requiring a posting on the employer's premises in such place or places where the notices will come to the attention of the employees affected by a certification application. Where employees regularly visit their employers office to pick up their cheques or receive instructions, that form of notice should be sufficient. However, where either the trade union or the employer identify a potential notice problem, the Board will direct the employer to supply the addresses of employees so that service can be effected by mail. This may entail an extension of the terminal date and some delay in processing the certification application, but, in all likelihood, the delay would be less than that involved in the approach suggested by the union, and the receipt of notice is more certain.
Accordingly, the Board hereby directs the respondent to provide the Board on or before March 29, 1990, with a list of addresses (preferably on address labels) of all of the employees in the bargaining unit described in paragraph 3 of the application, to enable the Board to mail notice of this application to the employees affected by it.
The terminal date for this application, which would normally be March 30, 1990, is hereby extended to April 11, 1990.