Office and Professional Employees International Union v. Ombudsman Ontario
[1992] OLRB Rep. February 147
2927-92-R Office and Professional Employees International Union, Applicant v. Ombudsman Ontario, Responding Party
BEFORE: G. T. Surdykowski, Vice-Chair, and Board Members J. A. Rundle and H. Peacock.
DECISION OF THE BOARD; February 5, 1993
1This is an application for certification in which the parties have reached agreement on all matters relevant to the disposition of the application, and have further agreed to waive a formal hearing in the matter.
2The applicant is a trade union within the meaning of section 1(1) of the Labour Relations Act.
3Having regard to the material before the Board, and agreement of the parties in that respect, the Board finds that:
all employees of Ombudsman Ontario in the Province of Ontario, save and except Managers or Assistant Directors, persons above the rank of Manager or Assistant Director, Administrative Assistants, Administrative Secretaries to Directors, Legislative Liaison, students involved in cooperative training programs with a high school, college or university and students employed during the school vacation period,
constitute a unit of employees of the responding party appropriate for collective bargaining.
4In accordance with the Board's Rules of Procedure respecting applications for certification, the responding employer has filed a list of employees in the bargaining unit, together with specimen signatures for the employees on that list. Having regard to the list filed by the employer, and the finding of the Board with respect to the bargaining unit description as aforesaid, the Board is satisfied that there were ninety-two employees in the unit at the time the application was made.
5We note that six of these ninety-two employees have been identified by the parties as being "lawyers". In fact, it appears that three are students et al who are performing their articles for the Ombudsman Ontario. While there is a "student member" class of "membership" in the Law Society of Upper Canada, it appears that the definition of "member" in section 1 of the Law Society Act excludes students at law. It would therefore appear that student members are not members. Quite apart from that, it seems clear that students-at-law are precisely that and not lawyers.
6Subsections 6(4), 6(4.1) and 6(4.2) provide that:
6(4) Subsections (4.1) and (4.2) apply with respect to employees who are entitled to practise one of the following professions in Ontario and who are employed in their professional capacity:
Architecture.
Dentistry.
Engineering.
Land Surveying.
Law.
(4.1) A bargaining unit consisting solely of employees who are members of the same profession shall be deemed by the Board to be a unit of employees appropriate for collective bargaining.
(4.2) Despite subsection (4.1), the Board may include the employees described in subsection (4.1) in a bargaining unit with other employees if the Board is satisfied that a majority of the employees described in subsection (4.1) wish to be included in the bargaining unit.
Students-at-law are not entitled to practice the profession of law and it seems to us that these subsections therefore do not apply to them. However, we need not actually determine that issue in this case. Whether or not the students-at-law in this case are considered to be members of the profession of law for purposes of the Labour Relations Act, the majority of the persons affected in this case have demonstrated that they wish to be included in the bargaining unit herein by means which include a written declaration to that effect.
7In the result, the Board is satisfied that a majority of the employees to whom subsection 6(4) applies herein wish to be included in the bargaining unit herein, and the Board finds it appropriate to so include them.
8In support of this application for certification, the applicant union has filed documentary evidence of membership on behalf of sixty-two persons. This membership evidence is supported by a duly completed Form A-4 Declaration verifying membership evidence.
9The Board is satisfied, on the basis of the evidence before it, that more than fifty-five percent of the employees of the responding party in the bargaining unit, at the time the application was made, were members of the applicant on January 12, 1993, which is both the application date and the date which the Board determines, under section 105(2)(j) of the Labour Relations Act, to be the time for the purpose of ascertaining membership under section 8(1) of the Act.
10A certificate will issue to the applicant.