[1992] OLRB Rep. June 480
3770-92-R National Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers Union of Canada (CAW-Canada), Applicant v. Burns International Security Services Limited, Responding Party
BEFORE: R. O. MacDo well, Alternate Chair, and Board Members G. O. Shamanski and D. A. Patterson.
APPEARANCES: Craig Grant and Ra] Dhaliwal for the applicant; Luc Ferland, Richard Nixon and Toni-Anne Dasent for the responding party.
DECISION OF THE BOARD; June 18, 1993
This is an application for certification.
For ease of exposition, the parties in this matter will be referred to in abbreviated form as "the union" and "Burns
The parties are agreed, and the Board finds, that the application is timely, and that the applicant is a "trade union" within the meaning of the Act.
The parties do not agree on the description of the unit of employees appropriate for collective bargaining.
The union urges the Board to follow its well established practice for single location operations of describing bargaining units with reference to the relevant municipality, rather than the specific location where employees work, lest the change in that location or (as in this case) a cancellation of a particular commercial contract undermine or constrain employees' collective bargaining rights. (See: Best Cleaners and Contractors limited, [1988] OLRB Rep. Nov. 1143 and T.R.S. Food Services Limited, [1980] OLRB Rep. April 542). A broader based bargaining unit would better accommodate the potential ebb and flow of the company's business. It enhances the likelihood that any reorganization of work, employees or commercial activity will take place within the scope of the bargaining unit.
At the present time, the company's only business activity in Hawkesbury is at the P.P.G. plant. However, the company submits that, elsewhere, it provides security services to a wide variety of customers including factories, office buildings, commercial complexes and promoters of "special events". In each case the services are tailored to the needs of particular customers, and are developed, promoted and priced accordingly. For example, the package of services supplied to a manufacturer will be different from that supplied to a shopping centre or special event, with the result that employees may have different duties and responsibilities, different reporting relationships, different hours of work, a different shift schedule (seven days a week, weekends only, etc.) and different wages. There may also be a different or fluid mix of full-time and part-time employees.
The company submits that its ability to successfully acquire such work in Hawkesbury may be impeded by a bargaining unit which extends municipal wide, but a collective agreement that, in practice, would be negotiated in relation to the small existing group of employees working at P.P.G. A collective agreement negotiated to fit that commercial relationship might well be inappropriate for others; moreover, section 64.2 of the Act now answers any concerns about the inherent fragility of either site-specific bargaining rights or bargaining rights, rooted in a particular service contract.
Counsel submits that the process of collective bargaining would be better served if the
scope of the bargaining unit where congruent with the existing commercial reality: a small group of employees at the P.P.G. plant that will negotiate in the shadow of the C.A.W. collective agreement, and might, in other circumstances, have been regarded as a kind of "tag end" to that unit. A broader based bargaining unit would create problems at the bargaining table and create commercial difficulties when the company seeks to bid for new work. Counsel submits that if there were other employees in Hawkesbury (unorganized), the Board would confine the bargaining rights to the P. P. G. site because those employees would be considered to have a separate community of interest; moreover, if the company does employ others, they will have a different interest because of the different location and terms of employment.
For the purpose of completeness we might note that broader geographically based bargaining units are not uncommon in this industry, and for this particular employer. The Board has found both kinds of unit to be appropriate. In fact, the Board has recently found to be appropriate bargaining units consisting of employees of the responding employer in these municipal areas: the Regional Municipality of Ottawa Carleton (Board File No. 3500-92-R); the Regional Municipality of Hamilton Wentworth, together with the Town of Milton, the Town of Haldimand, the City of Burlington, the City of Niagara Falls, the City of St. Catharines, the Town of West Lincoln and the Town of Grimsby, (Board File No. 2546-92-R); the Counties of Wellington and Brant and the Regional Municipality of Waterloo (Board File No. 1681-92-R); the County of Lambton (Board File No. 1172-92-R); the County of Essex (Board File No. 2612-91-R); the County of Kent (Board File No. 1987-91-R); the City of Peterborough (Board File No. 1234-88-R); and the Counties of Middlesex, Huron and Oxford (Board File Nos. 0389-92-R, 4117-91-R). None of these certificates is site-specific.
We do not know the particular facts or party agreements which underlie these bargaining unit determinations. What can be said is that for this employer, the Board has routinely found to be appropriate, broadly based municipal groupings - whatever the mix of contracts and customers might have been in each geographic area. The Board has not issued multiple site, or multiple "customer specific" certificates.
Having considered the parties' representations, the Board sees no reason in this case to depart from its well established practice of describing bargaining units in respect of municipal boundaries where, as here, the employer has but one location in such municipality. Indeed, to apply that approach in this case would not only be consistent with established practice, but would also continue a pattern of geographic bargaining units which is already emerging in this employer's own organization. And, insofar as Hawkesbury is concerned, the problems adverted to by counsel are, at this stage, entirely hypothetical, and can be substantially moderated through the process of collective bargaining.
It is unnecessary for us to comment on the scope of section 64.2 of the Act which came into effect in January 1993 or indeed, the potential impact of the Board's power to combine bargaining units. It suffices to note that section 64.2 and section 7 were necessary precisely because of the problems associated with narrow or site-specific bargaining units, and it is not at all clear that this remedial legislation provides a complete answer to those problems.
In summary, despite the thoughtful and intriguing arguments of counsel for the employer, it is our opinion that in all the circumstances of this case the unit proposed by the trade union is appropriate for collective bargaining, and that the difficulties raised by the employer can be appropriately addressed and accommodated at the bargaining table. They are not sufficiently serious to warrant restricting the bargaining unit description in the way proposed by the responding party.
Having regard to the foregoing, the Board finds that the unit of employees appropriate for collective bargaining should be described as follows:
all security guards employed by Burns International Security Services Limited, in the Town of Hawkesbury, save and except supervisors, and persons above the rank of supervisor.
The Board is satisfied, on the basis of all the evidence before it, that more than fifty-five per cent of the employees of the responding party in the bargaining unit on March 25, 1993, the certification application date, had applied to become members of the applicant on or before that date.
A certificate will issue to the applicant.