[1994] OLRB Rep. august 1016
1709-93-R Canadian Union of Public Employees and its Local 2451, Applicant v. Marriott Corporation (at Carleton University), Responding Party
BEFORE: Russell G. Goodfellow, Vice-Chair, and Board Members J. A. Rundle and E. G. Theobald.
DECISION OF THE BOARD; August 19, 1994
This is the continuation of an application for a combination of bargaining units pursuant to section 7 of the Labour Relations Act.
By decision dated February 9, 1994 [now reported at [1994] OLRB Rep. Feb. 151], the Board directed the combination of a full-time and part-time bargaining unit of the respondent's employees and remained seized to deal with any further remedial relief.
On June 16, 1994 the applicant wrote to the Board requesting that the "matter be set down for continued hearing with respect to remedial relief'. The letter further states:
"The Union has corresponded with the Employer since [the Board's February 9, 1994 decision] in an attempt to have the parties sit down and negotiate a merged collective agreement. The employer has never responded to the Union."
Attached to the union's letter are a draft collective agreement and two letters to the employer indicating that the union was preparing the draft agreement and, later, enclosing the draft for the employer's comments. The June 16, 1994 letter to the Board asks that the matter be set down for hearing as soon as possible.
- By notice dated July 5, 1994 the Board listed this matter for hearing on Thursday, July
21, 1994. Prior to that hearing, however, the parties asked that it be adjourned to a date after September 12, 1994. Having granted that request, it is now time for the Board to consider re-listing the matter for hearing.
- This would appear to be only the second time a combination application has come back to the Board under section 7(5). In Olympia & York Developments Limited, [1994] OLRB Rep. May 583, the Board heard evidence and considered the parties' submissions in support of the positions they had adopted in bargaining. Before determining that the parties had not made sufficient efforts to bargain their own solution to the integration issues, the Board commented:
"22. In all of the cases under section 7, the presumed starting point has been a process of bargaining. Before considering the exercise of its discretion under section 7(5), the Board has required the parties to explore their own solutions for whatever transitional difficulties might arise from the combination of bargaining units. That is the view that we expressed in the instant case, and it is consistent with the position taken in later cases.
It also seems to work. Since January 1993, the Board has made quite a number of consolidation orders (mostly on agreement), and not one of them has come back to the Board. We do not know the particular circumstances of these files, but experience seems to suggest that if the parties put their minds to it, they will find that the transitional problems are not as intractable as the applicant here suggests they are.
What is the content of the bargaining that should precede any request for an order under section 7(5)? We do not think that it is either desirable or possible to be too definitive about that. But at the very least, it should encompass the kind of reasonable efforts and full, rational discussion that have always been part of the "section 15" duty to bargain."
On that basis, the Board declined to make a direction under section 7(5).
In this case, the Board wishes to remind the parties of the need to bargain about the consequences of the combination order and to engage in "the kind of reasonable efforts and full, rational discussion that have always been part of the "section 15" duty to bargain". Accordingly, before this matter will be re-listed for hearing, the union must provide the Board and the employer with a detailed description of the orders or remedies requested and a detailed statement of all of the material facts on which it relies, in accordance with Rule 12 of the Board's Rules of Procedure. Within seven days of the receipt of this information, the employer is directed to respond to the union's request and to supply the information required by Rule 14.
Once the Board receives this material, it will determine whether and when this matter will be re-listed for hearing and what additional steps need to be taken.