Canadian Health Care Workers (C.H.C.W.) v. Grand River Hospital Corporation
[1997] OLRB Rep. September/October 855
1919-97-R; 1020-97-R; 1228-97-U; 1229-97-U Canadian Health Care Workers (C.H.C.W.), Applicant v. Grand River Hospital Corporation, Responding Party v. London & District Service Workers' Union, Local 220; Canadian Health Care Workers (C.H.C.W.), Applicant v. Grand River Hospital Corporation, Responding Party v. London and District Service Workers' Union, Local 220, S.E.I.U., A.F.L., C.I.O., C.L.C., Intervenor; Canadian Health Care Workers (C.H.C.W.), Applicant v. London & District Service Workers' Union, Local 220 and Grand River Hospital Corporation, Responding Parties
BEFORE: Russell G. Goodfellow, Vice-Chair, and Board Members J. A. Ronson and H. Peacock.
APPEARANCES: Ernest D. Coetzee, Joe Daignault and Jill Webb for the applicant; Stephen Krashinsky, Andrew MacKenzie and Mary Kay Whitney for the responding union; Ted J. Kovacs and John Cox for the responding employer.
DECISION OF THE BOARD; September 12, 1997
Reasons for Decision
1The style of cause is hereby amended to reflect the correct name of the responding party employer: "Grand River Hospital Corporation".
2These two displacement applications for certification and two section 96 complaints came on for hearing before this panel of the Board on August 5, 1997. At the outset of the hearing, the Board heard and ruled on motions for dismissal brought by the London & District Service Workers Union, Local 220 ("Local 220") and supported by the employer. The Board ruled that the motions should succeed and that the applications should be dismissed. We indicated that we would provide brief reasons for our ruling as soon as possible. These are our reasons.
3The Board was of the view that the allegations set out in the two section 96 complaints and in the two certification applications (as outlined more particularly at the hearing) concerning the conduct of Local 220 and the employer could not, even if proven to be true, support a finding of a breach of the Act or undermine the results of the representation votes. It was evident from the materials and submissions before the Board that the parties engaged in what counsel for Local 220 described as a "vigorous and free wheeling" campaign for employee support in the period leading up to the votes and that neither the conduct of the employer nor that of Local 220 was sufficient to compromise the integrity of that process.
4Indeed, it appeared to the Board that the conduct which was of greatest concern to the applicant (i.e. the suggestion that employees would not receive retroactive pay previously awarded to them by an interest arbitration panel if they voted in favour of the applicant) was both ambiguous in its expression and, more importantly, was communicated in circumstances which could have no meaningful impact on the vote. The information was alleged to have been relayed in only two or three individual conversations with fellow employees by a bargaining unit member who was not an official of Local 220. Further, the conversations are alleged to have occurred at the very end of the campaign and, in our view, could not have amounted to much more than the proverbial "drop in the bucket" of what appeared to be a full and, at times, overly frank competition for employee support. Accordingly, and whether evaluated in isolation or together with the other conduct complained of, there was nothing in Local 220's behaviour that could have caused the Board to find that the Act had been breached or that no effect should be given to the results of representation votes held in two very large bargaining units and won by Local 220 by substantial margins.
5Likewise, and with respect to the alleged improper conduct of the employer, we note that the employer was under no obligation to treat supporters or representatives of the applicant and Local 220 equally in the context of the applicant's organizing campaign. The employer is subject to collective agreement obligations with Local 220 and need not extend privileges which flow from those agreements to the applicant. Moreover, there was nothing in the employer's alleged conduct which amounted to an unfair labour practice or which could be said to call into question the results of the vote as a true and accurate expression of employee wishes.
6Further, and while Board Member Ronson would have found the following to have been, in itself, a sufficient basis for dismissing the allegations and the section 96 complaints, the Board was troubled by the fact that the applicant did not raise any of its concerns prior to the counting of the ballots and the signing of the certification of conduct of election and waiver forms. At the hearing, the applicant acknowledged that all of its concerns were known to it prior to the counting of the ballots, but it did not draw these concerns to the Board's attention until the results became know. As the Board has noted on many occasions, there is a "natural skepticism" that arises when a party seeks to raise, for the first time and only after the ballots have been counted, allegations of impropriety of which it was aware prior to the vote: see eg. United Plastic Components Ltd. [1984] OLRB Rep. Nov. 1636.
7Accordingly, and for these reasons, we dismissed the section 96 complaints and the applicant's allegations in the two certification applications.
8In the result, and on the taking of the representation votes directed by the Board, not more than fifty per cent of the ballots cast by employees in the bargaining unit were cast in favour of the applicant.
9The Board will not consider another application for certification by the applicant as the bargaining agent of the employees in the bargaining unit until one year elapses from the date of this decision.
10The Registrar will destroy the ballots cast in the representation votes taken in this matter following the expiration of 30 days from the date of this decision unless a statement requesting that the ballots should not be destroyed is received by the Board from one of the parties before the expiration of such 30-day period.
11The responding party is directed to post copies of this decision immediately, adjacent to all copies of the "Notices of Vote and of Hearing" posted previously.```