Sukhinder Sandhu v. CAW Local 1459
File No.: 1589-99-U Date: February 28, 2000
Applicant: Sukhinder Sandhu Responding Party: CAW Local 1459 Intervenor: Daimler Chrysler Canada Inc.
Before: M. A. Nairn, Vice-Chair.
DECISION OF THE BOARD
1This is a request for reconsideration of the Board’s decision dated November 9, 1999. In that decision the Board determined that there was no prima facie case for the remedy requested and dismissed the application. By this request, dated February 22, 2000, the applicant seeks to have the application proceed on the basis of material included in the request for reconsideration.
2I note firstly that the application for reconsideration is filed well beyond the time limits allowed. The Rules provide that a request for reconsideration is to be filed within twenty days of the date of the decision at issue. This request has been filed over three and a half months later. The applicant makes reference to certain health concerns, cost, and family matters as explanation for the delay.
3In any event I am not persuaded that the additional material gives rise to a prima facie case for the remedy requested. The additional material filed, with one exception, references conduct by the employer, not the trade union. The employer’s conduct is not relevant to a section 74 complaint except as background. It is the trade union’s conduct that is in issue. There is no doubt that the applicant wants his grievance to proceed to arbitration in order to establish that he be reinstated to his former employment. However a trade union is entitled to make a decision that a grievance will not proceed to arbitration so long as that decision is not made in a manner that is arbitrary, discriminatory or in bad faith in its representation of the employee. The only assertion made by the applicant is that at the union membership meeting the voting was divided into “minorities” versus “whites”. The assertion is made that of 37 persons participating in the vote, 16 were minorities and he received 16 votes in favour of proceeding with his case. There is nothing more. In my view, this assertion alone, assuming it to be true and provable, is insufficient to establish that the applicant suffered discriminatory treatment at the hands of the trade union in violation of section 74 of the Act. As reviewed in the earlier decision there are no material facts pleaded to support the assertion of a violation. Assertions, unsupported by a pleading of material fact, are insufficient to warrant the Board’s inquiry.
4For these reasons, the request for reconsideration is hereby dismissed.
“M. A. Nairn”
for the Board