Brick and Allied Craft Union of Canada, Local 5 v. Hyde Park Masonry Limited
1072-00-G Brick and Allied Craft Union of Canada, Local 5, Applicant v. Hyde Park Masonry Limited, Responding Party v. International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers, Local 6, Intervenor.
1357-00-U Brick and Allied Craft Union of Canada, Local 5, Applicant v. Hyde Park Masonry Limited, International Union of Brick and Allied Craftsmen, Local 6, Luciano Mascarin and Erni Bortolussi, Responding Parties.
APPEARANCES: L.A. Richmond and J. Haggis for the applicant; Carl Peterson, Tim Patrick, R. Bortolussi and E. Bortolussi for the responding party employer; Donald K. Eady and Michael Gottheil for the responding party union and intervenor.
BEFORE: David A. McKee, Vice-Chair.
DECISION OF THE BOARD; October 24, 2000
1A hearing in these matters was held on September 21, 2000. At that hearing the Board rendered an oral decision. No party asked that it be immediately reduced to writing, and so no decision was issued at that time. On October 23, 2000 the Board received a request for reconsideration of part of that decision from the applicant. For the assistance of the parties, the Board reproduces the decision given orally at the hearing.
Board File No. 1072-00-G and 1357-00-U will be consolidated. It appears that the issues raised in 1357-00-U are identical to the collective agreement issues in 1072‑00‑G. Given that decision, Local 6 has status as a party to the proceeding. Since section 96(5) does not apply at all, the applicant will proceed first in the calling of evidence.
The first issue to be dealt with is the status of the applicant. This is a “claim” within the meaning of section 68 and the Board will deal with it as such.
The International Union has status for the limited purposes of the first issue. It has a legal interest in the claim of successorship by the applicant particularly since it impacts on the International Constitution. The International Union does not have sufficient legal interest to intervene in the rest of the issues. Territorial jurisdiction is at least partly an argument about the interpretation of a collective agreement to which the International Union is not a party.
2It may be of assistance to the parties to elaborate on the last paragraph of that decision. The applicant states that it, the Brick and Allied Craft Union of Canada, Local 5 (“BACU Local 5” or the “applicant”) which the Board was advised is a local of the Brick and Allied Craft Union of Canada (“BACU”), is a successor to the International Union of Brick and Allied Craftworkers Local 5, which is or was a local chartered by the International Union of Brick and Allied Craftworkers (the “IUBAC” or the International Union”). This is clearly a “claim” within the meaning of section 68, and was properly before the Board in this case.
3This claim was resisted by the other parties, including the IUBAC. One of the arguments raised by these parties was that this issue had been decided in a decision of the Board dated September 15, 2000 in Board File Nos. 2784-98-R and 1904-99-U. The Board indicated that, given the way the applicant framed its claim as successor, it was not apparent to this panel of the Board that the claim as articulated in this application had been decided in the earlier decision. It was certainly not clear that the question could even be decided without hearing the evidence of the claim. Accordingly, all parties decided to proceed with the evidence supporting the claim of successorship before any argument was made on the status of the applicant.
4The applicant did challenge the status of the IUBAC as a party to any part of the proceeding. The Board ruled that the IUBAC had status only for the limited purpose of the claim of successorship. Such a claim inevitably involves dealing with the issue of whether or not there has been a transfer of jurisdiction from IUBAC Local 5 to the applicant (on the facts as pleaded, it would seem that there is no question of merger or amalgamation). This raises issues about the capacity of IUBAC Local 5 to transfer jurisdiction, and a consideration of the “contractual” rights of the IUBAC under the constitution and bylaws of IUBAC Local 5. Such rights, if any, are not necessarily determinative of anything. Section 68 does not direct the Board simply to apply the strict letter of the constitution of a trade union in the same manner that a court would in applying the contractual analysis upon which common law analysis of internal trade union activity rests. However, the claim that the IUBAC has certain rights under the constitution and by laws of the “transferor” to the transaction are at least sufficiently important to give it status to appear as a party. It is entitled to address the question of what, if anything, the Board should do about any rights it asserts it has in such a transaction.
5As the Board said at the hearing, that is the extent of the legal interest of the IUBAC. It has no legal interest in any of the other issues as outlined before the Board on the first day of hearing. The IUBAC will not have status in any other part of this proceeding unless an unexpected issue arises and the IUBAC renews its request for status at that time, and is successful in doing so.
6One administrative matter was neglected on the last day of hearing. Since one of these files is an application for the referral of a grievance to arbitration pursuant to section 133 of the Labour Relations Act, 1995, the filing fees required by section 133(10) to (12) ought to have been paid. Before the next day of hearing, all parties will be required to pay the daily hearing fee for both September 21 and the next day of hearing. In addition, the IUBAC is required to file its intervention and pay the filing fee for doing so (see Doug Chalmers Construction Limited, Board File No. 0547-00-G, unreported decisions dated June 2, 2000 and August 11, 2000). Since the hearing is not scheduled to commence until 10:00 a.m., the Board expects the parties to have attended to this matter before the hearing begins.
7The Board will deal first with the applicant’s request for reconsideration.
"David A. McKee"
for the Board