0706-99-PS Peterborough Regional Health Centre, Applicant v. Canadian Union of Operating Engineers and its Local 101, Canadian Union of Public Employees and its Local 1943, Ontario Public Service Employees' Union and its Locals 321, 342, 343 and 345, Responding Parties v. Ontario Nurses' Association, Intervenor.
BEFORE: Patrick Kelly, Vice-Chair.
DECISION OF THE BOARD; August 10, 2000
1The style of cause is amended to delete the Association of Allied Health Professionals: Ontario as a responding party in this matter.
2This is an application under the Public Sector Labour Relations Transitions Act ("the Act") to determine the number and descriptions of the bargaining units that are appropriate for the successor employer’s operations, and to determine which of the bargaining agents represent the employees of the bargaining units.
3This application arises following the merger of Peterborough Civic Hospital (“the Civic”) with St. Joseph’s Health Centre (“St. Joseph’s).
4The matter came before me as a consultation which took place on May 31, 2000. The Ontario Nurses Association did not appear at the consultation.
5The current bargaining unit configuration is as follows:
Union
Bargaining Unit
No, of Employees
Location
Canadian Union of Operating Engineers
Stationary Engineers
5
Peterborough Civic Hospital Site
Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 1943
Service Employees (including stationary engineers)
573
Peterborough Civic Hospital Site/St. Joseph’s Health Centre Site
Ontario Public Service Employees Union, Local 345
Office and Clerical employees
228
Peterborough Civic Hospital Site/St. Joseph’s Health Centre Site
Ontario Public Service Employees Union, Local 321
Full and part-time clerical paramedical employees
128
Peterborough Civic Hospital Site/St. Joseph’s Health Centre Site
Ontario Public Service Employees Union, Locals 342 and 343
Full-time technical/paramedical employees unit; and part-time technical/paramedical employees unit
132
Peterborough Civic Hospital Site/St. Joseph’s Health Centre Site
Ontario Nurses’ Association, Local 3
Full-time and part-time registered nurses
596
Peterborough Civic Hospital Site/St. Joseph’s Health Centre Site
6The applicant employer proposes a single paramedical unit, and a single bargaining unit of office & clerical, service and stationary engineer employees. The Ontario Public Service Employees' Union ("OPSEU"), which now represents all paramedical employees of the applicant (in part due to a merger with the Association of Allied Health Professionals: Ontario which formerly represented the employees in Local 321), agrees that there should be a single unit comprising both technical and clinical paramedical staff. It opposes the applicant's proposal to combine the service and office/clerical bargaining units. Inasmuch as the applicant's proposal to combine the office/clerical and service units is concerned, the Canadian Union of Operating Engineers and its Local 101 ("CUOE") object to being rolled into that bargaining unit. The Canadian Union of Public Employees and its Local 1943 (“CUPE”) agree with the position advanced by the applicant. The remaining issues are:
(i) Whether or not there are “human resource plans” in place within the meaning of section 39(2) of the Act which oust the application of the Act;
(ii) If there are no human resource plans in place, should the existing CUOE bargaining unit be maintained, augmented (by combining all stationary employees of the predecessors into a larger craft unit), or rolled into one bargaining unit;
(iii) If it is determined by the Board that the service bargaining unit and the office & clerical unit should not be combined, whether the position of stores clerk, a position which exists in both bargaining units, should be included in the service bargaining unit or in the office/clerical bargaining unit.
Background
7The applicant was created in January 1999 by the merger of the predecessors. The merger was by order of the Ministry of Health, via a direction of the Ontario Health Services Restructuring Commission.
8Prior to the merger, the two predecessor hospitals (the Civic and St. Joseph’s) had been involved in lengthy negotiations in an attempt to rationalize services between them. Although both the Civic and St. Joseph's agreed that a sharing of services was to their mutual advantage, they were unable to agree to a full merger. Specifically, St. Joseph's, as a denominational hospital, associated with the Catholic church, could not agree to a full merger due to the family planning services offered by the Civic.
9The compromise finally reached was to agree to share some services.
10To this end, in 1994 the Civic and St. Joseph's created a third corporate entity – Peterborough Hospitals Shared Services (“PHSS”)- to manage the rationalization of certain shared services between the two hospitals.
11PHSS oversaw the combining of the following medical services: laboratory, diagnostic imaging, pharmacy, rehabilitation therapies, and respiratory. Certain administrative and human resources departments were also shared. Both the Civic and St. Joseph's continued to operate a significant number of distinct services, separate and apart from one another and from PHSS. The two predecessor hospitals continued to have separate corporate identities, including separate chief executive officer, separate boards of governors and separate foundations.
12To facilitate the sharing of services, the two predecessor hospitals, and in some cases PHSS, entered into agreements with the trade unions at both sites.
(i) The OPSEU Office and Clerical Agreement
13While OPSEU originally signed an agreement with the predecessor hospitals and PHSS on September 22, 1994, parts of the agreement were subsumed in the collective agreement between OPSEU and PHSS and the predecessor hospitals signed on March 10, 1997 which created a single bargaining unit of all office and clerical employees of either predecessor hospital or PHSS.
14When this collective agreement expired on March 31, 1998, the parties entered into negotiations for a renewal collective agreement. The negotiations were not successful and the matter proceeded to arbitration in August 1999, culminating in an award of a Board of Arbitration dated February 15, 2000. The parties are in the process of preparing a collective agreement reflecting the terms of that Award.
15All aspects of the collective agreement apply to all office and clerical employees, whether they work at the former Civic site, or at the former St. Joseph's site. Importantly, seniority rights apply across the combined unit. Employees can bump from one site to the other.
(ii) The CUPE Agreement
16An agreement was originally signed between CUPE and the predecessor hospitals on January 17, 1997 which effectively created a single service bargaining unit across the two hospitals.
17Parts of this agreement were subsumed in the subsequent collective agreement between CUPE and the Applicant signed on September 16, 1998.
18That collective agreement creates a single bargaining unit of all service employees of either the Civic or St. Joseph's. The collective agreement creates a single set of rights for all service employees of the Applicant, regardless of which site the employee works at. There is a single seniority list and an employee can bump across sites.
19In June of 1998, the Ontario's Health Services Restructuring Commission reviewed St. Joseph's and the Civic and directed the closure of St. Joseph’s.
Analysis
Are the OPSEU and CUPE collective agreements, which subsume the rationalization agreements, “human resource plans” within the meaning of the Act?
20Section 39(2) of the Act provides as follows:
(2) In the event of a conflict between this Act and a human resource plan agreed upon by an employer and a bargaining agent, the plan prevails except in the following circumstances and respects:
Section 33 of this Act prevails over a plan. That section does not prevail over a plan that is agreed upon before this subsection comes into force. However, that section prevails over such a plan if the plan is amended on or after the date this subsection comes into force.
A plan does not prevail over a regulation made under clause 40(1)(a).
A plan does not prevail over this Act in such circumstances as may be prescribed. It does not prevail over such provisions of this Act as may be prescribed.
21The Board is of the view that the collective agreements for the OPSEU and CUPE bargaining units do not constitute or contain a “human resource plan”, referred to in section 39(2) of the Act.
22Even if the earlier 1994, 1996 and 1997 agreements could be considered human resource plans, the collective agreements that OPSEU claims subsume those plans do not make any specific reference to those documents. There is very little remaining substance in the collective agreements reflecting the content of the earlier agreements.
23It must also be borne in mind that the predecessor collective agreements came into existence prior to the Act coming into effect. The parties to them might have contemplated aspects of multi-hospital rationalization, and responded accordingly by putting together the agreements that OPSEU says found their way into collective agreements. But they were not done in contemplation of the demise of the predecessor employers and the creation of a brand new successor employer. Bill 136 deals with the labour relations consequences of the legal amalgamation of predecessor hospitals, municipalities and school boards into new legal entities. A “human resource plan” must be considered in the context of the circumstances that gave rise to the creation of the Act. The parties in this case did not reach agreements in anticipation of the legal demise of the predecessors. The agreements are, for that reason too, not human resource plans.
24The Act is replete with references to the term “collective agreement”, “replacement agreement”, “composite agreement”, and “agreements” between bargaining agents and successor employers to alter the number and descriptions of predecessor bargaining units. As mentioned, there is a single reference to the term “human resource plan”. In order for OPSEU’s contention to succeed on this point, the Board has to accept that a human resource plan can exist in the form of a collective agreement, and not merely as an attachment or appendix to a collective agreement. If such had been the intention of the Legislature, it would have been quite simple to augment section 39(2) by either defining a human resource plan in broad terms to include an agreement or collective agreement between an employer and a bargaining agent(s); or by commencing the subsection in the following manner (or words to similar effect):
“In the event of a conflict between this Act and an agreement within the meaning of sections 20 and 21 or a collective agreement or a human resource plan agreed upon by an employer and a bargaining agent, the agreement, collective agreement or plan prevails…”
I must conclude that the Legislature intended to differentiate between human resource plans and collective agreements.
25For all of the above reasons the Board determines that the CUPE and OPSEU collective agreements are not human resource plans within the meaning of section 39(2) of the Act.
The CUOE Craft Unit of Stationary Engineers
26Counsel for CUOE adopted OPSEU’s submissions concerning section 39(2) of the Act, and argued that any human resource plan to which CUPE is a party would prevent the application of the Act, and in particular, any reconfiguration of the CUPE service unit. As indicated above, the Board rejects the contention that there was a human resource plan involving CUPE which would bar the application of the Act.
27Counsel for CUOE pointed out that its craft bargaining unit at the Civic has co-existed in what was referred to as “a functional amalgamation” since 1996 alongside the larger CUPE service unit (inclusive of stationary engineers) at St. Joseph’s, without labour relations incident. It was further submitted that it was open to CUOE stationary engineers to join the CUPE service unit, but that they have opted instead to remain in the CUOE unit. In other words, CUOE is the bargaining agent of choice for these employees, and remains so following hospital restructuring.
28The Board was referred to section 1 of the Act, which states:
The following are the purposes of this Act:
To encourage best practices that ensure the delivery of quality and effective public services that are affordable for taxpayers.
To facilitate the establishment of effective and rationalized bargaining unit structures in restructured broader public sector organizations.
To facilitate collective bargaining between employers and trade unions that are the freely-designated representatives of the employees following restructuring in the broader public sector and in other specified circumstances.
To foster the prompt resolution of workplace disputes arising from restructuring.
29Counsel for CUOE claimed that, in light of the absence of any labour relations problem over the last four years, and given that the CUOE employees appear content to remain within their craft unit, the Board should not change the current bargaining unit configuration, because to do so would ignore the purposes for which the Act was created.
30In the alternative, CUOE asserted that a craft unit should be carved out covering all stationary engineers of the applicant, including those currently in the CUPE service unit.
31The Board disagrees with the CUOE submissions concerning the purpose of the Act. The mere fact that there have been no labour relations disputes, coupled with the apparent satisfaction of the CUOE employees to remain within their bargaining unit since 1996, does not foreclose the possibility of altering CUOE’s bargaining unit structure. The second purpose of the Act articulated in section 1 is “[t]o facilitate the establishment of effective and rationalized bargaining unit structures in restructured broader public sector organizations”. To permit the CUOE bargaining unit to remain as is in the newly organized corporation of the applicant would neither be effective nor rational within the meaning of the second stated purpose of the Act. For example, in the event of the layoff of stationary engineers, those in the single-classification CUOE unit would no doubt face much harsher redeployment prospects (the likelihood is that they would have no such prospects) than their counterparts in the more diverse CUPE service unit. The same problem remains in the event of the establishment of a larger, carved-out stationary engineer bargaining unit containing current CUOE and CUPE stationary engineers. It does not make labour relations sense, nor is it effective or rational to retain the stand-alone craft unit in these circumstances, particularly when one of the predecessors has a history of including stationary engineers in the larger service unit: see City of Toronto, [1998] OLRB Rep. Oct. 772.
32Pursuant to section 22(1) the Board determines that CUOE's stationary engineers should be included in a larger bargaining unit and that the bargaining agent for that unit shall be determined by conducting a representation vote.
Should the service bargaining unit for which CUPE has bargaining rights be combined with the office & clerical unit for which OPSEU has bargaining rights?
33Both the applicant and CUPE supported the notion of a combined service and office/clerical bargaining unit. OPSEU was opposed. The Board is of the view that the service and office/clerical units should remain intact.
34The applicant submitted that the combined unit would be in the best interests of its patients, of the applicant as a caregiver, and of the employees who are members of the two bargaining units. However, there was virtually no information provided as to how the interests of the applicant’s patients would be furthered by a combined unit, and very little information, other than what can be inferred from the materials submitted, as to how the combined unit would enhance the applicant’s services to the public. Counsel for the applicant submitted that the applicant carries an operating deficit, that hospitals generally have to very sensitive about reducing costs, and that combining the two bargaining units would reduce the cost of delivery of its labour relations services, presumably because there would be fewer labour relations problems in a combined unit. The difficulty is that there was no evidence or basis upon which the Board could satisfy itself that a combined unit would reduce labour relations time and money.
35Thus, we are left with the argument that the employees themselves would be better off in a single bargaining unit. On that point, the applicant argued that a single unit would facilitate the redeployment of employees in the face of a layoff, because there would be a greater number of potential classifications into which affected staff might be placed if their own jobs were eliminated. Similarly, disabled employees would have a greater chance of being accommodated in a bargaining unit containing a large and varied number of jobs. On this latter point, the applicant tendered materials that depicted a number of instances in which certain unnamed employees of one bargaining unit had not been accommodated in the other because of what the applicant says are difficult seniority barriers contained in the respective collective agreements. OPSEU objected to the applicant’s failure to name the employees in question, thus depriving OPSEU of the opportunity to give full answer regarding the accommodation issue. OPSEU went on to submit that, in any event, the applicant had never approached the subject of inter-unit accommodation of disabled employees, or inter-unit redeployment strategies, in any collective bargaining talks with OPSEU. The applicant did not dispute that it had not tabled formal proposals regarding accommodation and redeployment across bargaining units in its collective bargaining negotiations with OPSEU. However, it claimed to have discussed individual cases on an ad hoc basis with OPSEU with no success, and, as a result, was certain of OPSEU’s determined resistance to inter-unit transfers of employees with full seniority rights. As far as the applicant was concerned, it would have been futile to pursue the matter formally in collective bargaining.
36CUPE took the position that the traditional division of office/clerical and service units has been challenged in more recent years. Counsel for CUPE contended that the critical question is not so much based on community-of-interest considerations as it is on the employer’s objective operating needs. It was pointed out that the applicant will eventually cease to provide service from the two predecessor sites, and will be operating out of a single site. CUPE submitted that it makes more sense to combine the bargaining units in these circumstances. Moreover, the fact that the two bargaining units share a common job classification – storesperson – suggests that the units could be effectively combined. Finally, counsel for CUPE submitted that the Board does not have a hard and fast approach suggesting that it will not combine functionally different bargaining units in the absence of a history of experience with such combined units by one or more of the predecessors. Rather, regard must be had to the unique facts of each case.
37The Board is not persuaded by the arguments of the applicant and CUPE. If the test, or one of the tests in a determination of this kind is the objective operating needs of the employer, then neither the applicant nor CUPE have convinced the Board that the operating needs of the applicant are either prejudiced by the continuation of the separate bargaining units, or enhanced by their combination. There was no evidence of particular labour relations, operating or cost problems for the applicant as a result of having separate service and office/clerical bargaining units. The suggestion that the separate bargaining units pose unique difficulties in respect of accommodation and redeployment matters has not been put to the test. That is, the applicant has not in the past attempted to formally bargain with OPSEU regarding the issue of inter-bargaining unit transfers. Assuming, without deciding that OPSEU may not have been receptive to “one-off” attempts by the applicant or its predecessors to place non-bargaining unit employees in the OPSEU bargaining unit with full seniority, that sort of resistance is not entirely surprising in the circumstances. Had there been evidence of the applicant or its predecessors having attempted, through the give and take of collective bargaining, to obtain from OPSEU a protocol for inter-bargaining unit transfers, the Board might have taken a different view of the applicant’s position in this matter. The lack of such evidence suggests that the applicant or its predecessors did not view the issue to be of sufficient significance to their ability to operate.
38In support of its position in favour of a single broad-based bargaining unit, the applicant referred me to several cases. Humber/Northwestern/York-Finch Hospital, [1997] O.L.R.D. No. 3437 involved the merger of three hospitals giving rise to an application under the sale-of-business provision of the Labour Relations Act, 1995, S.O. 1995, c.1 ("the LRA"). The issue in that case was whether maintenance employees and operating engineers, who each had a separate bargaining unit at two of the predecessor hospitals, but who were part of a larger service unit at the third predecessor hospital, should continue to be represented in their own units or grouped together in the single service bargaining unit. The Board, differently constituted, determined that the appropriate bargaining unit structure was the single service bargaining unit. However, in that case, unlike the present one, one of the predecessor employers had had experience with the inclusion of maintenance and operating engineers in the larger service unit. Moreover, as the Board pointed out, it would not normally exclude such employees from a service unit in a determination of the appropriate bargaining unit configuration. For those reasons, the Humber case is distinguishable, and not of assistance on this issue.
39The Board was also referred to cases in which the parties, including the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, agreed to combined units (Ottawa Hospital, [1998] O.L.R.D. No. 2966, and South Bruce Grey Health Centre, [1999] OLRB Rep. Jan./Feb. 88), advocated combined units (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, [1998] OLRB Rep. Sept./Oct. 759) or in which the Board determined that a combined unit was appropriate in the context of a certification application (Motor Coach Industries Limited, [1992] OLRB Rep. June 744) or of an application brought to combine bargaining units represented by the same trade union (Mississauga Hydro Electric Commission, [1003] OLRB Rep. June 523). These cases establish that a combined service and office/clerical unit can be appropriate and that such combinations exist, but the cases are of little assistance in this case, where the question is whether a combined unit is the most appropriate in the circumstances of this hospital restructuring. Upper Canada District School Board [1998] O.L.R.D. No. 2761 dealt with the configuration of bargaining units in the educational sector, and accordingly is of even less assistance.
40The decision of Perth and Smith Falls District Hospital, [1997] O.L.R.D. No. 826, is of limited assistance because the Board’s reasons for combining the service and office and clerical units are not set out. However, in that case, OPSEU was the bargaining agent for a significant number of both service and clerical employees at one of the merged hospitals, which is not the case before me.
41The Board was referred by the applicant to Pembroke General Hospital, [1997] O.L.R.D. No. 3547, another sale-of-business case, in which, pursuant to a direction of the Health Services Restructuring Commission, one hospital was closed, and to end its operations transferred to another. The Pembroke case is useful as a guide to the Board’s trend to order broader based bargaining units in the context of a sale of business application. Similarly, in North Bay General Hospital, [1995] O.L.R.D. No. 4675, yet another sale of business application, the Board gave preference to the broader based unit. It is noteworthy, though, that there had been a combined service and office/clerical unit at one of the merged predecessor hospitals. The parties in the case before me have no experience with combined service-office/clerical units at any of the predecessor employers.
42The decision in Grey Bruce Health Services, [1999] O.L.R.D. No. 1505 is of some guidance in this case. There, five hospitals voluntarily amalgamated into a single entity. As is the case with the predecessor employers in the case before me, each of the five predecessors in the Grey Bruce case had had experience only with separate service and office/clerical units, among others. OPSEU which represented separate service and office/clerical units at one of the predecessors, advocated a combined bargaining unit in the new entity. The Board rejected that position, and in arriving at its determination of a four-unit bargaining structure for the new entity, including separate service and office/clerical units, the Board took into account that the new bargaining structure reflected the experience of the predecessors. The Board also considered that OPSEU’s proposal, although an acceptable alternative, did not have the support of any other party. In the case before me, the applicant does have the support of CUPE, which represents the larger share of employees in the service-office/clerical split.
43The decision of the Board in North Simcoe Hospital Alliance, [1999] OLRB Rep. May/June 460 is relevant. The case involved a section 22 application under the Act, resulting from a successorship of two hospitals, Penetanguishene General Hospital Inc. (“PGH”) and Huronia District Hospital Corporation (“HDH”). There was a total of eight bargaining units. For the purposes of this discussion it is sufficient to describe only the bargaining units of the service and office/clerical employees. At PGH, OPSEU represented the office/clerical employees and the service employees in separate units. At HDH, the office/clerical employees were represented in full-time and part-time bargaining units, both of which were represented by one CUPE local, while the service employees were in full-time and part-time units represented by Local 204 of Service Employees International Union (“Local 204”). The position of ward clerk at PGH was in the service unit, while the same position at HDH was placed in the office/clerical units.
44Both the applicant employer and OPSEU proposed that a combined service-office/clerical unit containing 250 employees would be appropriate in the circumstances, rather than a separate office/clerical unit of 50 employees, and a separate service unit of 200 employees. Much of the same case law cited in the case before me was referred to in support of the applicant’s and OPSEU’s position regarding larger, more comprehensive bargaining units. The existence of the ward clerk position in both service and office/clerical units, like the existence of the storesperson classification in the present case, was referred to in justifying a single unit.
45In arriving at the conclusion that the separate unit structure should be maintained, the Board made the following observations concerning the criteria for determining the appropriate bargaining unit configuration, and the application of those criteria to the facts of that case, commencing at paragraph 23 of the decision:
…The criteria for determining the appropriate bargaining unit is not just the employer's operations; rather the Act directs the Board to assess what bargaining unit configuration will "facilitate the establishment of effective and rationalized bargaining unit structures …" and will "... facilitate collective bargaining between employers and trade unions that are the freely-designated representatives of the employees following restructuring ..." and will "... foster the prompt resolution of workplace disputes arising from restructuring." (See section 1 of the Act, items 2, 3 and 4.) In my opinion, item 1 of section 1 is directed more towards determining the successor employer's organization and structure and has only a minimal impact on the Board's determination of the appropriate bargaining unit under section 22(1).
Effective and rationalized bargaining units, in my opinion, require that employees in those units be effectively represented without impeding the employer's operations. The service employees and the office and clerical employees at both HDH and PGH have been in separate bargaining units which, PRIMA FACIE, suggests some degree of separate interests being represented in collective bargaining. Although there may be some overlap of skills and job duties, that historical structure, in the absence of evidence of difficulties caused by that existing structure, indicates that the distinction between office and clerical employees and service employees has been effective for the employees and has not detrimentally impacted on the applicant or its predecessors.
There have not been any examples of difficulties arising during the collective bargaining with the applicant and its predecessors. Collective bargaining among the parties has worked up to now. There has been ongoing consolidation of services and programs at HDH and PGH and the current bargaining structure has not adversely affected that process. In my opinion, changing the bargaining structure by putting office and clerical employees into one bargaining unit with service employees may well make bargaining more difficult rather than facilitate bargaining, particularly where two groups of employees who have been in separate units are compelled to bargain together. Also, given the disparity between the number of office and clerical employees and the number of service employees, the interests of the office and clerical employees may be submerged by the interests of the larger group of service employees if they were in one unit.
The objective of fostering prompt resolution of workplace disputes contains the assumption that the Board should try to avoid creating workplace disputes through its bargaining unit determinations under section 22 of the Act. The comments of the Board in GREY BRUCE HEALTH SERVICES, SUPRA, at paragraph 12: "… given the upheaval and uncertainty present currently in the hospital sector, it is not necessary in this case to potentially further complicate matters by putting employees together who have not previously bargained together" and in CITY OF TORONTO, SUPRA, at page 775: "… Bill 136 does not necessarily demand massive changes on the collective bargaining front. The results can be much more incremental and respectful of established bargaining structures-provided they are workable or the parties agree to them. What Bill 136 does do, is require the Board to take into account both the imperatives and impact of restructuring, so that the Board can make the collective bargaining framework congruent with that process" are particularly apt in this context. Those comments suggest the Board should exercise some caution when asked to eliminate existing bargaining units by combining them after the Board has made a declaration under section 9 of the Act and should do so only when the established bargaining structures are not "workable" in the successor employer's operations.
There is not, in my opinion, a default of "bigger is better" where the parties cannot agree on the bargaining unit configuration under the Act. Nor is the burden on the parties who want smaller bargaining units to demonstrate that the larger bargaining unit is not appropriate. Rather, the Board's approach in these sorts of cases appears to favour the bargaining unit structure that would result in relatively minimal disruption to the existing labour relations framework provided it is appropriate for the successor employer's operations (bearing in mind that many different bargaining unit structures may be appropriate and that the Board does not have to determine what structure is the most appropriate) and the purposes of the Act are met by that structure.
In my view, the larger unit sought by the applicant and OPSEU is not the only bargaining unit appropriate for the applicant's operations. Clearly, the bargaining unit they propose is appropriate for the applicant's operations and is consistent with the purposes of the Act. Nevertheless, I am satisfied that the bargaining unit structure proposed by Local 204 and CUPE is also appropriate for the applicant's operations and is also consistent with the purposes of the Act. Where there may be more than one bargaining unit configuration appropriate for a successor employer's operations that are also consistent with the purposes of the Act, I am of the view that the Board should opt for the configuration that causes the least disruption to the existing pattern of collective bargaining.
46Similarly, in Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre, [1999] O.L.R.D. No. 1530, the Board declined to combine the traditionally separate service and office/clerical units as a result of the amalgamation of three hospitals, despite the position of the employer in support of such a unit. In that case, all the trade unions opposed a single unit (which is not the situation here), and that opposition appears to have played a role in the Board’s decision to maintain separate units. It appears from a reading of the reasons of the decision that, in other circumstances, the Board might have been persuaded to order a combined unit. But taking into account the trade union opposition, the fact that the separate units were large, that separate units represented the status quo at the predecessor hospitals, and that there was no probability that separate units would hinder the restructuring, the Board did not take what otherwise might have been the logical step of combining service and office/clerical functions into a single bargaining unit.
47That the Board can order and has ordered the combination into a single bargaining unit of what were once thought to be diverse job functions bearing little in the way of common community of interest, is beyond debate: see, for example, Zellers Inc., [1995] O.L.R.D. No. 3978 and The Public Utilities Commission of The City of Sault Ste. Marie, [1995] O.L.R.D. No. 4420. However, in the circumstances involving the amalgamation of broader public service entities under the Act, the Board must be sensitive to the potential for further destabilization - caused by the reconfiguration of existing bargaining relationships - of an already disrupted work environment. The Board in the North Simcoe Hospital Alliance case, supra, was concerned with the possible negative impact that combining the bargaining units might have. The Board has the same concern in the instant case. There should be compelling reasons for embarking on such a reconfiguration, and in this case, the Board finds that there is an absence of such reasons. Accordingly, the Board determines that the service unit and the office/clerical unit are to be maintained.
Conclusion
48In summary, there will be three bargaining units as a result of this application: one paramedical unit of full-time and part-time technical and clinical paramedical staff; one unit of full-time and part-time service employees; and one unit of full-time and part-time office/clerical employees.
49There remains the issue of the location of the storesperson classification. At the conclusion of the consultation on May 31, 2000 the applicant, CUPE and OPSEU agreed that, in the event the service unit was maintained separate from the office/clerical unit, the parties should be given an opportunity to consider the location of the storesperson position in one of the two units, and, if necessary, make submissions to the Board. Accordingly, the parties are directed to file with the Board any written submissions they wish to make concerning this issue on or before August 22, 2000.
50Upon the deadline for receipt of the submissions, the Board will issue a final decision, including the direction of a representation vote to determine the bargaining agent of the service unit to which, as a result of this decision, the CUOE employees will now belong.
51I am seized to deal with the submissions of the parties.
“Patrick Kelly”
for the Board