Ontario Labour Relations Board
1474-01-U Teamsters Local Union 938, Applicant v. Holiday Inn Express Whitby/Oshawa, Responding Party.
BEFORE: Patrick Kelly, Vice-Chair and Board Members J. A. Rundle and R. R. Montague.
DECISION OF THE BOARD; September 18, 2001
This is an application under section 96 of the Labour Relations Act, 1995, as amended (“the Act”) alleging violations of sections 70, 72, 76 and 86 of the Act.
Among other things, the application contains allegations that following the filing of an application for certification by the applicant, the responding party (“the Hotel”) reduced the working hours of a significant number of (unnamed) employees affected by the application for certification, and issued discipline to certain (also unnamed) employees for unlawful reasons. The applicant (“the union”) requests that the Hotel produce copies of all schedules and hours worked for the affected employees for a four week period prior to the filing of the application for certification to the present date.
The Hotel objects to the request of the union. The Hotel contends that, in the absence of particulars concerning the names of the employees whose hours have been allegedly reduced and the extent of the reduction, as well as the names of employees who have been allegedly disciplined and when and in what circumstances they were disciplined, the union is engaging in a “fishing expedition”. Moreover, the Hotel submits that it cannot prepare a complete response without those particulars, which it says are within the knowledge of the union.
The Board agrees that the Hotel is entitled to the particulars herein summarized. The union may be entitled to the documents it seeks, but at this point, it has not made out a sufficiently clear factual basis for that entitlement. That factual basis may be established through the provision of the particulars.
The union is to provide to the Hotel and the Board written particulars in response to the Hotel’s request for same. Those particulars are to be provided on or before September 28, 2001.
The union may renew its request for production of documents once the particulars requested have been provided.
“Patrick Kelly”
for the Board