Ontario Labour Relations Board
File No.: 0122-00-HS Date: August 20, 2001
Norm Chammas, Applicant v. Falconbridge Ltd. and Ministry of Labour, Responding Parties.
Before: Mary Ellen Cummings, Alternate Chair.
Decision of the Board
1This is the second reconsideration request with respect to a Board decision dated July 4, 2001. In that decision I provided my reasons for dismissing the applicant’s appeal with respect to the decision of a health and safety Inspector not to issue an order. In a decision dated July 31, 2001, I dismissed the first request for reconsideration.
2In a letter dated August 17, 2001, the applicant has requested that the reconsideration be undertaken by someone other than the adjudicator who heard the matter. The Board has consistently referred reconsideration requests to the person who made the initial decision; the point of a reconsideration is not to permit an unhappy party to try to convince a different adjudicator of the merits of the claim, but to provide an opportunity for completing the record with evidence or submissions that could not have been made at the original hearing. I decline to refer this matter to another adjudicator.
3The applicant also alleges that I did not base my decision “…on the actual complaint, which was and still is, the second failure of the Acid Cooling tower that injured three of our workers”. With all due respect, that was not the issue the applicant put before the Board. The applicant complained that the Inspector was wrong in concluding that the February 29, 2000 problem with the Acid Tower was not a reportable incident, within the meaning of section 53 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. In the initial application, including the request for a remedy, the applicant sought:
The OLRB would direct the inspector to issue an order to Falconbridge Ltd. informing them that this incident is reportable under sec. 53 of the Act.
4I certainly understood from the submissions of the applicant at the hearing that it was concerned that three workers had been injured when they entered the Acid Tower to effect repairs. The applicant submitted that if Falconbridge had notified the joint health and safety committee and the Ministry of Labour about the problem around February 29, 2000, the injuries would have been prevented. At paragraph 18 of the July 4, 2001 decision, I concluded, based on the facts agreed by the parties, that the risk to worker health and safety arose at the point the Acid Tower was opened to repair it, and not before. The Inspector had already concluded that the carrying on of this non-routine hazardous task of repair to the Acid Tower required the joint health and safety committee to establish safe procedures, and ordered Falconbridge to comply. I concluded that the order issued by the Inspector was sufficient to ensure worker health and safety.
5I appreciate that the applicant is not satisfied with my decision, but I find no basis on which to reconsider it.
"Mary Ellen Cummings"
for the Board