OPEHT 1996

The Tribunal received letters from counsel and agreed to cancel scheduled hearing days.

The Tribunal declined to add the Group of Employees at Brockville Psychiatric Hospital to the complaint, despite the respondents' qualified consent, because the employees had not raised their complaint at Review Services, depriving the Tribunal of jurisdiction.

The applicants, Housekeeping and Junior Dietary Attendants, sought a pay equity adjustment, alleging that the employer and union contravened the Pay Equity Act by arbitrarily redesignating their job classes as gender-neutral and that the certification and subsequent plan amendments constituted changed circumstances.

The respondents brought a motion to dismiss for failure to establish a prima facie case.

The Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal found that the gender classification of the Housekeeping positions was an area of discretion and the pleadings did not establish that the agreement was unreasonable.

Furthermore, negotiated pay equity amendments do not constitute changed circumstances in the establishment.

The application was dismissed.

The parties reached a written settlement of all pay equity matters pursuant to s. 25.1 of the Pay Equity Act.

The employer objected to the union's request to dismiss the employer's reconsideration application, and both parties suggested ways for the Tribunal to endorse the record to reinforce the settlement's finality.

The Tribunal declined to issue any order, finding that the settlement was binding and subsumed the reconsideration request, making any further order unnecessary.

The union and the employer filed applications regarding a Review Officer's Order concerning their pay equity plan.

The parties had negotiated a Memorandum of Agreement in 1990 which they intended to serve as a pay equity plan.

The Tribunal found that the agreement failed to comply with the Pay Equity Act in several fundamental ways, including failing to consider benefits in job rates, failing to directly compare female to male job classes, and using pay equity adjustments for both male and female job classes to achieve internal equity.

The Tribunal concluded that no valid pay equity plan existed and ordered the parties to negotiate a new plan in compliance with the Act.

The applicants challenged the identification of the Chaplain job class as the male comparator for the Social Work and Psychometrist job classes in the employer's pay equity plan.

The Tribunal determined as a preliminary matter whether current and former incumbents of other female job classes that also use the Chaplain as their male comparator were entitled to notice of the proceedings.

The Tribunal ordered the employer to provide notice to all such current and former employees, as a finding that the Chaplain is not an appropriate comparator could significantly affect their pay equity entitlements.

At the hearing, the respondents sought an order requiring the applicants to disclose certain minutes of the Territorial Finance Council dealing with pay equity and financial matters.

The applicants opposed the disclosure as overly broad and lacking an evidentiary basis.

The Tribunal ordered the applicants to provide the requested minutes between January 1988 and December 1993 that deal with pay equity or yearly reviews of internal audits, subject to specific redactions for names of officers, religious roles, and certain institutions.

The respondents brought a motion for disclosure of certain documents held in the file of in-house counsel for the Salvation Army Territorial Headquarters.

The Tribunal applied the dominant purpose test to determine whether the documents were protected by solicitor-client privilege.

The Tribunal found that some documents, such as memoranda raising specific legal issues and a letter from an outside consultant, were privileged.

However, other documents, including job questionnaires and informational charts provided to all members of the Pay Equity Committee, were not privileged and were ordered to be disclosed.

The Tribunal also held that the testimony of in-house counsel regarding his role did not result in an implied waiver of privilege with respect to communications on employment matters.

In an interim decision during a pay equity hearing, the respondents argued that the applicants waived solicitor-client privilege regarding the role of in-house counsel in collective agreement negotiations, based on the counsel's testimony in chief and cross-examination.

The Tribunal ruled that the respondents could ask further questions in the areas already testified to, as privilege may not have attached or was waived by the responses given.

However, the applicants could still claim privilege over actual legal advice given on particular agreements and specific instructions received.

The applicant requested that the Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal hold its proceedings in abeyance pending the decision of an interest Board of Arbitration.

The applicant argued the arbitration decision would significantly impact its pay equity application.

The respondent opposed the deferral.

The Tribunal declined to defer its proceedings, finding that the interest arbitration did not address the same issues, particularly whether the parties were implementing their current amended pay equity plan in accordance with its terms.

The Law Society of Upper Canada applied to the Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal.

The Tribunal directed the Law Society to post and distribute a notice to affected employees by a certain date.

The Law Society failed to post the notice in a timely manner and failed to send it to former employees.

The Tribunal found the notice ineffectual and ordered the Law Society to post, distribute, and mail a new notice by October 15, 1996.

The applicant City moved to strike out the relief sought by the respondent in her response to the City's application to revoke a Review Officer's order.

The respondent sought to have her positions evaluated at a higher band than ordered by the Review Officer, along with additional compensation.

The Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal held that a response is not the appropriate pleading to seek independent relief or a variation of the Review Officer's order.

The Tribunal ordered the respondent to file a separate application if she wished to pursue the additional relief, which would then be consolidated with the City's application.

The Pay Equity Office requested a reconsideration of a Tribunal decision that dismissed its referral application as moot after the employer and union reached a binding settlement.

The Office argued it was denied the opportunity to make submissions and that the decision was wrong in law.

The Tribunal declined to reconsider, finding the Office had opted not to participate in the hearing and had not demonstrated any error in law or compelling circumstances to justify reopening the matter, especially since the pay equity plan had already been posted and adjustments paid.

The Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation brought a motion for disclosure of information from the Ottawa Board of Education regarding job rates and benefits in pay equity plans.

The Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal ordered the Board to disclose the itemization of benefits, the formulas used for determining salary and benefits portions of the job rate, and the methodology for converting benefits to a common denominator.

The Tribunal found the remainder of the disclosure request premature pending the filing of amended pleadings.

The Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation (OSSTF) became the bargaining agent for two units of the Ottawa Board of Education and sought to negotiate new pay equity plans, arguing that certification constituted a changed circumstance and that the existing plans contravened the Pay Equity Act.

The Tribunal held that for the unit previously covered by a non-union plan, certification was a changed circumstance requiring the plan to be split, but for the unit that already had a union plan, a mere change in bargaining agent was not.

The Tribunal further held that an allegation of a contravention does not automatically trigger a duty to negotiate; a contravention must first be proven under the Act.

L'employeur a présenté une requête visant à faire déclarer irrecevable la plainte d'un groupe de bibliotechniciennes syndiquées qui contestaient le programme d'équité salariale négocié entre l'employeur et leur syndicat.

Le Tribunal a conclu qu'il avait compétence pour entendre une telle plainte, car la présomption d'approbation de l'article 14(5) de la Loi sur l'équité salariale peut être réfutée.

Cependant, la majorité du Tribunal a statué que les employées n'avaient pas démontré une erreur sérieuse et déraisonnable dans le processus d'évaluation des emplois, qui était par ailleurs exemplaire.

La requête des employées a donc été rejetée.