Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal
0751-03 Ontario Public Service Employees Union and Ontario Public Service Staff Union, Joint Applicants
Before: Mary Ellen Cummings, Chair; Catherine Bickley and Diane Rose, Members
Cite as: Ontario Public Service Employees Union and Ontario Public Service Staff Union (March 17, 2003) 0751-03 (P.E.H.T.)
DECISION OF THE TRIBUNAL, MARCH 17, 2003
This Application has been brought jointly by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (“the Employer”) and the Ontario Public Service Staff Union (“the Union”).
In the Application, the Union and the Employer explain that an application in respect of an amended pay equity plan was made to Review Services by members of the bargaining unit. A Review Officer issued an Order dated July 11, 2002 requiring the Union and the Employer to take steps to maintain pay equity in accordance with the Pay Equity Act R.S.O. 1990, c. P-7 (“the Act”), taking into account a wage gap that had been created by increases to a male job class and through the implementation of the Union and the Employer’s amended pay equity plan, posted in August 2000.
The Union and the Employer entered into written Minutes of Settlement with respect to issues set out in the Order. Those Minutes of Settlement have been ratified by the membership of the Union. Further, the Acting Deputy Registrar of the Tribunal directed the Employer and the Union to serve a copy of the Application on all of the potentially affected employees. Not only has the time for filing a response now passed, but all of the affected employees have advised the Tribunal in writing that they were served with the joint Application and do not intend to respond to it.
The Applicants write that the implementation of the Minutes of Settlement and of the 2003 amended Pay Equity Plan was made conditional on the Tribunal issuing a decision confirming that the settlement is a binding settlement, made pursuant to section 25.1 of the Act.
Section 25. 1 provides:
25.1(1) The parties to a matter in respect of which the Hearings Tribunal is required to hold a hearing may settle the matter in writing.
(2) A settlement under subsection (1) binds the parties to it.
(3) If a bargaining agent is party to a settlement under subsection (1), the settlement also binds the employees who are represented by the bargaining agent.
(4) A party to a settlement may file with the Hearings Tribunal a complaint that the settlement is not being complied with.
- In Scarborough No. 2 (1994) 5 P.E.R. 87, the Tribunal set out three requirements that must be met before the Tribunal can make the declaration sought;
there is a matter in respect of which the Tribunal is required to hold a hearing
a settlement is reached by the parties to that matter; and
a settlement is reduced to writing
All three conditions have been met. The Applicants have brought an Application with respect to the Order, about which the Tribunal is obliged to hold a hearing; the Applicants have reached a settlement and the settlement is in writing. Further, all parties to the Review Services process have been given notice of the Application and have signalled that they do not oppose it.
As the Tribunal wrote in Scarborough No. 2, a determination by the Tribunal that the parties have reached a settlement to which subsection 25.1 applies does not amount to an imprimatur of approval of the settlement, only an acknowledgement that the settlement has been made, and is enforceable before the Tribunal.
Since the parties have complied with the prerequisites of subsection 25.1, the Tribunal declares that the Applicants’ Minutes of Settlement constitute a settlement pursuant to subsection 25.1.
Dated at Toronto, Ontario this 17th day of March 2003.
Mary Ellen Cummings, Chair
Catherine Bickley, Member
Diane Rose, Member