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PEHT Case No: 3422-15-PE
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PEHT Case No: 3423-15-PE
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PEHT Case No: 3424-15-PE
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PEHT Case No: 3425-15-PE
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PEHT Case No: 3426-15-PE
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PEHT Case No: 3427-15-PE
Pay Equity Office, Applicant v North Simcoe Muskoka Community Care Access Centre, Respondent
PEHT Case No: 3428-15-PE
Pay Equity Office, Applicant v North West Community Care Access Centre, Respondent
PEHT Case No: 3429-15-PE
Pay Equity Office, Applicant v Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant Community Care Access Centre, Respondent
PEHT Case No: 3430-15-PE
Pay Equity Office, Applicant v South East Community Care Access Centre, Respondent
PEHT Case No: 0085-16-PE
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PEHT Case No: 0086-16-PE
Ontario Nurses' Association, Applicant v Erie St. Clair Community Care Access Centre, Respondent
PEHT Case No: 0087-16-PE
Ontario Nurses' Association, Applicant v Waterloo Wellington Community Care Access Centre, Respondent
PEHT Case No: 0088-16-PE
Ontario Nurses' Association, Applicant v Central East Community Care Access Centre, Respondent
PEHT Case No: 0089-16-PE
Ontario Nurses' Association, Applicant v Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant Community Care Access Centre, Respondent
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Ontario Nurses' Association, Applicant v North East Community Care Access Centre, Respondent
PEHT Case No: 0091-16-PE
Ontario Nurses' Association, Applicant v North Simcoe Muskoka Community Care Access Centre, Respondent
PEHT Case No: 0092-16-PE
Ontario Nurses' Association, Applicant v North West Community Care Access Centre, Respondent
PEHT Case No: 0093-16-PE
Ontario Nurses' Association, Applicant v South East Community Care Access Centre, Respondent
PEHT Case No: 0094-16-PE
Ontario Nurses' Association, Applicant v South West Community Care Access Centre, Respondent
BEFORE: Mary Anne McKellar, Chair
DECISION OF THE TRIBUNAL: April 13, 2016
1These are applications under the Pay Equity Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. P.7, as amended (“the Act”).
2Section 4.2(1) of the Statutory Powers Procedure Act permits a panel of one to determine this matter.
3Each application relates to an Order dated December 18, 2015.
4All of the Orders are issued by the same Review Officer, and the terms of each are substantially the same. In brief, the Review Officer finds that the Community Care Access Centres (“CCACs” or “Employers”) have not maintained pay equity, and directs them to take certain steps to do so.
5Some of these applications are made by the Pay Equity Office (“the Office”) seeking to enforce the Orders against the CCACs (“the Enforcement Applications”). They were all filed prior to the end of March 2016. Responses have not yet been filed in them, and the CCAC had sought an extension of time in which to do so.
6Others of these applications (“the Objecting Applications”) are made by the Ontario Nurses Association (“ONA”), and filed more recently. ONA is a trade union that represents employees of the CCACs. It is a party to the Orders. In its applications ONA challenges only the Review Officer’s conclusion that the CCACs do not need to negotiate with ONA respecting the steps required to maintain pay equity.
7ONA has requested by letter that the Enforcement Applications be dismissed or adjourned sine die until the Objecting Applications have been disposed of, and that the parties be relieved of the obligation of filing Responses to the Enforcement Applications. While ONA has provided the Office with a copy of its letter, that letter does not set out the basis on which it objects to the Orders nor has ONA delivered a copy of the Enforcement Applications to the Office. I think the Office is entitled to verify from its own review of the Objecting Application the basis for ONA’s requests dealt with in this decision. Since all of the Objecting Applications are substantially similar, and since the Office is not a party to them, it shall be sufficient for ONA to deliver one of them to the Office, and I hereby direct it to do so.
8The Tribunal’s usual practice in these circumstances is to hold an application for enforcement of an order in abeyance pending the disposition of an application that goes to the merits of the order. That is the appropriate approach here as well. Consequently, ONA and the CCACs are relieved of the obligation to file responses to the Enforcement Applications until such time as the Tribunal may direct them to do so.
9ONA also seeks to have the applications consolidated, which I presume is a request that extends only to the Objecting Applications. It is not appropriate to consolidate them because the parties to each are not identical -- each application relates to an Order made against a different CCAC. Given the issue presented in each file is the same, and there is a single representative for ONA and for all of the CCACs, it is appropriate to list them together for any Pre-Hearing or Hearing, and the Registrar will do so.
10I am not seized.
Dated at Toronto, Ontario this 13th day of April, 2016.
"Mary Anne McKellar" Mary Anne McKellar, Chair