OPSEU has launched Labour Board charges over the way the Ontario Hospital Association and individual hospitals have undermined and interfered with the bargaining process.

The four individual hospitals charged are University Health Network, Timmins, Joseph Brant and Northeast Mental Health Centre. We have named all the other hospitals in central bargaining as interested parties.

The bad faith charges against the OHA concern its insistence that the union give up its rights under the Hospital Labour Disputes Arbitration Act (HLDAA), which spells out how contract disputes are resolved in the hospital sector.

Under HLDAA, we have the right to present all relevant information to an arbitrator.

The OHA wants to stop OPSEU from telling arbitrators about better contract provisions at hospitals which are not part of central bargaining.

The OHA is making this a condition for its participation in a central arbitration process.

This is not acceptable.

The other charges against the four individual hospitals and the OHA cover both bad faith bargaining and unfair labour practices. We claim they have bargained in bad faith and interfered in the union’s affairs by breaching a letter of understanding and trying to bargain central issues with OPSEU locals.

We are asking the Labour Board to order the OHA and the hospitals to cease and desist from these and any other violations. We want the board to order them to follow the letter of understanding. We want an order that they withdraw their condition that precludes us from comparing language in non-participating hospital contracts in a central arbitration process.

What started all of this?

Earlier this year, the OHA would not agree to a “Memorandum of Conditions” – the document that sets out the ground rules for bargaining.

The OHA wouldn’t agree to an arbitration process for central issues because OPSEU refused to give up its legal right to compare proposed contract language with OPSEU contracts in non-participating hospitals.

We called on you, the members, to put pressure on the hospitals. That “Fair Rules” campaign produced a Letter of Understanding that let us get to the table and begin central negotiations.

That Letter said that if the parties were unable to settle the central issues they would try again to agree to a central arbitration process. If they couldn’t agree, arbitration would take place hospital-by-hospital, but with full rights under HLDAA..

The Letter specifically said there would be no bargaining on central issues at the local level. We insisted on this to preserve the central process and central standards. We have a bargaining structure where the central team is the only one with authority to bargain central issues with the OHA central team, and the local teams have the sole authority to bargain local issues with their hospitals.

Bargaining at the central table has failed to produce an agreement. When bargaining broke off in June, OPSEU and the OHA still could not agree to a central arbitration process. The OHA still insists that we give up our right to compare.

This means we are about to embark on a series of hospital-by-hospital arbitrations. OPSEU suggested this could be either a coordinated, rational process, or a lot of game playing. We proposed a coordinated process with one arbitrator to hear all cases and that the parties agree on which hospitals would go first. The OHA refused.

Scheduling the conciliation meetings

Conciliation is a necessary step before we go to arbitration. When we applied for conciliation we proposed a single conciliation date to deal with all applications. The OHA refused, which led to conciliation meetings, hospital by hospital, dealing with both central and local issues. OPSEU was represented at these meetings by local teams for local issues and central union staff for central issues. The OHA had said it would not move on central issues, so there would be no meaningful bargaining there.

So the games began.

Initially the OHA would agree to conciliation dates only for hospitals that were on its list. We insisted that the OHA could not dominate the process and pushed for dates for our priority hospitals. Four conciliation meetings have been held. They were for University Health Network (September 4), Timmins (September 13), both from the OHA list, and Humber (September 24) and Niagara (September 27) from our list.

That meant four hospitals are “in the pipeline” two proposed by each side. The results of the first arbitrations will set the pattern for all the hospitals in central bargaining.

We told the OHA that four hospitals is enough. That would let us move on to naming our nominees on the arbitration board and trying to agree to an arbitrator.

The OHA said four wasn’t enough. It wanted to add Baycrest, Thunder Bay, Kingston and Chatham-Kent, all of which have a member on the OHA bargaining team. The OHA gave this and “regional considerations” as its rationale, and refused to say if even this would be enough hospitals.

We are dealing with central standards, and there is nothing about these other four hospitals that should make them part of the pattern-setters. And having a rep on the OHA team is not a criterion.

Since the law says conciliation proceeds if either party wishes it, we now are scheduling conciliation meetings for more hospitals.

Did they lie to us?

Over the summer, our locals reported that their hospitals were trying to bargain central issues with them.

We raised this with the OHA in August, because it violates our Letter of Understanding. The OHA denied telling hospitals to bargain central issues locally and said its representative would enforce the Letter of Understanding in the conciliation process.

However, at conciliation the OHA and specific hospitals tried to bargain central issues with the local teams.

We structured the meetings as much as possible to avoid this by dealing with central and local issues separately. But the OHA and hospitals tried to get their offer out to our local bargaining teams by giving their document on central issues to the conciliation officer for distribution to the teams. The union objected and the documents were returned to the conciliation officer. Incidentally, the offer they tabled at conciliation is less than their June offer to the central team.

The University Health Network even went so far as to e-mail the offer on central issues to members of the local bargaining team. Its Human Resources staff threatened the local president that the members would decertify if the local team refused to entertain the offer.

Northeast Mental Health Centre and Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital tried in different ways to go around the central team and negotiate compensation issues locally.

Setting up the arbitration

Arbitration panels have three members. The employer and the union each name one and those two try to agree on a chair. If they can’t the government appoints a chair.

The OHA has named Doug Gray for the University Health Network, Timmins, and Humber cases. Gray is a lawyer with the management law firm, Hicks, Morley. He was the spokesperson for Management Board of Cabinet in the last round of OPS bargaining, which involved a 54-day strike of 40,000 OPSEU members.

Serious Questions

Ever since bargaining broke down in June, the OHA has deliberately taken a tough stance, hoping that OPSEU will back down. The calculated attempts to go around the central team raise serious questions. Do the OHA and the hospitals really want this contract dispute resolved? Are they committed to central bargaining? Are they trying to use this as an opportunity to destroy province-wide wage rates and province-wide standards?

Long-term problems need Fair Resolution.

This is a make it or break it round. The survival of the central process depends on a great contract. But more importantly, the survival of you and the services you provide depends on a great contract.

There are major problems in our collective agreement that need to be fixed. There are major issues that need to be addressed. Underpay. Overwork. Shortages. These problems are growing every day. It will only get worse if we don’t fix it now. Short-term, bandage solutions won’t work. Administrative delay, game playing, interference and bad faith on the employers’ part are preventing us from addressing the problems.

Your central team wants to negotiate with the OHA central team. That’s our preference. But if the OHA can’t come up with a better offer, an offer that deals with our issues, instead of just theirs, then it’s on to arbitration. But let’s be clear. If it has to be arbitration, then it should be without delay and it should be fair. Otherwise you suffer, and the patients suffer. And that’s not acceptable.

What’s Next?

Your Central team met on September 30 to assess where we are and identify ways of moving forward. Members of the team will be holding meetings with each local in the near future.

These meetings will update you on bargaining. We will also be holding an important vote on our next stage of mobilization.

Notices with more information will be sent out soon to the local presidents.

Meeting with Tony Clement

Health Minister Tony Clement should have a better understanding of the link between improving our collective agreement and patient care and safety after a meeting with members of the Hospital Professionals Division Executive.

The executive, including Central Team Chair Aimee Axler, met Clement Sept. 12.

They were in Toronto for another meeting when they learned Clement was announcing additional training spaces at the Michener Institute. So they decided to drop in on the announcement.

When the minister’s staff saw the group, with its OPSEU HPD stickers, they suggested a meeting.

For almost half an hour, the group explained that another 32 spaces at the Michener was a drop in the bucket given government action so far on staff shortages. They explained the need for better pay and working conditions to attract and retain the necessary staff. And they explained why this round of bargaining is important.

And they advised him to not get sick.

Your bargaining team

Aimee Axler, Chair Local 444 Kingston General Hospital
David Hancock Local 571 Toronto University Health Network
Robby Hersh Local 583 Baycrest Geriatric Care Centre Toronto
James O’Leary Local 106 London Health Sciences Centre
Patty Rout Local 348 Lakeridge Health Corporation Oshawa
Leslie Sanders Local 348 Lakeridge Health Corporation Oshawa
Yves Shank Local 659 Sudbury Regional Hospital
Moya Beall Staff Negotiator
Michèle Dawson Haber Staff Researcher

Copies of this bulletin will be mailed to HPD stewards and posted on our web site. Please print, post and distribute.

Authorized for Distribution:
Leah Casselman, President

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