Questions and answers on Bill 25
The Public Sector Statutes Amendment Act

May 15, 2001

Consultation

1. Who was consulted in the drafting of the new legislation?

In April 2000, three OPSEU staff received a short briefing from Kevin Wilson, Management Board’s Assistant Deputy Minister for Human Resources. More consultation was promised, but never occurred. The government says it consulted with top managers in OPS Ministries. They should be inviting input from all workers in the OPS, and should also be inviting input from the public. Some questions need answers: Will these changes really make the OPS more professional, accountable, and impartial? Or will they have the opposite effect?

Relation to collective agreements

2. Where in the existing law does it specifically say that changes to the Public Service Act do not override collective agreements?

Section 29 (3) of the PSA says that any provision of a collective agreement prevails over any regulation passed under the Public Service Act.

3. Unclassified employees are hired from outside the bargaining unit. Would "term classifieds" be hired "off the street" as well?

They could be. This will be subject to negotiation if OPSEU members decide at the Local Demand Review that they want to negotiate about it.

4. Could the government bring in term classifieds, or begin granting three-year contracts to unclassified members, before OPSEU members have a chance to bargain our next contract?

Yes, they could. However, in a briefing to bargaining agents April 30, Management Board Assistant Deputy Minister Kevin Wilson said they would not bring in the new changes prior to negotiation. If they do, we would have legal recourse either through the griveance process or by filing a complaint at the Ontario Labour Relations Board.

"Whistleblower" legislation

5. "Whistleblower" legislation is a part of the Public Service Act that has never been proclaimed into law. If they are changing the act anyway, will the government now proclaim the whistleblower legislation?

No. In its briefing to bargaining agents, the government called the whistleblower portion of the act "ambiguous, cumbersome and inefficient." This is a strange comment, given that the whistleblower protection in the Walkerton inquiry legislation was basically a mini-version of what is in the Public Service Act. In reality, the government simply does not want to give public employees a means to keep their bosses accountable.

Delegation of Deputy Ministers’ powers

6. If a private company takes over a service delegated to it by a Deputy Minister, is that company deemed to be an agent of the Crown?

No.

7. Could a private company have access to the WIN system?

Nothing in the legislation says they could not. If they had the power to hire, fire, discipline, keep track of sick time, and handle payroll, they would pretty much have to.

The Workplace Information Network

8. With respect to the Workplace Information Network and the Shared Services Bureau, how is employee information shared right now?

Managers are supposed to have access to the information on a "need to know" basis.

9. How broadly will that information be shared under these latest PSA changes?

The specific language is designed to remove barriers to the sharing of information. Your file could be viewed by hundreds of people, including people outside the public service. A private contractor working on a computer system might view it. Nothing in the changes would prevent the information from being shared with a private sector employer who had been given the authority to act as your boss. The law simply states that any person viewing your file must be involved in administering an "integrated human resources plan." That is, potentially, a very large number of people.

10. What kind of information is on WIN?

Currently, WIN mostly includes basic information (e.g., your name and address) plus workplace information like your use of sick time, your seniority date, and so on. As the government moves to a "paperless" world, medical records and disciplinary files will eventually become part of the system, too.

11. How could increased sharing of this information cause problems for employees?

It depends on what information is shared. An employee could be passed over for a promotion because information from a previous job was made available to an employer hiring for another OPS job.

12. Are all OPS employees familiar with WIN?

No. Not all OPS employees work with computers, but all employees have a WIN number and are part of the WIN system.

OPP civilians

13. What happens to the current collective agreement provisions of OPP civilians if they transfer to the OPPA?

Under Bill 25, if OPP civilians vote to move to the OPPA, they are automatically transferred out of the Ontario Public Service bargaining unit. If they are not in the OPS, they are not covered by the OPSEU collective agreement. Their entitlements would be only those very basic assurances provided under the law – they would be starting from scratch. Protections covering bumping rights, transfer, and "reasonable efforts" language would no longer apply. Since they would no longer be OPSEU members, their pensions would no longer be covered under the jointly-trusteed OPSEU Pension Trust.

14. Does the Ontario Provincial Police Association have different powers under law, compared to a union?

Yes, absolutely. Under the Public Service Act, OPPA members have access to independent arbitration. However, the range of issues that any arbitrator can look at is very limited. Section 26 (4) of the PSA says:

Except in relation to matters governed by or under the Police Service Act, every collective agreement shall be deemed to provide that it is the exclusive function of the employer to manage, which function, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, includes the right to determine employment, appointment, complement, organization, work methods and procedures, kinds and location of equipment, discipline and termination of employment, assignment, classification, job evaluation system, merit system, training and development, appraisal and the principles and standards governing promotion, demotion, transfer, layoff and reappointment, and that such matters will not be the subject of collective bargaining nor come within the jurisdiction of the negotiating Committee or an arbitration board.

Similarly, Section 26.3 states that "No matter relating to pensions for members of the Association shall be referred to arbitration." The law is clear: on crucial issues like discipline, transfer, layoffs, and pensions, OPP civilians are at the mercy of their employer. The OPPA is barred by law from representing them on these issues. As a trade union, OPSEU can negotiate on a very wide range of issues.

15. What is the OPT and how does joint trusteeship work?

The OPSEU Pension Trust came into being in 1995 after more than a quarter-century of activism by members of OPSEU and its predecessor, the Civil Service Association of Ontario. The OPT is governed by 10 trustees, five from the employer (the Ontario government) and five from OPSEU. In the past, the government used union members’ pension funds as a source of cheap cash. Since the creation of the OPT, which gave union members an equal say in how their money is invested and how pension benefits are allocated, the plan has grown by an average of 14 per cent per year. That’s far more than the 7.5 per cent needed to cover plan members’ pensions. Joint Trusteeship is the reason union members received a $667 million payout in 1999. That payout allowed for major pension improvements and a four per cent contribution holiday that will save the average OPSEU member in the OPT about $1,600 this year.

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