The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (“the union”) has brought an application before the Ontario Labour Relations Board in which it has sought an order that the employer, the Province of Ontario, as represented by Management Board Secretariat, provide it with the names, personal identification numbers, home addresses
and home telephone numbers that the employer has of all members of the OPSEU bargaining unit. Up until now the employer refused to release this information on the basis of protection of the employees’ privacy rights.
Notwithstanding the employer’s vigorous argument that the employees’ privacy rights must be protected, the Board has been persuaded that the union is entitled to receive the information from the employer in order to fulfill its obligations under the Labour Relations Act, 1995, R.S.O. 1995, c.1, as amended (the “Act”).
The disclosure of this kind of information is done on the implicit understanding that the representative trade union will not dispense the information generally; it will use the information for bona fide purposes within its duty as the collective bargaining representative of the employees and it will act as the custodian of
the employees’ interests.
