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When employees in the Ontario Public Service (the "OPS"), who are not represented by a union, have a complaint about a term or condition of employment they may be able to take that complaint before the Public Service Grievance Board (the "PSGB").
A trade union, also called a labour union or labor union (US), is an association of workers forming a legal unit or legal personhood, usually called a "bargaining unit," which acts as bargaining agent and legal representative for a unit of employees in all matters of law or right arising from or in the administration of a collective agreement. Labour unions typically fund the formal organisation, head office, and legal team functions of the labour union through regular fees or union dues. The delegate staff of the labour union representation in the workforce are made up of workplace volunteers who are appointed by members in democratic elections.
In legal terminology, a complaint is any formal legal document that sets out the facts and legal reasons that the filing party or parties believes are sufficient to support a claim against the party or parties against whom the claim is brought that entitles the plaintiff(s) to a remedy. For example, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) that govern civil litigation in United States courts provide that a civil action is commenced with the filing or service of a pleading called a complaint. Civil court rules in states that have incorporated the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure use the same term for the same pleading.
Employment is a relationship between two parties, usually based on a contract where work is paid for, where one party, which may be a corporation, for profit, not-for-profit organization, co-operative or other entity is the employer and the other is the employee. Employees work in return for payment, which may be in the form of an hourly wage, by piecework or an annual salary, depending on the type of work an employee does or which sector she or he is working in. Employees in some fields or sectors may receive gratuities, bonus payment or stock options. In some types of employment, employees may receive benefits in addition to payment. Benefits can include health insurance, housing, disability insurance or use of a gym. Employment is typically governed by employment laws, regulations or legal contracts.
The PSGB is created under the Public Service of Ontario Act [1] ("PSOA") to give certain non-unionized OPS employees the ability to put their complaint about the terms and conditions of their employment to binding arbitration.
Arbitration, a form of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), is a way to resolve disputes outside the courts. The dispute will be decided by one or more persons, which renders the "arbitration award". An arbitration award is legally binding on both sides and enforceable in the courts.
The regulation titled Public Service Grievance Board: Complaints and Hearing [2] details:
Regulation is an abstract concept of management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. For example:
The regulation places certain restrictions on what can be complained about. The set of arbitrable issues is dependent on the type of position the employee has in the managerial hierarchy. Rights to complain about a term and condition are very restricted for those in senior management position as compared to operation (front line) managers.
A hierarchy is an arrangement of items in which the items are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an important concept in a wide variety of fields, such as philosophy, mathematics, computer science, organizational theory, systems theory, and the social sciences.
Senior management, executive management, upper management, or a management team is generally a team of individuals at the highest level of management of an organization who have the day-to-day tasks of managing that organization — sometimes a company or a corporation.
When reviewing a complaint, the PSGB may examine among other things: the PSOA, and its regulations, the employers policies and established practices and employment related statutes that bind the Crown such as the Human Rights Code. [3]
A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative authority that governs a city, state, or country. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy. Statutes are rules made by legislative bodies; they are distinguished from case law or precedent, which is decided by courts, and regulations issued by government agencies.
When interpreting these sources, the PSGB will look to its own past decisions (which are generally binding), as well as those of the Grievance Settlement Board (the "GSB") and other arbitral court decisions,
The GSB is the board of arbitration that oversees the terms and conditions of unionized employees of the OPS and as such its decisions are very persuasive because of the similarity of the subject matter.
The processes governing how a complaint is filed are laid out in the above-mentioned regulation. Once the complaint has been filed, the Board as some, albeit limited, procedural rules available on its website. Where these rules are silent the PSGB's processes are governed by the Statutory Powers and Procedures Act. [4]
The decisions of the PSGB are posted at Canadian Legal Information Institute.
Arbitration, in the context of United States law, is a form of alternative dispute resolution. Specifically, arbitration is an alternative to litigation through which the parties to a dispute agree to submit their respective positions to a neutral third party for resolution. In practice arbitration is generally used as a substitute for litigation, particularly when the judicial process is perceived as too slow, expensive or biased. In some context, an arbitrator may be described as an umpire.
Collective bargaining is a process of negotiation between employers and a group of employees aimed at agreements to regulate working salaries, working conditions, benefits, and other aspects of workers' compensation and rights for workers. The interests of the employees are commonly presented by representatives of a trade union to which the employees belong. The collective agreements reached by these negotiations usually set out wage scales, working hours, training, health and safety, overtime, grievance mechanisms, and rights to participate in workplace or company affairs.
An unfair labor practice in US labor law refers to certain actions taken by employers or unions that violate the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 29 U.S.C. § 151–169 and other legislation. Such acts are investigated by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
The Ontario Public Service Employees Union is a trade union representing public sector employees in the province of Ontario, Canada. OPSEU was established in 1975 as the successor union to the former Civil Service Association of Ontario, which was founded in 1911. In 1979, OPSEU affiliated with the Canadian Labour Congress, the National Union of Public and General Employees, and the Ontario Federation of Labour. OPSEU is affiliated to several labour councils across Ontario.
The Graduate Student Organizing Committee (GSOC) is a labor union representing graduate teaching and research assistants at New York University (NYU).
Employment tribunals are tribunal public bodies in England and Wales and Scotland which have statutory jurisdiction to hear many kinds of disputes between employers and employees. The most common disputes are concerned with unfair dismissal, redundancy payments and employment discrimination. The tribunals are part of the UK tribunals system, administered by the Tribunals Service and regulated and supervised by the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council.
Canadian labour law is that body of law which regulates the rights, restrictions, and obligations of trade unions, workers, and employers in Canada. Canadian employment law is that body of law which regulates the rights, restrictions, and obligations of non-unioned workers and employers in Canada.
Douglas/Kwantlen Faculty Assn v Douglas College, [1990] 3 S.C.R. 570 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision regarding the jurisdiction of an administrative tribunal.
The Employment Standards Act, 2000 is an Act of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. The Act regulates employment in the province of Ontario, including wages, maximum work hours, overtime, vacation, and leaves of absence. It differs from the Ontario Labour Relations Act, which regulates unionized labour in Ontario.
The Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) is an independent agency of the United States government that governs labor relations between the federal government and its employees.
The Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) is an independent quasi-judicial agency established in 1979 to protect federal merit systems against partisan political and other prohibited personnel practices and to ensure adequate protection for federal employees against abuses by agency management.
A collective agreement, collective labour agreement (CLA) or collective bargaining agreement (CBA) is a written contract negotiated through collective bargaining for employees by one or more trade unions with the management of a company that regulates the terms and conditions of employees at work. This includes regulating the wages, benefits, and duties of the employees and the duties and responsibilities of the employer or employers and often includes rules for a dispute resolution process.
Human resource management in public administration concerns human resource management as it applies specifically to the field of public administration. It is considered to be an in-house structure that ensures unbiased treatment, ethical standards, and promotes a value-based system.
The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario is an administrative tribunal in Ontario, Canada that hears and determines applications brought under the Ontario Human Rights Code, the provincial statute that sets out human or civil rights in Ontario prohibiting discrimination on the basis of a number of grounds in certain social areas.
A grievance is a formal complaint that is raised by an employee towards an employer within the workplace. There are many reasons as to why a grievance can be raised, and also many ways to go about dealing with such a scenario. Reasons for filing a grievance in the workplace can be as a result of, but not limited to, a breach of the terms and conditions of an employment contract, raises and promotions, or lack thereof, as well as harassment and employment discrimination.
In labour law, unfair dismissal is an act of employment termination made without good reason or contrary to the country's specific legislation.
A whistleblower is a person who exposes any kind of information or activity that is deemed illegal, unethical, or not correct within an organization that is either private or public. The Whistleblower Protection Act was made into federal law in the United States in 1989.
14 Penn Plaza LLC v. Pyett, 556 U.S. 247 (2009), is a US labor law case in the United States Supreme Court on the rights of unionized workers to sue their employer for age discrimination. In this 2009 decision, the Court decided that whenever a union contract "clearly and unmistakably" requires that all age discrimination claims under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) be decided through arbitration, then employees subject to that contract cannot have those claims heard in court.
Union Pacific Railroad v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, 558 U.S. 67 (2009), was a United States Supreme Court decision on labor disputes.
Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, 584 U.S. ___ (2018), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States on how two federal laws, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), relate to whether employment contracts can legally bar employees from collective arbitration. The Supreme Court had consolidated three cases, Epic Systems Corp. v Lewis, Ernst & Young LLP v. Morris (16-300), and National Labor Relations Board v. Murphy Oil USA, Inc. (16-307). In a 5-4 decision issued in May 2018, the Court ruled that arbitration agreements requiring individual arbitration are enforceable under the FAA, regardless of allowances set out within the NLRA.