AMAPCEO - AMAPCEO Bad Faith Complaint to the Ontario Labour Relations Board

	AMAPCEO Bad Faith Complaint to the Ontario Labour Relations Board Thursday, April 28, 2011 Dear Members: RE: AMAPCEO Bad Faith Complaint to the Ontario Labour Relations Board I am, reluctantly, writing to you today to tell you about an extremely serious matter. My reluctance arises from the fact that, at your direction, AMAPCEO has always remained studiously apolitical and not sought to embarrass or confront any Government on political issues. AMAPCEO has been engaged in public proceedings at the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) over an unfair labour practice bad faith bargaining complaint that we have brought against our OPS Employer arising out of the 2009-2011 AMAPCEO collective bargaining process. In summary, AMAPCEO has alleged that the Employer and OPSEU entered into a secret agreement relating to salary increases for the OPSEU bargaining unit in 2012. AMAPCEO alleges that the Employer then deliberately misled AMAPCEO, the entire labour relations community, and the Ontario public, about the actual salary increases it negotiated with OPSEU. As the Ontario Labour Relations Board stated in its decision ordering disclosure of any documents relating to the OPSEU salary increases: “AMAPCEO alleges that the Employer engaged in bad faith bargaining during negotiations for the current collective agreement by misleading AMAPCEO as to the terms of the collective agreement it had recently concluded with OPSEU and/or relying on the terms of the OPSEU collective agreement as posted on the OPSEU website without informing AMAPCEO that the Employer and OPSEU had entered into a confidential agreement, not reflected in the OPSEU collective agreement, that the across the board (“ATB”) increases in the final year of the OPSEU agreement would be 1% higher than reflected in the OPSEU collective agreement (the “confidential compensation agreement”).” Given the seriousness of the allegations we have made to the OLRB against our Employer, we had intended to allow the legal proceedings to take their course, and to report to our membership when the evidence about our complaint about OPSEU and our Employer was before the Board. It was our complaint to the OLRB that allowed us to demand production of all documents relating to OPSEU-negotiated salary increases with the Government for the period 2009-2012. The Ontario Labour Relations Board ruled that these documents should be treated as confidential. While this is normal in relation to documents provided by parties to each other in advance of a hearing, once the documents become exhibits and part of the public proceeding, AMAPCEO firmly believes these documents should be available for all to scrutinize. However, legal counsel for the Government will move this morning in proceedings before the OLRB to seal the records of this proceeding or otherwise to constrain the public and our membership from learning of the evidence before the Ontario Labour Relations Board. Such an order from the OLRB would be unprecedented in a free and democratic society, and would be intended to hide from public scrutiny the proceedings and relevant documents entered into evidence. Late yesterday, our counsel was advised that OPSEU would be appearing at the hearing today to support the Government’s position. As a result, in order to maintain transparency, integrity and honesty, the AMAPCEO Board of Directors has decided to advise you of the Government’s efforts to keep the proceedings and/or evidence secret, and to share the following information with you today: AMAPCEO’s complaint to the OLRB; Employer’s response; OLRB's initial ruling on procedural matters, including disclosure of documents. AMAPCEO, and the entire labour relations community, rely upon the principles of openness, honesty, integrity and trust to insure that fair and open collective bargaining can work. The Employer’s actions have betrayed those principles. For public servants – for AMAPCEO and our members – who are sworn to uphold these same principles, this betrayal is egregious and a stain on the conduct of labour relations in our workplace and in our province. We hope and expect that the OLRB will not allow these proceedings to be sealed, and that the evidence, documents and, ultimately, the Board’s findings will become public. We will keep you informed about this matter as it unfolds. Thank you. Gary Gannage President, AMAPCEO. printer friendly Email this to a friend