jk

The Arbitrator found that the pre-retirement and separation benefits under section 10.14 were only available if the terminations due to integration had occurred. Dismissals for other reasons, as in this case, motivated the requirements of section 10.09, but not the requirements of section 10.14. Since the employer submitted the benefit options required under section 10.09, there was no breach of the collective agreement in the present circumstances and the complaint was dismissed. In announcing the layoffs to the nurses involved, St. Michael`s Hospital presented nurses with the options listed in section 10.09 of the collective agreement. The options did not include the old age and separation benefits under section 10.14. The ONA disputed this omission and requested that the nurses concerned be offered retirement and separation benefits as part of their termination options. The hospital violates the collective agreement and has filed a political complaint. Articles 10.13 and 10.14 of the collective agreement also weighed on long-term redundancies, but the redundancies in these sections are those resulting from integration.

The collective agreement provides for the meaning of the concept of “integration” in the Municipal Health System Integration Act (2006). It states that Ontario arbitrator Frank Reilly recently dismissed a complaint by the Ontario Nurses Association that the employer at St. Michael`s Hospital in Toronto violated the collective agreement by failing to include retirement or separation benefits in benefit options for nurses who are laid off. At St. Michael`s Hospital and the Ontario Nurses Association (April 2010), Adjudicator Reilly applied the traditional canons of conventional interpretation to the collective agreement and decided that the benefits provided to licensed nurses vary according to the grounds for dismissal. In these circumstances, the Saint-Michel Hospital was not required to grant retirement or separation allowances to dismissed nurses and the union`s political complaint was dismissed. When a nurse opts for a pre-retirement option under section 10.14, the collective agreement provides that for each year of service, up to a maximum salary of 52 weeks, she receives a pension of two weeks` salary at a maximum of 52 weeks. In support of this interpretation, Adjudicator Reilly found that, in the development of the collective agreement, the parties agreed to separate sections with different rights in the event of long-term dismissal. He explained that Adjudicator Reilly found that the case law on which the NIA was based was of no use in this case. In each arbitration proceeding submitted by the ONA, the parties were linked to the question of whether workers were entitled to offers of retirement options in accordance with Article 10.14 language.

In each of these cases, there was little information on the reasons for the dismissals. The application of section 10.14 was not the subject of direct challenge or attention by the arbitrator. None of the cases dealt with the key issue of this case – when are workers entitled to the risk of applying Article 10.14? In the absence of arbitration on the application of section 10.14, Adjudicator Reilly was required to base his decision on an interpretation of the relevant provisions of the collective agreement.