First Decision under the Newly Amended Public Sector Labour Relations Transition Act: Board Protects Labour Relations Stability in Health Services Restructuring

By Patrick Groom

In the first decision to be issued under the newly amended Public Sector Labour Relations Transition Act, 1997 (PSLRTA), the Board ruled that there is "no doubt" that PSLRTA is intended to apply to restructuring in the health sector. The Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB), broadly interpreted the application of PSLRTA to various forms of restructuring in the health services sector.

This decision addresses union representation rights in the context of the recently-passed Bill 36 which introduced the Local Health Services Integration Act (LHSIA) and amended the PSLRTA. The LHISA provides a mechanism for the re-organization of the delivery of health services through Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs). Under this statute, the LHINs and the Minister of Health and Long Term Care have broad powers to integrate and in other ways restructure a wide variety of health services. The LHISA also contemplates that individual health service providers may voluntarily integrate their services with those provided by other providers.

The protections offered by the PSLRTA include the continued application of the original Collective Agreement to the newly restructured workplace for approximately one year. This helps protects unions during restructurings by keeping bargaining units intact, protecting union representation rights, and defining the collective agreement(s) that will apply to transferred bargaining units. This is also intended to save both unions and employers from having to litigate whether the restructured workplace is related to the previous employer. It also assists employers by allowing them to predict their costs and draw up their budgets for the newly restructured health services, as they know the labour costs in the applicable Collective Agreements.

This decision arose out of a Hospital restructuring in Thunder Bay, where the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre (TBRHSC) was closed and all 60 of the interim long-term care beds were moved into another facility, the Thunder Bay Interim Long Term Care Centre (TBILTC). Central Care Corporation, which operates several nursing home and long-term care facilities in the region, took over the operation of the new facility. The nurses that worked at TBRHSC, represented by the Ontario Nurses' Association (ONA), were covered by the Union's province-wide Hospital Agreement, but the employer at TBILTC applied ONA's province-wide Nursing Home Agreement to the nurses at the new facility.

The Union applied to the OLRB for a determination whether the newly-modified PSLRTA applied to this Hospital restructuring. The Union argued that this restructuring between two heath service providers constituted a health services integration, and that the integration triggered the protections offered to the bargaining unit under the PSLRTA. OLRB Chair Whitaker agreed with ONA and declared that a local health integration had occurred and that the protections of the PSLRTA applied. In arriving at this conclusion, Chair Whitaker wrote:

"Very clearly there are significant labour relations consequences inherent in this particular transaction and more broadly in this class of transactions. These consequences require some process by which the effects on unions, employees, and employers can be rationally managed and resolved, by the provision of labour relations stability and to the benefit of all.

The PSLRTA makes it clear that the "sale of business" provisions in the [Labour Relations Act, 1995] do not apply to health services integrations. In the absence of the application of the PSLRTA, there is no statutory mechanism under which these types of changes can be managed in an orderly and predictable fashion."

This decision will help to protect heath sector workers' rights during the major upheaval that Ontario's health services system is presently undergoing. The Board recognized the significant labour consequences of health care services restructuring, and how PSLRTA is intended to manage the transition of bargaining units, and the rights of Unions and employees in an orderly and predictable fashion. This decision goes a long way to ensure that health care workers' rights will be protected in the future.

Liz McIntyre argued the case on behalf of the Ontario Nurses' Association.