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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1992-3146.Dunlop.95-01-13 , ,-- {t>-. ONTARIO EMPLOYES DE LA COURONNE ./ ~ - CROWN EMPLOYEES DE L'ONTARIO 1111 GRIEVANCE COMMISSION DE SETTLEMENT REGLEMENT . BOARD DES GRIEFS 180 DUNDAS STREET WEST, SUITE 2100, TORONTO ON M5G 1Z8 TELEPHONE/TELEPHONE (416) 326-1388 180, RUE DUNDAS OUEST, BUREAU 2100, TORONTO (ON) M5G 1Z8 FACSIMILE/TELECOPIE (416) 326-1396 GSB# 3146/92, 455/93, 1690/93 'OPSEU# 93A229, 930553, 93F742 IN THE MATTER OF AN ARBITRATION Under THE CROWN EMPLOYEES COLLECT IV. BARGAINING ACT Before THE GRIE~ANCE SETTLEMENT BOARD BETWEEN OPSEU (Dunlop) "' Grievor - and - The Crown in Right of ontario (Ministry of Correctional Services) Employer BEFORE N. Dissanaya,ke Vice-Chairperson P. Klym Member M. Milich Member FOR THE L Harmer GRIEVOR Counsel Gowling, Strathy & Henderson Barristers & Solicitors FOR THE M. Failes EMPLOYER Counsel Filion, wakely & Thorup HEARING January 28, 1994 '. 'j J....- ( ( 2 PRELIMINARY DECISION Three related grievances filed by the grievor, Ms. Kim Dunlop, carne before this Board for hearing on January 28, 1994 Upon the agreement of the parties, only the preliminary , issue as described below was dealt with that day While the hearing itself was concluded on January 28, 1'994, the Board subsequently received a series of correspondence from the two counsel in which they presented to the Board submissions on certain decisions of the Board which had been issued I subsequent to the January 28, 1994 hearing. In making the determinations herein, we have considered the submissions made at the hearing as well as that contained in the written submissions, the last of which was dated July 25, 1994. At the commencement of the hearing employer counsel conceded that the Board had jurisdiction to hear grievance no. 3164/92, but took the position that the other two grievances were beyond the Board's jurisdiction The parties agreed to hold file 3164/92 in abeyance and to Ideal with the jurisdictional issue relating to files 0455/93 and 1690/93. "- ( This decision therefore deals solely with that preliminary issue as to whether the Board has jurisdiction to hear the merits of the grievances in files 0455/93 and 1690/93 The facts relied upon by the union are as follows The grievor commenced employment with the Ministry at the \ -- - :~... \ ( f~' ( 3 Millbrook~.! Correctional Centre in December 1989, in the capacity of a Correctional Officer 1 as a member of the unclassified service In that position she was a casual employee working on an "on call" basis She initially had a series of 3 month contracts but since January 1991 started I receiving contracts of6 month duration. The grievor's husband is a correctional officer in the classified service and also works at Millbrook He does shift work They have two young children When she was called in to work, sometimes her husband was also on shift. If neither parent was available to be with the children, they had to rely on relatives to baby-sit. However, baby-sitting arrangements could not always be made because the employer gave her very little lead-time when calling in Sometime in 1992 the employer commenced to keep records '-- of the on-call employees' availability for shifts The employer met with a number of employees whose availability was deemed not acceptable On October 28, 1992, the superintendent had a meeting with the grievor at which he i raised concerns about her record of availability The gr ievor explained that in many cases her unavailability was due to her inability to make baby-sitting arrangements at the last minute The superintendent's response was to advise her that "if Millbrook does not suit your family's needs, then you .~. ( ( 4 should look for something else " On November 17, 1992 the grievor filed a grievance relating to that incident, which has now become file 3164/92, which the parties have agreed to hold in abeyance It is alleged that fOllowing the filing of the grievance and in direct retaliation for her actions, the gr ievor was subjected to various incidents of unfair treatment and harassment, which the union claims culminated in the grievor receiving only a 3 month contract when her last 6 month contract expired at the end of March 1993. This resulted in grievance no. 0455/93. It is alleged that the pattern of harassment and discrimination continued after March 1993 and that it caused the grievor to go on sick leave in May 1993 due to stress. Then she received notice on June 22, 1993 that her contract would not be renewed beyond its expiry date of June 30, 1993 That non-renewal forms the basis of the grievance in file 1690/93. I with regard to file 0455/93, it is the union's position I that the employer's decision to limit the grievor's contract I to 3 months rather than the usual 6 months was because of (a) I her unavailability for shifts due to baby-sitting problems (b) ) I . ( ( 5 the employer's desire to penalize the grievor for having filed the discrimination grievance (no. 3164/93). with regard to file 1690/93, the union claims that in deciding not to renew the grievor' s contract in June 1993, the employer was similarly motivated by (a) the fact 9f the grievor's unavailability for shifts due to baby-sitting problems, and (b) a desire to penalize the grievor for having filed the two previous grievances. It is the contention of the union that in both situations, the employer's consideration of the grievor's unavailability for work due to family obligations as a basis to adversely affect her employment was both a direct and adverse impact discrimination contrary to article A-1-1 and that the employer had an obligation to accommodate the grievor to the point of undue hardship It is further alleged that the employer's desire to retaliate against the grievor because she filed grievances as well as the discrimination contrary to article A-1-1 constitute bad faith. Counsel for the employer made it clear that the employer was not conceding any of the factual allegations However, he agreed that solely for the purposes of arguing the jurisdiction issue, the Board should assume the alleged facts to be proven and further assume that those facts establish ,~ '", ( ( 6 discrimination contrary to article A-1-I, as well as bad faith on the part of the employer His position quite simply is that the Board has no jurisdiction to inquire into the employer's reasoning or motivation for determining the length 1 of the contract of an unclassified employee or for deciding not to offer a further contract upon the expiry of the existing one In other words, he submits that even if the employer's decisions were motivated by discriminatory or bad- " faith reasons, that does not confer jurisdiction on the Board to deal with the merits of these grievances. The following statutory provisions were relied upon: The Crown Employees Collective ~argaining Act, R S O. 1990, c. C 50, s 18 (1) a 18 (1) Every collective agreement shall be deemed to provide that it is the exclusive function of the emp19yer to manage which function, without limiting the generality,of the foregoing, includes the right to determine, (a) employment, appointment, complement, organization, assignment, discipline, dismissal, suspension, work methods and procedures, kinds and locations of equipment and classifications The Public Service Act, R S 0 1990, c. p 47: 8 (1) A minister or any public servant who is designated in writing for the purpose by him or her may appoint for a period of not more than one year on the first appointment and for any period on any subsequent appointment a person to a position in the unclassified service in any ministry over which the minister presides -------~-_._-------- --- ---- c>. \ ( .l 7 (2) Any appointment made by a designee under subsection (1) shall be deemed to have been made by his or her minister 9 A person who is appointed to a position in the public service for a specified period ceases to be a. public servant at the expiration of that period. Reliance was also placed on section 8 1 of the Public Service Act which was enacted in 1993 to be in force retroactive to December 18, 1991. It reads: 8.1-(1) An individual is not considered to be a civil servant unless he or she has been expressly appointed as such by the Commission or by the Lieutenant governor in council on the certificate of the Commission. (2) An individual is not considered to be a public servant unless he or she has been expressly appointed as such by the Lieutenant Governor in Council, the Commission, a minister or a designee of a minister. (3) An individual who is employed in the service of the Crown is not considered to be a Crown employee unless the individual has been expressly appointed as such by the Lieutenant Governor in council, the Commission or a minister \ (4) If the Lieutenant Governor in Council makes a regulation requiring the appointment of a civil servant, public servant or Crown employee to be made in a form prescribed in (the regulation, an indi vidual is not considered to be a civil servant, public servant or Crown employee, as the case may be, unless his or her appointment is made in the prescribed form. (5) Subsection (4) does not apply to an individual who was expressly appointed as a civil servant, public servant or Crown employee before the day on which the \ -..--- '-' ( ( 8 regulation is pUblished in The Ontario Gazette. (6) An individual who is employed in the service of an agency of the Crown designated in the regulations is not considered to be a Crown employee unless the agency has the authority to appoint its employees and the individual has been expressly appointed as a Crown employee by the agency. (7) The Lieutenant Governor in Council may, by order, direct an agency of the Crown designated in the regulations to expressly appoint as a Crown employee an individual who is employed in the service of the agency. (8) If the agency does not make the express appointment within the time indicated in the order, the Lieutenant Governor in Council may, on behalf of the agency, expressly appoint the individual as a Crown employee.{ (9) An individual who is employed ,in the \.., service of an agency of the Crown that is not designated in the regulations is not considered to be a Crown employee. (10) In the absence of an express appointment of an individual as a civil servant, publ ic servant or 'Crown employee, the individual's appointment shall not be inferred solely from the circumstances of his or her employment. ( 11) This section is deemed to have come into force on the 18th day of December, 1991 The relevant provision of the collective agreement reads. ARTICLE A - NO DISCRIMINATION/EMPLOYMENT EQUITY All. There shall be no discrimination practised by reason of race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, creed, sex, sexual - --- ( ( .. 9 orientation, age~ marital status, family status, or handicap, as defined in section 10(1) of the ontario Human Rights Code (OHRC). Counsel for the employer relies on sections 8 and 9 of the Public Service Act as the legal basis of his objection to jurisdiction Relying on the new section 8.1 he argues that it reconfirms that the only way one can be appointed to the classified service is by the procedures set out in that Act He cited the following decisions in asserting that the Board has accepted that it had no jurisdiction over employer decisions relating to utlclassified contracts. Re Simpson 694/85 (Kennedy) , Re Shipley, 0223/86 (Samuels) Re Healey, 0485/88 (Fisher) and Re Milks, 1000/92 (Low). Counsel for the union submits that while appointment to the unclassified service and renewal of expired contracts are generally outside the scope of the Board's review, in the particular circumstances of this case the Board had jurisdiction First, it is submitted that where the employer's decision with regard to appointment, i e to limit the duration of appointment or to not appoint, has been made for discriminatory reasons contrary to article A.1.1 of the collective agreement the Board has jurisdiction Secondly, the union submits that where those decisions were made in bad ~ faith, i e for discriminatory reasons ,and motivated by a desire to penalize the grievor for having exercised her .' \ ( 10 collective agreement right to file grievances, the Board has jurisdiction It is submitted that to hold otherwise would result in denying the grievor the benefit of the protection of article A.1.1 against discrimination and of article 27 which grants her the right to grieve. union counsel noted that the decisions relied on by the employer were decided before article All came into existence and that while the Milks case was post-article All it made no reference at all to that article She submitted that the current law is that contained in the following decisions which considered the Board's jurisdiction after the enactment of article All. Re Pitirri 1685/92 (Kaplan), Re Merson 16/93 (Gray) and Re Chircop, 3039/92 (Kaufman) . In Re Pitirri (supra) the grievor alleged that he had been unjustly dismissed The employer argued that the grievor was an unclassified employee whose last contract was not . I renewed, and that S1nce he was no longer an employee after the expiration of the contract, he had no right to grieve. It was the employer's position that the Board had no jurisdiction to determine the grievance In Re Pitirri, the grievor had a number of employment contracts starting December 4, 1989. His last contract ran from April 1, 1992 to september 30, 1992 In 1992 he was diagnosed as suffering from ulcerative colitis. In July 1992 he submitted a medical note which disclosed the (~ , . I 11 diagnosis and stated that "he should avoid shift work" Shortly before the expiry of this last contract the employer made an offer to accommodate the grievor's illness, which was contained in an employment contract scheduled to run from October 1, 1992 to March 31, 1993 It was clear that had the grievor accepted that offer of accommodation, he would have been appointed pursuant to that contract. However he did not accept the contract and took the position that the accommodation offered was inadequate for his medical condition. Despite the employer's efforts to convince the grievor that the accommodation offer was adequate, the grievor refused to sign the contract on those terms. The ultimate result was that the grievor's contract was not renewed The aoard at pp. 14-15 stated While it is undoubtedly the case that unclassified employees, at the conclusion of their contract, have no new Collective Agreement rights, it cannot, in our view, be correct that the conclusion of an unclassified employee's contract of employment extinguishes rights which arose during the period of employment when the employee was covered by the Collective Agreement Article 3 of the Collective Agreement sets out various entitlements of unclassified employees What if, for instance, an unclassified employee was not paid overtime on the last day of his or her employment According to Mr Benedict, the next day that person would not be an employee but would be a member of the public with no right to grieve and the Board would be without jurisdiction to hear that grievance In our view, where a Collective Agreement, entitlement arises during the course of employment, in some circumstances the individual may remain an employee for the purpose of filing a grievance after the employment relationship has " ( ( 12 come to an end Whatever the decision in Parry stands for, it is not the proposition that Collective Agreement and statutory rights of employees that arise during the course of employment are in every case extinguished at its conclusion To reach this result would be to deny employ,ees in some cases, such as this one, the benefit of the Collective Agreement In this case the grievor's Article A rights were allegedly infring~d while he was an employee, and it is on this basis that we are taking jurisdiction with respect to his case The first accommodation offer was made to him one week prior to the end of his employment contracted and was repeated on the last day of that contract The offer was declined, and a timely grievance was filed Obviously in taking juri~diction in this case we are making no findings whether the employer had an accommodation obligation, and if it did have such an obligation, its nature and extent All we are doing is finding that th~re might have been a violation of Article A while the grievor was an employee, and that this alleged violation is properly before the Board As already indicated, the fact that the grievor would have been offered a successor contract had he accepted the employer's accommodation offer has figured prominently in our deliberations It is in this respect that the grievor's allegation of unjust discharge is directly linked to the allegation of a violation of Article A While all the evidence is not in, it is worth observing at this point that the employer's general approach to this grievor raises more questions than answers. The duty to accommodate necessarily involves consultation with the affected employee who must in turn respond reasonably to bona fide accommodation offers A "take it or leave it" approach in the last week of an employee's contract, with a promise of renewal if the employee "takes it", and the prospect of no, further employment if he or she "leaves it" would not appear to satisfy the employer's obligation to effectively consult with the employee To countenance such an approach would be to gut the provision, in sofar as it covers unclassified employees, particularly in a case such as this one where the grievor had been employed under successive contracts for several years, and only ( ( ., \ 13 stopped being e~ployed when he sought accommodation under Article A and did not accept the accommodat1on that was offered to him In reaching this conclusion we are not granting any new rights to unclassified employees at the end of their terms of employment Rather, all we are doing is recognizing the necessarily continuing nature of some Collective Agreement rights including Article A rights which arise while an individual is an employee. Accordingly, the line of cases relied on by the employed about the status of former unclassified employees are of no assistance to us in this case. Likewise, the pre-Beresford cases are of little value for they predate the existence of Article A. While panels of this Board were once prepared to find that a proven violation of the ontario Human Rights Code was inarbitrable, the existence of Article A changes that situation for its incorporation into the Collective Agreement means I that its alleged violation is properly within the jurisdiction of the Board. It is to be noted that the "line of cases" the Board found to be of no assistance included Re Shipley and RE Healey, both of which pre-dated article A 1, and which are relied upon by the employer here In Re Merson, the grievor was an unclassified employee , who had a series of contracts between September 1990 and June 30, 1993. In October 1992 he was injured at work and made a worker's compensation claim On his return in December, 1992, he grieved that his work assignments had been changed This grievance was settled While all his prior contracts were of 6 month duration, in February 1993 the grievor was informed that upon the expiry of his last 6 month contract on March 31, ----- .. ( ( 14 1993, his contract would only be renewed for 3 months He grieved that decision alleging discrimination On June 22, 1993 he was informed that his contract would not be renewed beyond June 30, 1993 This decision was also grieved The employer argued that the Board lacked jurisdiction to review the length of an unclassified employee's term contract nor a decision about whether to renew such a contract The union alleged that the employer's decision to limit the contract to 3 months and subsequently1to not renew was a response I to the grievor's injury and workers compensation claim, as well as his filing of grievances. The union argued that as an unclassified employee the grievor was covered by article A (no discrimination) and article 27 (Right to grieve) . It was the union's position that the employer's decision to limit the grievor's contract to 3 months and subsequently to not renew was because he had been injured at work and had made a worker's compensation claim. These decisions were made while the grievor was still an employee and were contrary to article A 1 Similarly, it was argued that retaliation because the grievor filed grievances amounted to a denial of the grievor's right under article 27 to grieve. The Board in Re Merson reviewed the Board's decision in Re Pitirri, and at pp. 8-9 concluded as follows ., ( ( 15 It is true that the factual allegations in Pitirri were different form those here There, the disability was persistent and required accommodation. The employer had offered a form of accommodation which the grievor considered . \. . ~nadequate The gr~evor was told h~s contract would be renewed if he agreed to the accommodation offered. When the grievor persisted in his ,position that the offered accommodation I was insufficient, his contract was not renewed Here, there is no allegation that the grievor required accommodation at the t~me of the impugned decisions Here, the allegation is that the employer responded improperly to past events Given the OHRC definition of "because of handicap" which the parties have incorporated by reference into Article A, discrimination because of a past Workers' Compensation claim is as much a violation of Article A as a failure to accommodate an ongoing handicap. The fact that there is no issue of accommodation here is not a material aistinction for purposes of the question now before us. Here, as in pitirri, the union alleges that a decision not to renew the contract of an unclassified employee, made while the individual was still employed and covered by the parties' collective agreement, constituted discrimination contrary to Article A of that collective agreement Here, as in pitirri, the union alleges that but for the discrimination, the grievor's contract would have been renewed As in Pitirri, the issue at this stage of these proceedings is not whether these allegations are true; the issue is whether they raise an arbitrable dispute In pitirri, the Board found that it did We do too, and for essentially the same reasons Finally in Re Chircop, the Board held following the '-. reasoning in RE Pitirri and Re, Merson, that the Board had jurisdiction to review appointments to the unclassified service where there was an infract~on of article A I ! --- ! ( '"' 16 Counsel for the employer distinguishes the facts here from the facts in Re Pitirri He reads the decision in Re Pitirri as merely holding that the Board had jurisdiction to deal with a violation of article A 1 which took place during the period of time when the grievor was still an employee under contract In that case, according to him the violation over which the Board seized jurisdiction was the failure of the employer to offer accommodation in accordance with its ( obligation under article A 1 He compares that situation to the grievance filed by Ms Dunlop (file 3164/92) alleging discrimination based on the superintendent's statement to her at a time when she was still an employee. He concedes that the Board has jurisdiction in those circumstances. However, he contends that the Board has no jurisdiction to review the \ employer's decision at the end of a contract, as to the length of the next contract or its decision not to offer any contract at all Counsel quite bluntly submits that the decisions in Re ,- Merson and Re Chircop are simply wrong in assuming jurisdiction to review employer decisions as to the renewal/length of unclassified contracts. I We cannot agree with the restrictive reading of Re Pitirri advocated by employer counsel At p 2 the Board notes that the grievor "grieves that he has been unjustly .. ( ( 17 dismissed from employment It is clear that the grievor was alleging that this unjust dismissal took place when the employer decided not to renew his contract In that case, the employer's offer of accommodation and the grievor' s refusal to accept the same were considerations which ultimately caused the employer to decide not to renew the grievor's contract. At p. 15 the Board states "As already indicated, the fact that the grievor would have been offered a successor contract had he accepted the employer's accommodation offer has figured prominently in our deliberations. It is in this respect that the grievor's alleqation of unjust discharqe is directly linked to the allegation of a violation of Article A. " (Emphasis. added) The grievance there was about the "unjust dismissal" arising out of the employer's decision to not renew the employment contract The Board seized jurisdiction over that grievance on the grounds that the employer's decision was tainted by an inappropriate consideration, namely, the employer's unwillingness to accommodate the grievor's disability as required by article A The Merson case is remarkably similar to the case before us. There the Board seized jurisdiction to review the j employer's decisions to limit the grievor's contract to only 3 months and to subsequently not renew it at all, on the basis ( ----- "" ( ( 18 that there had been violations of the collective agreement in the course of the decision making process In those cases the factual basis for the employer's decision [i e. the failure to accommodate (Re Pitirri) and the grievor's claim for workers' compensation ~nd filing of grievances (Re Merson)] which gave rise to the violation of the collective agreement, occurred while the grievor was still an employee. And the employer's decision with respect to renewal were also made while the grievor was still an employee. Thus the employer's decisions regarding the i unclassifi:~d contracts were "directly linked" to the violations of the collective agreement The case before us is no different. On the assumed facts, the employer's decisions with regard to the grievor's employment contracts were taken for discriminatory reasons, which are proscribed by the collective agreement, arising out of circumstances that occurred during the grievor's period of employment We do not find the Pitirri, Merson or Chircop decisions to be manifestly wrong. Indeed, we find that, the only sensible interpretation of the relevant statutory provisions is that taken in those case The employer in those cases relied on the same pre-article A line of cases The Board in "' --.------- ( ( t 19 each case took a different approach in view of the existence of article A We agree with the approach in the post-article A cases. To do otherwise would be to draw an artificial boundary between the events which occurred during the tenure of the contract and the renewal decision, when in fact the renewal decision is inextricably linked to those events which form the basis of the violation of the collective agreement For all of the foregoing reasons, we have concluded that if the union is correct that the impugned decisions of the employer were taken because of reasons which constitute a violation of the collective agreement, the Board does have jurisdiction to deal with the two grievances in question Having rendered our decision as to the board's jurisdiction, we refer the matter back to the parties Unless the parties are able to resolve these grievances, either party may request for a hearing of the mer its of the grievances before a panel of the Board. This panel is not seized of jurisdiction for that purpose " .. '" ( i. 20 - Dated this 13th day of January, 1995 at Hamilton, ontario N Dissanayake Vice-Chairperson ll(-~l/~ p Klym Member 'I Dissent' Dissent Attached M. Milich Member ~ - ---- . . , \ ~ 1" \ .. f ? Dissent in the Matter Between OPSEU (Dunlop) and The Ministry of Corredtional Services I have read the award in the above matter and must disagree with the decision. The fundamental issue with which we are dealing is a time limited contract of employment. The unclassified employee entered into an individual employment contract with a specified commencement and expiry date. Upon expiry of the contract, the employment of the individual ends. There is nothing in the collective agreement nor in the statutes which guarantees the renewal of the contract to the unclassified employee, or, for that matter, obligates the employer to grant a new a contract. In fact, s. 9 of the Public Service Act reinforces the cessation of the employment relationship when It states that at the end of the contract the individual is no longer a publiC servant Once the contract has expired on its specified date, there is no issue of dismissal which would permit the board to review the employer's actions under s. 18(2) of the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act. This seems to be the principle which all the cases from Shipley 223186 (Samuels) through Milks 1000192 (Low) and Chlrcop 3039/92 (Kaufman) seem to accept In Chlrcop, the Vice-Chair, while attempting to rationalize the different approaches taken by various panels, found that as atirst principle the board under the normal course of events did not have any jurisdiction to review the decision of the employer not to renew an \lnclassified employee's contract, even in the face of bad faith. On page 16, she states: - "It is clear as a first principle that the appointment ( and non-appointment) of employeees to the unclassified public service is a function reserved exclusively to management by statute and that upon the expiry of an appointment to the unclassified public service, the person so employed ceases to be a publiC servant. In situations where an employee's appointment is simply not renewed, that will usually end the matter, and a panel of the Grievance Settlement Board will not take jurisdiction of a grievance from the non-renewal or dismissal, notwithstanding an a/legation of bad faith: Milks. supra" She does, as do my colleagues in this case and the Vice-Chairs in Pitlrrl1685192 (Kaplan) and Merson 16193 (Gray), accept the line of cases which found that Article A allows a board to review the employer's decision not to renew I submit, however, that in doing so the board is exceeding its jurisdiction. Article A does not change the simple fact that the unclassified employee and the employer agreed to the terms of the contract before it was accepted and signed by both. The employee by signing the contract agreed that hislher employment would end at the expiry of the contract. It is , -. ( ; / ~ I , that simple However one wants to view it, Article A does not override the expiry date It does not provide the employee with a promise of continued employment. There is no question that Article 3 provides an unclassified employee with certain benefits and a degree of protection under the collective agreement, including Article A. These rights are for the term of the contract of employment which the employee signed. These rights do not survive the expiry of the contract except for the right to grieve, in a timely fashion, a contravention of the collective agreement during the term of the contract To the extent that the decisions cited above upon which my colleagues rely purport to extent the Board's jurisdiction and remedial authority beyond the expiry date of the employment contract, they are incorrectly decided. The board's jurisdiction to review and to provide a remedy is resticted to the term of the employment contract. Its authority does not go beyond the the expiry of the contract. S. a and s a 1 of the Public Service Act clearly outlines who has the authority to appoint public servants. The Board is not one of those authorities. We should bear in mind that, whatever the semantics may be, a renewal of a contract is in fact the granting of a new contract of employment and can only be done in accordance with s. a and s. a.1 The collective agreement does not override these statutory requirements. In circumstances that parallel the type of case that we have before us, the panel in Hunt GSB #2562/92 (Devlin) found that it had no jurisdiction to hear the grievance. In that case, a retiring employee had grieved that the employer had not granted him an overage appointment The panel found that it had no jurisdiction because these appointments were not covered by the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act nor the collective agreement. That is exactly the type of situation we have here. Article 3 and its collective agreement protection is triggered after the unclassified employee has signed hislher contract and has been appointed to the public service in accordance with s.a and 8.1 The collective agreement's protection ends with the expiry of the contract both by its own terms and under statute. We do not have the authority to go beyond the term of the contract of employment whatever the employer's reasons for not granting a new contract may be. We do not have the authority to imply any sort of permanence to what is essentially a temporary arrangement regardless how often the contracts may have been renewed. Whatever wrongs may need redress must find a forum other than this one for thier resolution. For these reasons I would have found that we do not have the juri~diction to hear this grievance. d~flV:Cx Michael Milich -