HomeMy WebLinkAbout1981-0570.Mepham.82-08-12 DecisionCR1EVANCE EETTLEMETT ri?A.R.)
ADVANCE CO?'
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REGISTRAR
570/81
IN THE MATTER OF AN ARBITRATION
Under
THE CROWN EMPLOYEES COLLECTIVE BARGAINING ACT
Before
THE GRIEVANCE SETTLEMENT BOARD
Between: OLBEU (Bob Mepham)
Grievor
and
The Crown in Right of Ontario
(Liquor Control Board of Ontario)
Employer
Before: S.B. Linden, Q.C. Vice Chairman
P. Craven Member
J.H. Morrow Member
For the Grievor: M.A. Green, Counsel
Golden, Levinson
For the Employer: R.J. Drmai, Counsel
Hicks, Morley, Hamilton, Stewart & Stone
Hearing: April 16, 1982
2
This is the grievance of Mr. Bob Mepham, who alleges that
he was improperly denied promotion to the position of
'B' Store Assistant Manager (Liquor Store Manager 2) by his
employer, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. By circular
dated May 19th, 1981 and addressed to all employees at a
list of Toronto-area stores, the employer solicited
applications "for promotion in the Toronto area" to the
disputed position ("Job Posting #910", Exhibit 3). Mr.
Mepham appears as one among the 112 applicants who responded
to this posting in a list of applicants dated June 23rd, 1981,
Exhibit 4. On September 1st, 1981, the employer issued
another circular, entitled "Job Posting #910 (announcement)",
Exhibit 5, which communicated that four promotions had been
awarded, listing the successful applicants and their seniority
dates. Four promotions to the post of "'B' Store Assistant
Manager 2" had been made. Mr. Mepham was not one of these
four, and he had greater seniority than any of them. On
September 18th, 1981 he grieved the denial of promotion.
grievance meeting was held between the parties on December
18th, 1981 and by letter of December 24th, 1981, Exhibit 2,
the employer denied the grievance saying, "it has been
decided that the grievor as evidenced by recent performance
was not qualified for promotion at the time of the selection".
The grievance was subsequently remitted to this Board for
determination, and a hearing was held on April 16th, 1982.
3
The relevant provision of the Collective Agreement is
Article 16.6(a):
"Where employees are being considered for
promotion, length of service from appoint-
ment date will be the determining factor
provided the employee is qualified to
perform the job."
As noted above, Mr. Mepham was senior to all four successful
, candidates for the promotion. (Ten other unsuccessful
candidates were senior to Mr. Mepham, a fact whose bearing
we consider later in this award.) He chose at the hearing
to challenge the promotion of the most senior of the
successful candidates, Mr. A. E. Warwick, who, we are informed,
had been notified of the hearing.We heard no evidence as to
Mr. Warwick's qualifications for the position, but on the
language of the Article quoted above, this is not material to
the determination of the grievance. The Article requires that
the most senior candidate who possesses the requisite qualifi-
cations is to be awarded the promotion. The clear implication
is that candidates are to be considered in the order of their
seniority. The first candidate (i.e. the one with the greatest
seniority) who qualifies for the job is to be awarded the
first vacant position, the next the second vacant position and
so on until all the vacancies have been filled. It follows
that if Mr. Mepham was qualified for the position he was in
line to receive it even before Mr. Warwick, who had less
seniority, was considered. The threshold question, then, is
whether Mr. Mepham was qualified for the position of 'B'
Store Assistant Manager (Liquor Store Manager 2).
The parties agreed that the onus is on the grievor in the
first instance to establish a prima facie case that he was
qualified for the promotion. The onus then shifts to the
employer to show that in fact the grievor was not qualified.
In the ordinary course of such matters, then, board would expect
to be presented with evidence establishing what qualifications
the position requires. It would then be up to the grievor to
show that he possessed these qualifications. Then the
employer would seek to demonstrate that the grievor was not
qualified or, if in the employer's view the grievor had failed
to satisfy the initial onus, it might choose to present no
evidence and ask the board to find that the grievor, on his
or her awn showing, was unqualified.
In this case, however, the matter was complicated by the
employer's submissions. First, that there was no Collective
Agreement requirement that there be qualifications for the
job (although in its submission the grievor was required to
show he was qualified); second, that if there were qualifications
it was within the unfettered discretion of the employer to
determine what they were; third, that in any event there was no
Collective Agreement obligation on the employer to disclose
what the qualifications were if in fact there were any.
Further complications were introduced with the employer's
related submissions going to the selection procedure. First
that there was no requirement that there be any such procedure;
second that if there was to be a procedure the employer had
unfettered discretion to design and implement it; and third
that this board lacks jurisdiction to enquire into the
adequacy of the procedure employed if in fact there was any
procedure employed. Before moving to the evidence about Mr.
Mepham's qualifications, then, it is necessary to consider
these submissions.
Are Qualifications Required?
The first question we are called upon to decide here is whether,
on the language of this Collective Agreement, it is necessary
that there be qualifications attached to specific positions.
On the language of Article 16.6(a), quoted above, it is plain
that we must answer in the affirmative. The article requires
that the senior qualified candidate receive the promotion. If
there were in fact no requirement that a position carry qualifi-
cations with it, it would necessarily follow that the most
senior applicant automatically receive the promotion. But it
is a common rule of construction that Collective Agreement
provisions are to be interpreted so as to give meaning to their
6
words. The parties obviously intended (and indeed it is a
matter of basic common sense) that there be qualifications,
and that unqualified candidates, no matter what their seniority,
not be promoted. We find that the Collective Agreement requires
that there be qualifications attached to positions.
The second question asks, in effect, how those qualifications
are to be determined, and whether this Board hag jurisdiction to
enquire into the adequacy of the employer's determination of
what qualifications are to be required of applicants for a
position. Counsel for the employer directed us to the "Management
Functions" provisions of the Collective Agreement, and in
particular to Article 3.1, which mirrors the language of the
Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act, Section 18, and provides
as follows:
"The Union acknowledges that it is the exclusive
function of the Boards to manages which function,
without limiting the generality of the foregoing,
includes the right to determine,
(a)employment, appointment, complement, organi-
zation, assignment, discipline, dismissal, sus-
pension, work methods and procedures, kinds and
locations of equipment and classification of
positions; and
(b)merit system, training and development,
appraisal and superannuation, the governing
principles of which are subject to review by the
employer with the bargaining agent,
and such matters will not be the subject of
collective bargaining nor come within the juris-
diction of a Board."
7
On this language, it was submitted, the employer enjoyed
an unfettered discretion to determine what qualifications
were appropriate for appointment to the various positions.
Counsel for the employer pointed to the absence of any
provisions requiring that the employer act "fairly" in
making such determinations, and argued that this Board is
prevented in law from imposing such a requirement in the
absence of plain language in the Collective Agreement.
Up to a point, we accept these submissions. There is no
doubt on this language that it is the exclusive province
of the employer to determine what qualifications should
be required. In our view, however, the employer's exercise
of that right to determine is qualified in some respect.
First, since, as we have already found, the Collective
Agreement requires that there be a set of qualifications
associated with a position, we do not believe that the
employer is free to exercise his right by determining that
there are to be no qualifications for a particular position.
Second, the exercise of the right is qualified by the rules
of natural justice. The employer must not make its deter-
mination arbitrarily, discriminatorily or in bad faith.
Finally, with respect to the question of "fairness", we
do not find that the current jurisprudence on this issue
absolves the employer of the more limited duty of reason-
ableness. Thus is was determined long ago that in establishing
the qualifications for a position, the employer must take
8
into account the nature of the positions and avoid taking
into account irrelevant considerations. See, for example,
the well known cases of St. Lawrence Seaway Authority (1969)
23 LAC 156 (Weiler) and Polymer Corp. Ltd. (1968) 19 LAC 386
(Weatherill), in which it was determined that the tests used
to assess candidates' qualifications for a position must be
relevant to the position: if the tests must be relevant, so
a fortiori must be the specifications of qualifications
themselves.
Finally we turn to the question whether the employer is
required to communicate to candidates what qualifications
are required for the position for which they are applying.
We must say we were quite surprised to hear counsel for the
employer insist that there was no such obligation on the
employer, particularly in light of his equally insistent
claim that the grievor was obliged to show he met the
qualifications. In any event, this argument is easily
disposed of on the language of the Collective Agreement.
Article 16.5(a) governs job postings and provides as follows
(emphasis supplied):
"If a new job classification within the
bargaining unit is created or a permanent
vacancy occurs in an existing job classifi-
cation before inviting applications from
within the geographic area as specified,
notice of such new job or vacancy for a
9
period of ten (10) working days during
which employees within such area who have
completed their probationary period may
apply. The notice shall stipulate
qualifications, classifications, salary
range, department and location concerned."
We find that when a position is posted pursuant to this
Article, as occurred in the present grievance, the employer
is required to include on the posting a statement of qualifi-
cations for the position. We note that Exhibit 3, the job
posting at issue here, fails to satisfy this requirement.
It is accordingly in breach of Article 16.5(a). It should go
without saying that the employer cannot be permitted to rely
on this breach, so as to continue to maintain that it need
not supply the particulars of the qualifications to the grievor.
Is a Selection Procedure Required?
We have already stated that in our view the language of Article
16.6(a) clearly contemplates that candidates are to be ranked
by seniority and then examined in turn to determine whether
they meet the qualifications for the position. As candidates
are found, in order of seniority, to be qualified, the vacancies
are filled. It must be emphasized that on this language there
is no question of comparing candidates one with another, or
asking whether one candidate is more qualified than another.
The plain language of the Article requires that this mode of
filling vacancies be adhered to, and it plainly follows that
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a selection procedure must be devised that will ensure such
proper consideration. It follows, first, that there must
be a procedure, and second, that in designing it the
discretion of the employer is fettered to the extent that the
procedure must ensure that the requirements of the Article
are met. The employer's discretion is similarly fettered by
the requirements of natural justice discussed in the preceding
section, and by the same requirement of relevance.
This Board is of the view that it does have jurisdiction to
determine whether the selection procedure employed meets the
requirements set out above. Of course, the employer retains
the right to design a procedure that suits its administrative
convenience, so long as the procedure is one that will satisfy
these requirements. We shall have more to say about this
matter below, once we have considered the evidence in the
current grievance.
Evidence as to Qualification
The grievor, Mr. Mepham, joined the staff of the LCBO in 1969.
He was employed first at the Avenue Road store, transferred
to a store at Eglinton and Laird in 1977, and transferred to
his present store, #584 (Finch and McCallum) in 1981. He
experienced the usual progression through the salary ranges,
reaching the maximum salary in his current classification
in July, 1979. He began his employment with the LCBO as a
Clerk 2, and is currently a Clerk 4. This is a bookkeeping
position. His duties involve keeping reports of the store's
cashf low and stock, "cashing out" the store's cashiers, and
filing weekly and monthly reports of sales and stock with the
LCBO's head office. His current store is classified as a
'C' store, which means that it has no Assistant Manager. A
'C' store has a Manager, and a 'B' store, by contrast, has a
Manager, an Assistant Manager, and a Clerk 4 bookkeeper, along
with a complement of Clerk 3's, Clerk 2's, and so on. Mr.
Mepham testified that in the course of his career he has
served as Store Manager or Assistant Manager in an acting
capacity on a number of occasions. Prior to April, 1980,
his current store was classified 'B' and he regularly served
as acting Assistant Manager and acting Manager on Thursday or
Friday evening shifts. When the store was reclassified as a
'C' store he continued to have charge of these shifts on a
regular basis, in the capacity of acting Store Manager.
Moreover, he filled in as acting Manager when the then Store
Manager was away sick or on vacation. Mr. Mepham's employee
appraisal reports, dated September, 1979 and September, 1980
were submitted as Exhibits 6 and 7 respectively. (A further
annual appraisal for 1981 is discussed below.) The 1979
appraisal showed him as "above average" on three of the
thirteen categories, and "average" on the others. The 1980
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appraisal was identical in this respect. The Store Manager
at the time, Mr. Cramer, commented on the 1979 appraisal,
"Mr. Mepham performs his duties in a satisfactory manner.
He gets along well with his fellow employees, and very
courteous with the public. At maximum salary in his classifi-
cation as a Clerk IV." On the 1980 appraisal he wrote, "Mr.
Mepham gets along well with his fellow employees, and very
courteous with the customers. Has a good knowledge of store
operations. At maximum salary as a Clerk IV." The District
Supervisor wrote on the 1979 form, "Mr. Mepham (sic) is a
mature employee, whose work is acceptable in his present
classification. He co-operates fully, contributes to the
operation of this small conventional stord and is receiving
maximum salary for present position. Recommend no change at
present time." The District Supervisor wrote on the 1980 form,
"Mature, dependable employee with a hearing problem who
believes that this is holding him back from becoming an
Assistant Manager. He has requested a transfer to another
store for further evaluation. I concur. Recommend no change
at this time." (It was no part of the employer's argument
in this grievance that Mr. Mepham's hearing played a part in
the decision to deny his promotion. It therefore did not fall
to us to determine whether it interfered with his ability to
perform his job. Mr. Mepham wears two hearing aids, and
seemed to us to have no difficulty in hearing and understanding
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the questions put to him by counsel.)
Since Mr. Mepham's other evidence was directed to responding
to what he perceived might be the contrary evidence of the
employer (and we deal with this below), this amounted in
essence to his evidence that he was qualified for the position
of Assistant Manager for T;/hich he had applied. It will be
recalled, first that there exists an initial onus on the
grievor to present a prima facie case that he is qualified
for the position, and second that the employer had failed in
its duty to supply particulars of the qualifications required
for the position. As will become apparent, at no point in
these proceedings was the employer able or willing to provide
the grievor or, for that matter, this Board, with a statement
of qualifications. The Board has therefore to determine
whether Mr. Mepham has satisfied the initial onus, without
the benefit of having the employer's statement of required
qualifications before it. We are satisfied on the evidence
having regard to these circumstances, that Mr. Mepham has
shown prima facie grounds for considering him to have been
qualified for the position of Assistant Manager. In particular,
his evidence that he has filled this position in an acting
capacity (and indeed has acted as Manager as well) indicates
that he is familiar with the requirements of the job and has
shown himself able to carry them out. We have also taken into
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account the evidence of the job appraisals, including the
comment of his Manager that he "has a good knowledge of
store operations". On this evidence, we are satisfied that
the onus must shift to the employer to show that Mr. Mepham
was not qualified for promotion to Assistant Manager.
We have already alluded to the fact that in the course of
Mr. Mepham's evidence, counsel for the Union introduced a
third performance appraisal, dated October, 1981, Exhibit 8.
We note that this document was produced after the decision
to deny Mr. Mepham the promotion he sought had already been
taken, and that it was introduced into evidence to offer Mr.
Mepham an opportunity to speak to two incidents to which it
refers, incidents that took place before the promotion
decision was made and which, the Union anticipated might have
been the grounds upon which the denial decision was taken.
The first of these incidents had to do with errors in the
store reports that were found by head office auditors. We
are satisfied on the evidence of Mr. Mepham and the other
witnesses that this problem arose out of a simple misunder-
standing, and that the "errors" complained of occurred, to
the extent that they were Mr. Mepham's responsibility at all,
because the auditors examined a report that had not yet been
completed and checked. We find that this incident does not
go in any way to the question of Mr. Mepham's qualifications
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or his suitability for promotion. The second incident
had to do with an alleged improper procedure in "cashing out"
a cashier. We heard a great deal of evidence from all witnesses
about this incident, and we note that the employer's witnesses,
the current Store Manager and the current District Supervisor,
disagreed in their account of what the proper procedure should
have been. In any event, we find that the procedure used by
Mr. Mepham at the time of the incident was the procedure in
common use by employees at his store (including the Store
Manager) and probably at other stores as well. We are satisfied
on the evidence that this incident does not reflect adversely
on Mr. Mepham's qualifications or suitability for promotion to
the job of Assistant Manager. Having made these findings of
fact, we do not consider the appraisal of October, 1981 to have
any further relevance to the determination of the matter before
US.
At this point it is necessary to refer to a procedural submission
placed before us by the parties. The Union took the view
initially that the only grounds upon which the employer relied
in determining that Mr. Mepham was not qualified for the
promotion were the two incidents cited above. It was the Union's
submission that the employer had so stated in the course of
the grievance procedure, and that it was accordingly estopped
from raising other grounds at this hearing. The employer denied
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having restricted itself to these two incidents. The Board
then proposed hearing evidence as to whether or not the
employer had indicated at some earlier stale of the procedure
that it rested its denial on these two incidents alone.
Counsel for the employer objected to this procedure however,
and submitted that under no circumstances could the employer
be estopped from raising additional grounds for denial, no
matter what had transpired before. Counsel asked that we
determine this question in the hypothetical. We indicated
our reluctance to deal with questions of this sort on purely
hypothetical grounds, but ruled unanimously that in our view
circumstances could hypothetically arise whereby the employer
was estopped from introducing new grounds at the hearing stage
in a denial of promotion grievance. We indicated our
reluctance to hear evidence about what had transpired during
the grievance procedure, particularly as it might relate to
attempts at settlement, but held that if an employer were to
indicate in the course of the grievance procedure that
certain matters were the sole reasons for its decisions, that
this would be evidence in the nature of a response to the
grievance, that it would properly be before the Board, and
that the Union would be entitled to rely on this statement by
the employer. Having so ruled in the hypothetical, we proceeded
to hear evidence as to whether this employer had so restricted
itself in this grievance, and we found that it had not.
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It fell next to the employer to rebut the grievor's case
that he was qualified for the position. Its first witness
was the grievor's present Store Manager, Mr. Cameron. Mr.
Cameron supported Mr. Mepham's evidence on the "cashing out"
incident, and with respect to the audit errors_incident he
testified that the errors reported in Exhibits 10 and 12 were
either not clearly traceable to the grievor, or were "the
sort of small error you see all the time", saying, for
example, of one of them, "it is not unusual for this error
to occur, every store will have that". He acknowledged that
the errors could have been Mr. Mepham's or the typists, and
that it was his responsibility to check the reports. Mr.
Cameron was asked in cross-examination whether he knew Mr.
Mepham was applying for the promotion. His reply is
informative: "I gave him and Mr. McHugh and Mr. McPherson the
notice of the posting. They were all qualified." (Emphasis
supplied.) Mr. Cameron was shown a letter he had written to
his Area Manager in August, 1981, complaining about Mr. Mepham,
Exhibit 11. He testified that he had written it because of
criticism and reprimands he was receiving from head office
arising out of the incidents referred to earlier. We find on
Mr. Cameron's evidence that Mr. Mepham was not particularly
at fault in these incidents, and that the letter of complaint
was therefore ill-founded. We found Mr. Cameron to be a frank
and candid witness. We conclude on his evidence that he
-18 -
considered Mr. Mepham to be qualified for the promotion,
and that none of the incidents he related has any bearing
on the question of Mr. Mepham's suitability or qualifications
for the promotion. We note that Mr. Cameron was not consulted
as to whether Mr. Mepham should or should not be promoted.
The employer's only other witness was the District Supervisor
in the grievor's district, Mr. Fletcher. Mr. Fletcher gave
evidence about the audit and "cashing out" incidents referred
to earlier. In some respects his evidence was in conflict
not only with that of the grievor but with that of Mr. Cameron
as well. In light of Mr. Fletcher's general demeanor as a
witness, we are not inclined to adopt his versions of these
occurrences. In any event, Mr. Fletcher introduced no new
incidents that might go to the question whether the grievor
was qualified. He was the only witness who had actually been
present at the selection meeting where the grievor's application
was denied, and he appears to have been the only person at that
meeting who was at all familiar with the grievor. He testified
that he had not seen Mr. Cameron's letter, Exhibit 11, prior to
that meeting, and so we must assume that it played no part in
the determination. Similarly, he had not seen the "follow-up
audit report", Exhibit 12, which is in any event dated after
the determination was made. We conclude therefore, that at the
time Mr. Mepham's application for promotion was considered,
there were no well-founded complaints about his performance
-19 -
within the knowledge of the selectors. We find that the
employer has failed to show that we should overturn Mr.
Mepham's prima facie claim that he was qualified, and indeed
that the only employer witness who testified as to whether
or not Mr. Mepham was qualified - Mr. Cameron - said that
in his opinion he was. We concur in that view. We find that
Mr. Mepham was qualified for the position of Assistant Manager,
subject to our earlier reservations about not having a formal
statement of qualifications before us.
The Selection Process
On the evidence we have already reviewed, it is apparent that
the employer violated article 16.6(a) in failing to promote
Mr. Mepham (whom we found, with the reservations already noted,
to have been qualified) before promoting Mr. Warwick, who was a
less senior employee. In order to see wherein that violation
arose, we must now turn to the evidence we heard about the
process undertaken by the employer to select employees for
promotion under Job Posting #910. The only evidence before us
on this matter is the testimony of Mr. Fletcher, which can be
summarized as follows:
A meeting was held of the seven District Supervisors in the area
to which the Posting was relevant, and their Area Manager, a Mr.
Brady. The participants in this meeting had before them a list
of applicants in order of seniority, Exhibit 4. They did not
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have before them a statement of the qualifications for
tile posted position (Mr. Fletcher testified that there had
at some indeterminate time been a circular issued listing
these qualifications, but it was not before the selection
meeting, nor did he recall when the circular was issued,
which circular was involved, or when he had last read it).
Nor, it would appear, did the selectors have before them
any documentation as to the qualifications of the various
candidates for the position. Apparently the Area Manager
read the names from the list one by one, and the District
Supervisor in charge of the store where each of the applicants
was employed gave his recommendation as to whether or not
the candidate should be promoted. As Mr. Fletcher put it,
"basically all that happenedwas as we went down the list the
Supervisor would say, 'I recommend' (or) 'I don't recommend'".
When Mr. Mepham's name came up, Mr. Fletcher said "not
recommended". He could not recall whether anything except
this was said, although he thought that Mr. Brady might have
said something. It is clear on the evidence that no examination
of the various candidates' qualifications was undertaken at
this meeting. It is equally clear that in not recommending
Mr. Mepham, Mr. Fletcher had not turned his mind to the formal
qualifications for the job, or to whether or not Mr. Mepham
possessed the required qualifications. There is no evidence
to suggest, and we are not inclined to believe, that a
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different situation resulted with respect to any of the
other candidates for the posting.
This selection procedure leaves a great deal to be desired.
We have already noted that the language of the Collective
Agreement clearly contemplates a process in which candidates
are taken in order of seniority, examined as to their
qualifications, and appointed seriatim to the vacant positions
until these are all filled. The procedure employed here
satisfied only the first of these requirements, and that only
in form. Similarly, we have already noted a violation of
Article 16.5(a) in that candidates were not informed through
the posting of the qualifications required. We now find that
the selectors themselves were left equally in the dark. It is
beyond the capacity of
committee could assess
a position when it had
qualifications for the
own qualifications.
this Board to understand how a selection
whether a candidate was qualified for
before it neither a statement of the
position nor a listing of the candidate's
Remedy
We have found that Mr. Mepham's application for promotion to
the position of 'B' Store Assistant Manager (Liquor Store
Manager 2) was improperly denied, in violation of the provisions
of the Collective Agreement. We have found that Mr. Mepham
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presented a cogent prima facie case that he was qualified
for the promotion, given the rather unusual circumstance
\ that no formal statement of qualifications for the post
was available to the Board. We have found that he was passed
over in order of seniority in favour of Mr. Warwick.
A number of remedial options are available to us. If we were
satisfied that on the employer's own criteria the grievor
possessed the requisite qualifications we might order his
appointment to the position. Alternatively, we might take
into account the fact that other candidates, more senior
than the grievor, were passed over, and depending upon the
circumstances of the particular case, we might conclude that
their applications should be reconsidered. If we were
unsure that the grievor was qualified but were satisfied that
the selection procedure was so flawed as to have rendered it
unlikely that the question of his qualifications was properly
addressed, we might require the employer to conduct the
entire selection process over again. Depending on the nature
and severity of the flaws in the process, we might find it
necessary to attach conditions to this reprocessing so as to
ensure that it was carried out properly.
In the present case, where we do not have before us a
statement of position qualifications, we find it difficult
to shape a wholly satisfactory remedy. If we felt able to
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rely on our judgment of Mr. Mepham's qualifications, we
would have no hesitation in appointing him to the position
even in the face of the ten more senior unsuccessful
candidates, for they have apparently exercised their option
not to grieve the outcome. We are satisfied that Mr. Mepham
has established a prima facie case for his qualifications.
This does not necessarily mean, however, that he was
qualified, but only that the onus fell upon the employer to
show that he was not. The employer has not discharged that
onus successfully, but is has also not supplied us with any
evidence upon which to base a further assessment of Mr.
Mepham's qualifications (other than the opinion evidence of
the Store Manager, who said Mr. Mepham, in his view, was
qualified). We are certain of one thing: that the selection
procedure was flawed so that the question of qualifications
was never properly addressed. It follows that we must take
into account the ten senior candidates who have not grieved,
for this is not a case of a grievor saying "they looked at
my qualifications and they made a mistake", under which
circumstances it would have been open to any of the senior
unsuccessful applicants to grieve, but instead a case where
the grievor alleges a far more fundamental breach: "they
failed to look at my qualifications". And here any or all
of the applicants, and the Union in its own right as well,
have grounds for complaint. In any event, we are unwilling,
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albeit with some regret, to conclude that Mr.
be placed in the position. Instead we find the
procedure to have been so flawed as to have been
It must be redone properly.
It is our award that the posting be reprocessed
1.The employer is to produce the formal statem
qualifications for the position of 'B' Store Ass
(Liquor Store Manager 2) and circulate them fort
of the original applicants for Job Posting #910.
applicants are to be informed that the original
procedure has been found by this Board to have b
and they are to be invited to submit a statement
qualifications for the positions (four in number
wish to reapply. The employer shall allow a rea
reapplication. Only the original applicants sha
to reapply.
2.Within 30 days from the release of this awar
shall establish a procedure for selecting from a
candidates, specifying the personnel to be invol
documents to be placed before them, and the mann
the selection shall operate, and it shall meet w
tives of the Union to discuss the adequacy of th
If there is any dispute about the procedure to b
this Board remains seized to determine same. If
days from the time of the meeting with the Union, the Union
has not moved to have this Board determine such a dispute,
the employer shall put the procedure into effect.
3.The time limits specified above may be varied on the
mutual agreement of the parties.
4.Employees who are promoted as a result of the procedure
specified above shall have their appointments backdated to
September 1st, 1981. However, the the purposes of Article
16.10 of the Collective Agreement, the three month period
specified therein shall begin on the date on which the
appointment is announced.
5.This Board shall remain seized to determine any disputes
arising out of the implementation of this award, including
(but not restricted to) any disputes that may arise as to
incidental compensation.
Because we are confident that the employer will make every
effort to implement the terms of this award in good faith,
we are not prepared to concede the Union's request that we
provide for the attendance of a Union observer at the
selection meeting. This does not mean, however, that the
- 26-
parties may not mutually agree, if they so desire, to have
such an observer present.
DATED at Toronto this 12th day of August, 1982.
S. Lk Linden, Q.C. Vim, Chairnmn
P. Craven Member
//,
J.H. Morrow Member