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Home My WebLink About1981-0669.Coholan.82-06-03IN THE WTTER OF AN ARBITRATION Under TIE CROWN EMPLOYEES COLLECTIVE BARGAINING ACT Before Between: Before: For the Grievor: THE GRIEVARCE SETTLEbiE;XT BOARD For the Employer: Hearing: OPSEU (Peter Coholan) ,' Grievor - And - The Crownin Right of Ontario (Ministry of Community and Social Services) Employer P.G. Barton T. Traves G. Walker Vice Chairman Member Member G. Richards Grievance/Classification Officer Ontario Public,Service Employees Union A. Greenbaum, Counsel Ministry of Community and Social Services April 26,~ 1982 Award This grievance is brought by Peter Coholan, presently classified as Residential Counsellor II(RCX1) at the Southwestern Regional Centre, Blenheim, Ontario. He grieves that he was not awarded the position of RCIII. Developmental Unit, in a competition held in August and, September, 1981.~ The successful candidate Jim Cummings was present at'the hearing and took part. The Southwestern Regional Centre .is.,a centre set up for the care and'treatment of mentally impaired persons. There are a number of units within the Centre including the Developmental Unit, the East Unit, a Behaviour Modification Unit, and others. Counselling within the Unit is done by Residential Counsellors classified as RCII. In the DevelopAntal Unit there~ werefrom 12 to 15 of these persons. Immediately above these persons areAssistant Residential Supervisors (RCIII).‘?here are two on each ward. This is the position sough~t bythe Giiev'or and successfully obtained~ by'Mr. Cumnfngs. Above this level fs one Ward Supervisor (RCIV). and above t&are further' Supervisors. Much of the work in the Developmental Unit is involved in programing patientsto learn to do certain bas.ic tasks such as feed or dress themselves. Because of the degree of impairment, it may take,many of these patients a long time to achieve basic skills. In other Units such as the East Unit in which.the Grievor was working, there is less emphasis placed on -because the levelof impairment of the patients is greater. The job description of the position of Assistant Residencd~: 1 Supervisor. prepared in 1976 requires successful~ completion of the Mental Retardation Certificate course. and ,-;i ,,, . . . ..i -- -3- "At least one year's,experience following completion of the MRC course. . ..)I The Grievor joined the Ministry in September 1979 as an RCI following completion of a B.A. in Waterloo. in Social Development Studies. He completed the MRC course and became an RC1.l in June of 1980. He was appraised in September 1980 and was rated satisfactory overall. It might be noted that.of the two categories'above satisfactory, the,highest, excellent, Is not one which is awarded at the Institution. Following the competition he received-a second appraisal and was rated as highly satisfactory. Mr. Cunniings, worked in the sun&r of 1979 as a Psychometrist I. During the surmaer of 1980 he was in the Independent Work Study Program at the Institution and on September 15, 1980 became a RCI. His continuous, service was back dated to May of 1980 because'of his unbroken employment with theMfnfstry since thattime (this is required by the relevant regulatfom). In March of 1981 he became an RCII. Following an abortive posting in July, the position was posted on.August 14, 1981. The qualifications required include: "Successful, completion of~the MRC course and atlzast one year's related work experience.~ .*. The selection process involved initial screening followed by interviews. Four persons were interviewed by a Board composed of three persons. These were: 1. Murray Stark, Personnel Representative,Southwest Regional Centre. 2. Dr. T. Managhan, in 1981 the Acting' Unit Director of the .s. Developmental Unit. 3. 8. McMillan, at that-.tima Chief Residential Counsellor, Developmental Unit. Mr. Stark checked all the personnel files of the persons to be interviewed: all of'the candidates were asked the same questions. Score sheets were kept and the accumulated score shows that the successful candidate received a total of.181 points. All, three members of the Selection Committee ranked this person as superior. A second candidate was ranked superior by two out of the three persons on the Board. The Grievor was ranked second by one person, third.by a second person, and fourth by a third person. His gross score was 143. 'The general.impression gained by the interviewing comniittee was that the successful candidate was clearly superior. In particular, he was original and expansive in his~answers, projected hfmself well, and badmore experiencedin program-. The.Grievor.did not project himself well, a fact which we observed at the hearing; and in particular gave his answers in an inaudible tone. IO addition,his answers were not " expansive,and although asked oh,one occasion to expand on one answer,,he failed to do so. There are a number of issues raised'by this grievance. The burden of proof of sbowfng relative equality within the meanfng of'Artfcle 4.3 rests upon the Grievor. We should say at the outset that we have no doubt whatsoever that the Grievor is a well educated person whop is highly qualffied for his positfon and who clearly does a good job; This case is somewhat simi.lar to.the case of Cooper GSB 215/?9 (Pri,tchard). It was pointed.-out there that it is often the case'that the employer has the difficult job of choosing among several qualified candfdates. The position of'the Union seems to be that certain defects occurred .in the process. In the ffrst place it is alleqed that becauce the,appraisal of the Griever was 11 months out of date, the committee should -5- have consulted his itnnediate supervisor Mr. Blais. i In the second place it is suggested that managemeht changed the experience required from that mentioned in the job specification and perhaps did this so that the successful candidate could obtain the job, It is also alleged that the grad&s were not accurately given in that the answers to some of the questions deserved better grades than were awarded. Dealing with the first question we do agree that~it would have been better for members of the selection committee to have interviewed the inawadiate supervisor of the Grievor. 'They'might well have found out about his experience in the area of prograq,which experience was not dfsclosed at the hearfng. .Uowevor, since th&s programming experience is s.omewhat less~ than'that of the .&&ssful ~~&&,&'&~Mr. BIgis would not have had an opportunity,to see the.Grievor in a supervisory capacity, we do not feel that any substantial wrong was done in this case by the failure to consult him. .Itis the case that the experience requirement wasp altered from that found in the job specification., This was done in this case by E. McMillan, M. Stark, and possibly the Unit Program Director. They sat down prior to the competition without knowing who the candidates would be and'decided to relax somewhat the requirement of one year's experience after the MW: qualification. The stated reason'for doing thfs. which reason .we have no c.w>to doubt, is that so many of the RCZs are highly qualified with university degrees that the extra experience whfch was 'thought to be required in 1976 is not always required now. We do not. ' see anything sinister in this, nor have we found any evidence that this was done expressly to benefit Mr. Cummings. We don suggest,howeverJhat the -6- job speciffcation be'amended to .reflect the changed requirement. With respect to the,question of whether or not grades were accurately assigned, we have a good deal of,difficuity in sitting in judgment on the members of the selection board. The assigning of grades definitely does require some subjectivity,and having listened to the answers given by both candidates to a number of the questions, while we'might have.been a bit more generous with some of the Grievor's ~answers, we are not~satisfied that the gross scores would have.been close. Because of the treasons set out above and because the decision, was an unanimous one on the part of the Board, because~ the Grievor was ranked third.or worse by the majority of then members of the interviewing board, and because we have seen no major defect in the selection process, we dismiss the grievance. DATED AT London, Ontarfo this, 3rd. day;of June.-lssz. . Peter G. Barton Vice Chairman -?zr- T. Raves Member .., G. Walker Member