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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1984-1138.Dixon.86-01-10LN THE MATTER 0~ AN ARBITRATION Under THE CROWN EMPLOYEES COLLECTIVE BARGAINING ACT Before THE GRIEVANCE SETTLEMENT BOARD Between: OPSEU (B. Dixon) Grievor - and - The Crown in Right of Ontario (Ministry of Health) Before: For the Grievor: For the Employer: Date of Hearina: Prof. R.J. Roberts Vice-Chairman Dean T. Traves Member G. Peckham Member N. Roland _. Counsel Cornish & Associates Barristers & Solicitors 0. Hansen Regional Personnel Administrator Ministry of Eealth July 5, 985 October ) 1X5 2. OECISIbN - In the grievance leading to the present arbitration, the griever, who currently~. is classified as a Clerk 3 General, claimed the classification of Clerk 4 General. For reasons which follow, the grievan>ce is dismissed. The grievor is a Reference Clerk in the information Services Section of the Communications and Information Branch of the Ministry of Health. According to the evidence,' the Information Services Section is a small unit with a high-pressure environment. It is responsible for the day-to-day relations of the Ministry with the media and the public, and, inter alia, backgrounding the Minister and senior Officials regarding health- related issues of current importance. Mr. J. McHugh, who was the Assistant Director in charge of the Information Services Section at the time of the grievance, testified that the Media Relations Personnel and the Reference Clerks worked together like a closely-knit team. Their numbers were small: apart from Mr. McHugh and MS: A. M. Montgomery, the Supervisor, Media Information, there were a small number of Media Relations Officers and two Reference Clerks, including the grievor. Their desks were located close to each other, in the same area. There was consrant interaction. Ic was only in this way, Mr. McHugh testified, that the deadlines which came with the critical nature of their function co.uld be met. 3. Perhaps the most critical responsibility of ‘the section was to background the Minister daily regarding issues which might become the subject of questions in the House. Many of these would be so-called "hot" issues which might have been broken by the media the preceding evening or even that morning. Because of this, Mr. McHugh explained, the section was sub- jected to extreme pressure in the first two hours of its daily operations, from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m., to produce accurate infor- mation regarding these issues without delay. The section relied primarily upon two devices to achieve this goal: the preparation of accurate summaries of background information, called Infobacks, and daily compilations of press clippings involving health-related issues from all major newspapers in the province. By far the most stress was placed upon the preparation of Infobacks. Mr. McHugh testified that as soon as he and Ms. Montgomery arrived in the office each morning, it would be decided which were the "hot" or significant issues upon which Infobacks should be written. All members of the team, including the gkievor, participated in identifying these issues. There would be a general exchange of information within. the group regarding health-related matters which had come to their attention via newspapers, radio or tele- vision, after which the decis,ion would be made. Ther, , 14 s . Montgomery would make up a list called "Today's Issues" TV be transmitted to the offices of the Deputy b!inister and the Kinister. This list identified the Infobacks which were being written - 4. on that day, and the names of the Media Relations Officers who were assigned to write them. At this .point, the racewas-on. Mr. McHugh testified that each day, the Infobacks had to be completed as quickly as possible: otherwise, they would be of little use to the Minister. se indicated that the Rouse sits at 2:.00 p.m. on every other day but Wednesday and at 10:00 a.m. on Friday. It was not uncom-man he added, for the Minister's Office to add to the pressure by calling the section to check on the progress of certain Infobacks .which were considered to be of crucial importance. For this reason, there was maintained behind the desk of the grievor a bulletin board upon which the progress of each Infoback was charted, e.g., whether it was still with the Media Relations Officer, had progressed to the typing pool, etc. Undoubtedly because of her proximity to this chart, it was.not uncommon for personnel in the Minister's Office to call the grievor for a pr,ogress report. It also was common for others on the team to receive such calls, e.g., the Media Relations Officer respon- sible for the Infoback in question. ~._ According to the evidence, the grievor played a support- ing role in the preparation of Infobacks. Mr. McHugh testified L3at if a Media Relations Officer was workinq on a partic-lar infoback, e.g., regarding a particular hospital, the Reference Clerk sould be asked to supply relevant information from the files that he or she maintained. Iie agreed that the qrievor could s,a~31y such ynfcrmation withozt being asked because 5. there was a lot of interaction between the Media Relations Officers and the Reference Clerks. He said that it was 2 two-way street... If the grievor was aware that a Media Relations Officer was working on a particular subject, he stated, she might as part of the co-operative effort of the team voluntarily supply the information. He also agreed that the grievor might be asked a general question that would require a fair degree of initiative on her part in researching the answer. The grievor performed her research function by referring to files which contained Infobacks, news releases, speeches, and press ciippings which had previously been iss-ued in the Ministry. The yrievor was familiar with these files because. it also was part of her job to maintain and update them. In order to locate Infohacks containing relevant information, the grievor also was able to refer to an 1.B.E. personal computer which had in its data banks a key word index of all Infobacks issued since 198~2. The grievor was familiar with. the use of this computer because she and her fellow Reference Clerk were responsible for updating the.-information contained therein. The evidence left little doubt that, apart from the assistance provided by the computer, the grievor~was left to rely on her own memory in searching for and locating related inforJma:ion which might have beer. filed under different subject headings from that of the main topic under research. A second aspect of the grievor's job was to .compile press clippings each day from the three major Toronto daily newspapers on health-related matters. The grievor testified that in order to perform this function satisfactorily, it was necessary for her to utilize considerable background knowledge regarding the operations of the Ministry and "hot" issues concern- ing the Ministry. Otherwise, she might miss collecting articles notreadily identifiable from their headline or opening paragraph as of interest to the Ministry. In addition, the grievor was responsible for compiling together newspaper clippings from other Ontario newspapers which had been collected by other members of the team such as Mr. McHugh or Ms. Montgomery. On occasion, as when Ms. Montgomery was away, it was possible for the grievor to be assigned the task of scanning some out-of-town newspapers for such clippings. The grievor was also responsibile for hand-delivering the compilations of clippings to, inter &, the Ministry's corporate group. In November, 1984, the grievor's job, which had been expanded in some respects, was reviewed and allocated to the classification of Clerk 3 General. Her duties and responsi- bilities were summarized as follows: 1. Provides a press clipping service by performing the following tasks: - receiving and scanning three major Toronto daily newspapers (e.g. Globe 6 Mail, The Toronto Sun, the morning and afternoon editions of the Toronto Star and the Oshawa Times); - identifying and clipping all health related articles whether political or informative in content regarding .i 7. health matters and/or Ministry activities and articles published as a result of Ministry news releases, Minister's speeches or press conferences: - reviewing and photocopying all clippings from the ou. +-of-town newspapers (e.g. Hamilton Spectator, London Free Press, Windsor Star and the Kingston GJhic Standard, etc.) provided daily by the Media Relations Officers and weekly by the Area Planning Co-ordinators; - bringing to the attention of the Supervisor, Media Relationsrarticles that may require an Infoback by the Media Relations Officers; - hand delivering morning media clippings to the Ministry's corporate group (e.g. the Minister, Deputy Minister, Associate Deputy Minister, and Assistant Deputy Ministers), 35% staff of Information Services and the Director of Health Promotion and Information before lo:30 a.m.; - hand delivering daily media (containing morning, afternoon, previous evening edition and out-of-town newspaper) clippings to the Ministry's corporate group and selected personnel before 1:30 p.m.: - preparing dEily media copies for mail distribution by affixing address labels to same, before 3:00 p.m.: - preparing special request pick-ups; - ordering as requested, audio/video tapes or transcripts from the media monitoring service: - relaying information to, and receiving information from, support staff in the Minister's Office regarding the status of Infobacks 6 Speech ~requests 2. Maintains a reference centre of reports, periodicals, phOtOS and press clippings by performing the following tasks: . . - identifying, cataloging and indexing (by subject and year) all material to be maintained in the reference centre (e.g. press clippings from newspapers in Toronto, Ottawa, Ramilton, London, Windsor and Kingston, etc.) and periodicals (Medical Post, Ontario Medicine and Canadian Medical Review, etc.); - obtaining information, as recuested, (approximately once a month) from the Legislative Library and Public Libraries for the Media Relation Officers or other staff within the Branch on health related issues: 0. 25% - maintaining biographical information on selected Ministry and other government personnel, ensuring all photographs are dated and include a short des- cription of subject, and contacting branch staff for missing information; - establishing a follow-up system to review reference material at specific intervals to obtain updated information as required; - maintaining and updating a file index list for ali reference material, a nursing home inspection list, Hansards, Issue books and a news release list. 3. Maintains a storage and information retrieval system by: (Note: Systems Management for hardware, software and related procedures is the responsibility of the Administrative Services Section). - revising existing Infoback recorfis with updated material: - inputting a record of all Infobacks and Issue Papers onto an IBM personal computer; - maintaining a master alpha subject list and an abbreviations - used list for all material includitis Issue Papers to ensure conformity and consistency: making additions, changes and deletions, as required: - maintaining a log on diskette back-up and backing up diskettes on a regular basis;. 20% - ensuring that all required information has been identi- fied for input and proofreading work for accuracy: - retrieving and searching for information, as requested, on the IBM personal computer for the Media Relations Officers: - demonstrating to existing ana new staff the use of the IB~personal computer to conduct searches of Infobacks, etc. 4. Provides an information gathering and referencing service for Ministry personnel by: - answering requests from Ministry personnel (written, telephone and across-the-desk) for specific articles and gathering background infozztion on a variety of subjects and issues; 15% - obtaining information to be included with a limited Infoback and distributing to the Minister, Deputy Minister, a.7d Assistant Deputy ?linisters; , 9. - periodically searching and gathering news releases, speeches, Infobacks and press clippings relating to specific issues and announcements made for areas such as nursing home and mental health branches, etc. 5. Performs other related duties such as: - assisting in explaining routine office procedures to an employee in same position, who covers off during vacation, illness or a vacancy (e.g. assembling and distributing press clippings ensuring that the work is done in the proper manner and within the appropriate time frame) ; - as assigned. The position specification stated the following reasons fcr allocating the Clerk 3 General classification tc this job: a) b ) Cl d) ?erfo-ns a variety of routine clerical tasks of some complexity according to established Branch procedures and practices requiring a working knowledge of Ministry organization and programmes (e.g. receiving, scanning, clipping and photocopying three major Toronto daily newspapers and the Oshawa Times of all health-related articles pertaining to Ministry programmes and activities: hand delivering daily media (containing morning, afternoon, previous evening edition and out-of-town newspapers) clippings to the Ministry's corporate group and selected personnel: and maintaining a reference centre of reports, periodicals, photos and press clippings, etc.). Decision-making and some judgement is required .in answer- ing requests from Ministry perJonne1 (written, telephone and across.-the-desk) for specific articles and gathering background information on a'variety of subjects and issues. Initiative is required in periodically searching and gathering news releases, speeches, In~fobacks and press clinnings relating to specific issues and annocncemenrs .- *made fcr areas such as nu:sing home and mental health branches, etc. Doubtful matters not covered by precedent are referred to supervisor. i i 10. At the hearing Ms. F. Roach, who was the Manager _ of the Health Promotion and Information Branch of the Ministry of Health at the time, testified that she drafted the position specification for the grievor and was responsible for allocating to it the classification of Clerk 3 General. Ms. Roach stated that she considered the duties listed in paragraph 1 of the summary, above, to be characteristic of the lower classification 0: Clerk 2 General. In her view, these were clerical tasks of limited complexity with little allowance for independent decision making. The same comments were made with respect to the duties listed in paragraph 3 of the summary, i.e., those relating to maintaining a storage and information retrieval system. The duties in paragraph 5 , relating to assistiny and explaininy routine office procedures to a fellow employee, likewise were characterized as those of a Clerk 2 General. The remaining duties of the yrievor, which comprised some 60% of the job description, were characterized as falling within the Clerk 3 General classification. Ms. Roach testified that these duties required the use of some judgment and decision- . . making powers which.would elevate the.responsibility level to that of a Clerk 3 General. None of the duties assigned to the grievor was considered to be so responsible as to rise to the level 0: the claimed classification of Clerk 4 General. At the hearing,~ the Union contested the assessment i - 11. made by Ms. Roach of the level of judgment, experience and knowledge that the grievor was required to exercise iti perform- ing her job. It was stressed that the grievor had tc exercise a great deal of judgment in scanning newspapers, participating in the daily morning exchange regarding what subjects required Infobacks, researching the files and the computer and in deciding on occasion upon appropriate key words under w'nich to er.ter data into the computer. The same held true with respect to initiative, it was submitted, as when the grievor initiated research in anticipation of a request from a Media Relations Officer who had been assigned writing duties regarding a particular Infoback. Again, it was stressed that the grievor also exercised initiative in the morning exchanges with the other members of the team and in suggesting and implementing certain types of indexing systems on her own. As to background knowledge, the Union emphasized that because the grievor was the source person for a lot of information which ultimately went to the Minister, the grievor had to possess considerably more background knowledge regarding the practices and interests of-the Ministry of Health than that for which she was credited. It also was pointed out that in researching the files, the qrievor's background knowledge was essential in loca ting material which was related to the main issue under research. These were forceful submissions. We are persuad2d by them that in the performance of ma!?y of her duties, the griever was recu~ired to exercise a higher dsgree of responsibility than 12. that for which Ms. Roach gave her credit. However, we 'are unpersuaded that the level of responsibility, etc., which the griever was required to exercise sufficed to raise the job to that of a Clerk 4 General. It seems more likely that the bulk of her duties and responsibilities fit within the confines of the assigned Clerk 3 General classification. As was pointed'out in excellent submissions by counsel for the Ministry, the grievor's duties relating to the scanning of newspapers, cetaloquing and indexing material, end updating the computer best qualified as routine tasks of some complexity, requiring a background knowledge of local practices. while the grievor does require a general knowledge of health programs and health-related issues to perform some of these functions, it appears that these equate well to the background knowledge "of specific regulations, statutes or local practices" found within the Clerk 3 General classification. In the areas of judgment and decision making, it appears that only "some judgment...wi'thin 5 comprehensive framework of guidelines" is required. While the grievor does have a role to play in identifying which issues might become the subject of Infobacks, it is not her judgment which is . exercise0 ir. making the decision as to what spill become :he subject of an Infoback or even what that Infoback will contain. On the evidence, those function belong to Mr. ?;cHugh and the Media Relati ens Officer assigned to the Infoback. .Yoreover , 13. with the respect to the exercise of judgment in collecting newspaper clippings, it was pointed out that the judgment of the grievor was not the sole resource relied upon by the Ministry. There was coverage from others to ensure that all relevant articles were identified. Finally, with respect to initiative, we are unpersuaded that the initiative required of the grievor rises to the Clerk 4 General level of referring to supervisors only those "decisions that depart radically from established practices." The constant interaction which takes place between the Reference Clerks and the other members of the team would seem to ensure a far greater degree of dependence upon personnel of superior rank. Not only Mr. McHugh and Ms. Montgomery, but also the Media Relations Officers sit in close proximity to the grievor and constantly interact with her. The entire group operates a5 a team. In these circumstances, it appears, the opportunities for the grievor to exercise the requisite degree of independence and discretion would; be severely limited. The grievance must be dismissed. DATED at London, Ontario, this 10th day of January, Dissent attached. T. Traves, Member i - +-G /,&4~ G. A. Peckham, Metnber DISCEN With respect, I must dissent from the majority decision Of the Board. I do not differ with their intcrpret,ation o.F the principles governing the settlement of dispute‘i such ~5 thi5, but I disagree with their assessment of the facts in this case. The class series Clerk, General represents a continuum 0.f tasks and responsibilities with distinctions drawn within the series on the basis o-f different levels of complexity, knowledge, supervision, authority, and autonomy. In explaining the rationale behind the decision to grade the gfizvor's position 3s Clerk :T, General, management explained that in their view the tarl:s fell viithin the parameters defilied by .z mix of the Clark 2 and Clerk 2 standards and that ~~ltimately they decided that the t 0 t a 1 configuration fit best within the Clerk 3 standard. I have no quarrel with their methodology, only their conclusions. Eiased on the e\:idence prezented to the Eoard, I he,,,e concluded that tha CjTi @VOl- performs a significant number of functions properly czptured under the Clerk 4 standard, with some admitted?y falling under the lower series, and on balance I believe that the Clerk 41 General class ification best fits the total mix Of tasks described in the job specification.