HomeMy WebLinkAbout1984-0535.Hilson.85-04-16IN THE MATTER OF AN ARBITRATION
Under
THE CROWN EMPLOYEES COLLECTIVE BARGAINING ACT
Before
THE GRIEVANCE SETTLEMENT BOARD
Between: OPSEU (Margaret H. Hilsonl
- and -
Grievor
The Crown in Right of Ontario
(Ministry of Education)
Employer
Before: R. J. Roberts Vice Chairman
E. McVey Member
D. A. Wallace Member
For the Grievor: C. G. Paliare
Counsel
Gowling & Henderson
Barristers and Solicitors
For the Employer: A. W. McChesney
Staff Relation~s Officer
Staff Relations Branch
Civil Service Com~mission
Hearing: February 4, 1985
2.
DECISION
In this arbitration, the qrievor grieved that she was
improperly classified as a Clerical Stenographer 3, and souqht.to
be reclassified to the position of a Clerk Stenographer 4, retro-
active to August 1, 1983. For reasons which follow, the grievance
is dismissed.
For a number of years, the qrievor has been employed at
the E.C. Drury School for the Deaf in Milton, Ontario. This is
a residential as well as a day school. It has. facilities which
deal with a multitude of aspects regarding the treatment of deaf
children, including sociological and psychological problems. This
school is located on the same campus as the Trillium School, which
is a facility for children with severe learning disabilities. There
is a single Superintendent for the entire campus, Mr. R. A. Wollaston,
although the bulk of Mr. Wollaston's direct involvement appears
to be with the Drury School.
In the period 1977 to August 1, 1983, the qrievor was
Secretary to the Dean of Residents and the Guidance Supervisor.
In this position, the grievor was classified as a Clerk Stenographer
3. Thereafter, as a result of a re-organization at the School,
this job was split up among several other staff members and the
qrievor was given a new position that did not previously exist.
This was the job of Secretary to the Resource Services Progam.
In this capacity, the grievor was expected to do work
3.
for eleven people, but principally for Mr. P. Bartu, the
Program Director for the Resource Services Program. This also was
a new position emiinenting out of the same re-organization.
In fact, the "newness" of this entire program meant that
a number of policies and procedures dealing with its operation had
to be conceived and implemented a& initio . This process placed
a heavy burden upon the shoulders of all concerned, including the
qrievor. Mr. Bartu testified that at the start, the whole group
visited schools for the deaf in Belleville and London. They spent
a week discussing together the.design of various referral forms
and procedures. Then, during the first few months of operation,
further discussions took place which were directed toward refining
what had been discussed. Mr. Bartu stated that he could remember
a number of discussions with the grievor and others in the early
stages regarding such matters.
It was in this fashion, for instance, that the grievor
established a standardized form for booking conferences and workshops.
She also established a filing system for brochures and other materials,
and a sign-out and library card system for all of the materials
in the program's library. There seems to be little doubt that in
carrying out these functions, the grievor exercised considerable
initative and responsibility.
After these systems and procedures were in place, however,
the grievor's responsibilities began to take on a more regular rhythm.
These responsibilities were summarized as follows in a position
4.
specification whose descriptive portions the griveor found to be
acceptable:
.- Rovides secretarial and receptionist services by:
- typing letters and memoranda for the Program Direct&, confidential reports for the spiel
worker and consulting psychiatrist, from dictaphone tapes, shorthand or copy;
- typing a wide variety of educational and psycho&ucational reports for resource services
personnel;
- typing and collating sign language lessons, forms, brochures, workshop handouts etc.:
- typing purchase requisitions, revisions to handouts, weekly staff itineraries, statistics;
etc.:
- opening, reading ard directing in-cming mail, drawing urgent correspc~n&mce to the
attention of appropriate staff;
- composing letters or memoranda in response to requests for infor!xetion or when advising
60% dining room of additional meal requirements for workshops and meetings8
- compi;ing and typing a preschool directory ati pr~ucing official @ates three times per
Year; Sd SendLng Od dm9?S and additions, aS tiley occut.internally~ * acting as receptionist for the Resource Services Department( * .- ,- screening and channelling all incoming calls;
& receiving telephone cancellations of parent and resource staff appointments and informing
all appropriate staff of,tbese cancellations and any rescheduli<g;
- receiving the majority of all TTY memory phone calls and making business-related a@
occasional personal TTY calls for hearing-impaired students and staff members*
- taking initial referral information over the phone, as required for completion of the
'initial referral.form' and handling such informetion in e discreet manner in the absence
of the Resource Services Consu&tant;
- receiving confirmations and registrations of parents and professionals planning to att&d
workshops at E.C. Drury School;
- making arrangements when necessary, for meeting/workshop rooms, personal accoum&at.ions in
the school, ard additional meals/snacks for parents or professionals attending meetings or
workshops.
Provides clerical services by:
'_ netdw up a* maintaining easily eccessible filing System for preschool
pupils, school boards and agencies. special forms, and handout materials:
_- keeping records of=referrals, visitations, consultation. etc. for Year-end
30% statistics:
.+mintaining a complete lerding library of V.C.R. 1; video tapes,fi&, and printed
=terials, keeping accurate records of materials on loan$:their timely return
and proper refiling or reshelving;
-'distributing such resource materials to parents and PrOfesSionels es
requested or on own initietiVe:
- maintaining stock and re-ordering supplies for 12 staff personnel, keeping
a running total of money spent in each area;
-_ preparing m&hly staff attendance iecords and forwarding to the business
office.
pe=forms other duties by: _ providing &tine information and advice 'to parents, professionals.and the
10% public in the absence of staff many of whom travel a great deal;
_ providing secretarial services to Other departments when regular staff are
absent, as requested by the Superintende+;
5.
This summary attributed about 60% of the job to the provision of
,secretarial and receptionist services; and the remaining 40%
to'clerical and other duties.
In her testimony, the grievor stressed that more often
than not she was the only initial contact person available to members
of the public and the staff because the duties of many of the others
in the program, including Mr. Bartu, required them to be away from
their offices for most of the work week. This meant that the grievor
was the only person available to deal with various requests ., such
as requests from parents for information or assistance with their
deaf child, inquiries from school boards, etc., regarding attending
future work shops, requests for general information, and requests
for additional materials from the program's lending library.
This placed the grievor, it was submitted, in a position of considerable
responsibility.
By way of example, the grievor cited her responsibility
for filling out referral forms in response to telephone requests for
the services of the program. Basically, it was left up to the qrievor
to derive from the caller as much relevant information as possible
regarding a problem in order to provide the Resource Services
Consultant who might be assigned to the case with adequate background
information. There was no dispute that in eliciting this information
the grievor was required to exercise considerable "people" skills
such as tact and empathy.
The grievor testified that similarly,in the course of
6.
her duties she was- required to satisfy on her own,requests for certain
\ other types of information. For instance, if a request were to come
in regarding entrance requirements, etc., for the school, it was
likely that the qrievor would be able to satisfy that request without
assistance-from other personnel. In the case of a- parent seeking
to upgrade his or her skills in sign language, the qrievor often was
able to determine by herself.which of the materials in the library,
either in video tape or book form, would meet the requirements of
the parent.
Other responsible duties which were cited in the case
for the qrievor included authorization of certa.in purchases from petty
cash. The qrievor stated, for example, that if a Speech Pathologist
or Resource Consultant wished to purchase for business purposes a
small item of less than $20.00 in value, she would authorize them
to obtain the item out of petty cash. Then, she would put in a voucher
for the purchase and Mr. Bartu would sign it. The grievor also testified
to exercising some minor supervisory-type responsibilities in the
sense of occasionally directing a casual employee in assisting
her with her duties.
The witnesses for the Ministry agreed that the grievor
performed all of the above functions other than authorizing pnrchases
from petty cash. They tended to disagree, however, when it came to
assessing the degree of independent responsibility to be exercised
by the qrievor in performing these functions. While Mr. Bartu agreeed
that to handle the inquiries that might be put to her, the grievor
7.
would need to be aware of the organization and procedures of her
unit, as well as other units in the school,. he disagreed that in
dealing with those inquiries the grievor had to exercise a high degree
of independent authority or responsibility. With respect to the referral
forms, he indicated that it was not the grievor but either he or the
Resource Service Consultants who exercised the authority to follow
up on the inquiry. This meant that an error or omission by the
grievor in obtaining essential background information would not
be as crucial as might otherwise be thought. Similarly, the information
that the grievor gave out on her own was of a standardized nature '
and did not involve the exercise by the grievor of any independent
judgment or authority regarding, e.g., the eligibility of a child
for enrollment at the school. Moreover, Mr. Bartu stated, the grievor
usually was provided with telephone numbers at which he or the
Resource Service Consultants might be reached in order to make a
decision regarding non-routine matters.
As to the responsibility of the grievor for the mainten-
ance of the library, and, occasionally, for the selection of materials
for the instruction of interested parents, Mr. Bartu again indicated
that these involved little in the way of the exercise of independent
responsibility. He stated that the grievor was responsible for keep-
ing track of everything in the library, and to that end, had created
a sign-out and library card system; however, her responsibility
ended there. She was not responsible for making new acquisitions
or creating new video tapes for the library collection. This was
the responsibility of a Consultant named Ms. R. Bobick.
8.
On the matter of selecting suitable materials for the
instruction of parents, Mr. Bartu stated that the exercise of in-
dependent judgment by the grievor in, e.g., the area of sign
language skills, would be limited to asking them what stage of
instruction they had completed. Based upon this indication,
he said, it would be easy for the grievor to make a judgment on what
video tape to send out. He emphasized that if a new person were to
request such information from the library, he would expect the grievor
to send him or her to Ms. Bobick for evaluation.
As to making arrangements for work shops and conferences,
Mr. Bartu indicated that this was now a routine matter. He stated
that last year, the school had between 7 and 9 work shops designed
to assist school boards with hearing impaired students. The dates
and times of each were either scheduled by himself or the Resource
Service Consultants. The grievor's duties,,according to Mr. Bartu,
primarily involved~filling out a standardized form that basically
covers accommodation, food, coffee, with this information suitably
altered to fit each work shop. If the grievor were to run into a
problem, Mr. Bartu stated, he would expect the grievor to let him
or Ms. M. Lamont know.
As to the grievor's responsibility for the preparation
of materials for the work shops, Mr. Bartu stated that this was limited
to preparing and assembling such hand-outs according to instructions
from him or others 'who might be making presentations. He stated,
for example, that he might request the grievor to make up packages
of materials for the attendees of a work shop which included an
9.
.example of an audiogram, a summary of the oral presentations of
a speaker, the agenda, and a timetable. The grievor then would be
responsible for assembling these materials and having them ready to
be handed out to the participants at the appropriate time. He said
that the typing of an agenda was a routine matter for the grievor
and most handouts might be found in the griever's files. It would
not be up to the grievor to check out the accuracy of the content
of any of these materials.
Turning to a few other matters that were brought out in
the evidence, there was evidence that the grievor composed one to
two letters per week. Some of these were a full page in length.
The grievor also made a monthly summary of staff attendance records.
This does not appear to be complex, solely requiring the qrievor
to have knowledge of the codes on so-called absence from duty forms
for vacation, sick leave, etc. The grievor also was responsible
for receiving and placing TTY calls. This did not appear to be
complex. It solely involved operating a special printer-typing
device enabling the deaf to communicate through ordinary telephone
equipment.
Finally, Mr. Bartu denied that the grievor had any
authority to authorize petty cash purchases. He stated that it was
his position to authorize such purchases , and it was not within his
knowledge that the grievor ever did so. He .could not recall the griever, ~..
ever authorizing petty cash purchases even when he was away from the
office and not around to give his O.K. Mr., Bartu also denied that
10.
the .grievor ever supervised casual staff. He said that he has told
the grievor that when she was busy and if she needed an assistant
she could get the casual staffer, but she did not supervise her.
Mr. Bartu stated that he disagreed that giving the casual staff person
instructions on what was needed to be done constituted supervision.
Classification matters have been before this Board so
often that it does not seem to be necessary extensively to review
the authorities that must guide our determination. Many of these
authorities, both from previous decisions of this Board and decisions
in the private sector were exhaustively considered in Re Brick and
Ministry of Transportation and Communications (19821, G.S.B. #564/80
(Samuels). See &I. at pp. 37-49. It suffices to say that the burden
is upon the grievor to persuade the Board, on a balance of proba-
bilities, that his or her significant ~job duties are beyond those assigned
to his or her present classification and, in fact, constitute the significant
job duties of her hiqher classification which. he/she seek. In the present
case, it does not appear on the facts that the significant job duties
of the grievor are beyond those assigned to the Clerk Stenographer
3 classification and within those of the classification of Clerk
Stenographer 4.
The class standard for the Clerical Stenographer 3 classi-
fication reads as follows:
This class covers positions of employees who
take dictation in shorthand or speed-writing and/or
dictaphone and transcribe letters, memoranda, reports
and other material and perform varied semi-routine
clerical tasks according to approved procedures or special
instructions. They are responsible for independent com-
pletion of.somewhat complex clerical work performed accorhg
to established precedents involving contact with other
departments or the public through correspondence composed
by themselves. They are, however, required to refer doubt-.
ful matters not covered by precedents to their superiors.
In some positions, they train and supervise a small subord-
inate staff in routine clerical1 stenographic and typing
duties.
Much of the work of employees in these positions
is reviewed only periodically, principally for adherence
to policy and procedures. Errors in their work could
result in loss of time, duplication of effort and some
inconvenience to the public. They are responsible for
maintaining good working relationships in all contacts
with other employees and the public.
They prepare reports, simple statements and memoranda
requiring judgment in the selection and presentation of
data. They, being responsible for following up errors
or omissions, review and verify a variety of documents
to ensure conformity with established regulations and
practices. In other positions, they periodically summarize
and balance entries to original records, investigating \ discrepancies and making needed corrections.
SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE:
Initiative in organizing and completing work assign-
ments; good knowledge of~statutes, and regulations per- taining to work assignments; ability to direct the work
of others
The emphasis in this classification appears to be almost evenly split
between typing and clerical duties.
Further, there appear to be three other distinctive
characteristics of the job duties assigned to this classification.
The clerical tasks are semi-routine in nature and performed accord-
ing to approved procedures or special instructions. The decisions
that the employee is required to make are made according to
12.
established precedents. As to correspondence, these employees
do not initiate it; rather, they only compose it in preparing responses
to initiatives of others.
The class standard for Clerical Stenographer 4 reads as
follow:
This class covers positions of employees to take
dictation in shorthand or speed-writing, and/or dicta-
phone, but are mainly involved in the performance of various
clerical or administrative tasks of a responsible nature
requiring considerable knowledge of the operations and
procedures of the organizational unit. They make decisions
which entail the exercise of some independent judgement
based on a good understanding of specific statutes and
regulations.
These employees initiate correspondence concerning
their work and may interpret the general instructions
of their superiors into detailed procedures to be followed.
Although they refer questions involving inter- pretation of policy to their superiors, these employees
normally receive specific instruction only in unusual
or special problems. Most of the work is performed under
conditions which permit little opportunity for direct
supervision by others.
In most cases, these are supervisory positions with
responsibility for organizing the work flow of a number
of clerical, clerical typing or clerical stenographic
positions. In such positions, these employees have
some responsibility for selection of staff, assignment
of duties, and discipline.
In other cases, employees in these positions prepare
or evaluate, assess and correct a variety of statements,
applications, records and material by checking for com-
pleteness, and conformity with specific statutes, rules,
regulations, administrative orders and practices. They
may authorize adjustments, determine eligibility and make
recommendations regarding the financial payment or other
appropriate action. Discovery of errors in their work
would lead to the embarrassment of superiors and could
result in monetary loss.
SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE:
Good knowledge of statutes and regulations related
13.
to the work; ability to supervise the work of subor-
dinates; good knowledge of office methods and procedures.
The emphasis in this class standard clearly appears to be upon
the performance of clerical or administrative tasks, far exceeding
the importance of dicta-typing skills.
This classification also appears to be possessed of three
distinctive characteristics. The clerical or administrative tasks
which are performed are of a responsible nature. Some independent
judgment is permitted to be exercised in making decisions. As to
correspondence, these employees have authority to initiate matters
and not simply respond to initiatives of others.
.Comparison of these two class standards leads to the con-
clusion that the difference between them is marked by two essential
characteristics. First, the shift from class 3 to 4 is accompanied
by a progressively declining emphasis upon dicta-typin,g skills.
Secondly, the shift also is marked by a progressive increase in
the degree of independent authority or responsibility exercised by
the employee. On all of the evidence, it must be concluded that these
two emphases have not shifted significantly enough in the case of the
grievor to shift her significant job duties from the Clerk '3 to the
Clerk 4 level. In making this observation, the Board must stress that
it is directed to the job duties performed by the grievor as of the
time of her grievance and not as of the time of the creation of her job.
While the evidence upon the point was not extensive, there seemed to
be some indication that when the grievor, herself, was involved in
14.
the process of establishing the procedures and precedents that she
now follows, she might have been involved in performing duties of
a significantly higher order. The assessment of the Board is, as
it must be, made upon the basis of the duties of the grievor now that
these procedures and precedents are in place. In this regard, the
Board emphasizes that the claim of the grievor was to be permanently
classified as a Clerk Stenographer 4; not to be compensated at the
rate of Clerk Stenographer 4 for the temporary start-lip period.
Turning to the specifics of the grievor's job, it must
be observed at the outset that the emphasis in her duties was more
in the nature of a 50-50 split between dicta-typing and clerical function
than a job emphasizing clerical or administrative tasks. The grievor,
after al.1, was responsible for performing dicta-typing for no less
than eleven persons. In the job description which the grievor
approved, she allocated 60% to the use of dicta-typing and associated
skills. Only 40% was allocated to clerical and other tasks. While
the grievor testified that these allocations were rough-and-ready
assessments, they still tend to indicate that the emphasis in
the grievor's duties placed her in the Clerical Stenographer 3 category.
The decisions that the grievor was required to make in
the performance of her duties were made according to established
precedents. very little scopewas afforded to the griever for exer-
cising independent judgment in decision making. If, for example,
something out of the ordinary were to crop up in the arrangements
for a conference, it was not the function of the grievor to deal with
it but rather that of Mr. Bartu or perhaps one of the Resource Service
15.
Consultants.
Finally, in the matter of correspondence the grievor fell
four-square in the classification of Clerical Stenographer 3. On
the evidence, the grievor was not responsible for initiating any
correspondence other than form letters. The correspondence that
she drafted solely was in response to inquiries from others, and
was adapted to provide general information regarding the facilities
of the school or other agencies for the deaf which might be of
assistance.
In light of all of the above, the evidence of associated
duties of the grievor, e.g., the handling of petty cash, the making
of TTY calls, and the occasional direction of a casual employee,
even when considered in the light most favourable to the grievor;
cannot suffice to bring, her within the scope of the Clerk Stenographer
4 classification. and the grievor's .job must be considered to have been
properly classified at the level of Clerical Stenographer 3.
The grievance is dismissed.
1985.
DATED at London, Ontario, this 16 th day of April,
R J. R ert , Vice Chairman
/"
"I dis'sent"
E. McVey, Member
D. A. Wallace, Member