The nine-year battle for union certification

On July 1, 1983, Ontario Hydro unilaterally terminated its Master Agreement with the Society.

The so-called “gentleman’s agreement” had been in place since 1971 and was one of many voluntary agreements negotiated between the Society and Ontario Hydro over the course of four decades.

Ontario Hydro’s decision to walk away from the agreement triggered what would become nearly a decade-long effort for legal union certification for the Society. These formative years involved a massive organizing campaign, a drawn-out labour dispute, and a political intervention that ultimately delivered security and stability to the members of a newly minted labour union.

It would be the second time that the Society would win union certification. Ontario Hydro engineers established a union under wartime labour laws in June 1947. Just five months after their first collective agreement as a union took effect, their status was retracted in December 1948 when the Ontario Labour Relations Act (OLRA) was amended to exclude engineers from collective bargaining.

There was an array of issues that drove a wedge between the employer and the Society in the lead up to the employer’s termination of the Master Agreement in 1983. Firstly, the Society was facing pressure to accept a cut to member salaries.

Ontario Hydro was affirming that the salaries of Management and Professional (M&P) staff should be brought in line with the median salaries reported in a community survey of Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario (APEO, now PEO) employers. According to a 1983 Society document, “This proposal has been translated by one manager as necessitating an eight percent pay cut for M&P staff.”

Another major issue at play was the treatment of “surplus” staff. Ontario Hydro was considering downsizing. According to the same Society document, “The Executive does not oppose the downsizing of operations in line with re-ordered corporate priorities, but it does have a responsibility to ensure that this process is carried out fairly and consistently.”

When it came to renegotiating the Master Agreement, the employer was arguing for the right to make a final decision on the outcome of negotiations, highlighting a major power imbalance that existed between the two parties in the context of voluntary recognition.

According to Darlene Booth, a Research Officer for the Society hired in 1975 who became a Senior Staff Officer in 1980, Ontario Hydro was undergoing major organizational changes, and the Society could see the writing on the wall.

“There were changes in the direction of Ontario Hydro itself. The big power units like Darlington [Nuclear Generating Station] were finished. The design and construction branches were changing. The political climate in the province was changing.”

“This was affecting the relationship,” she said.

Darlene Booth

Members witnessed Ontario Hydro take unprecedented moves to downsize. “One of the things Hydro had done was turf out some trainee engineering graduates and declared them surplus. Not even in the great depression in the 1930s did Hydro declare anybody surplus,” explained Booth.

“That single step really shook engineers who at that time felt quite secure. They realized they may not be that secure.”

The Society also witnessed Ontario Hydro treat grievances unfairly, particularly around the suspension of performance pay. “But there was no way to enforce the Master Agreement. You couldn’t go to the Labour Board,” said Booth.

“These events conspired to create a mood of change, and it all happened quickly within this period in the early 80s,” she explained.

The Society for a long time had been aware of the drawbacks to lacking legal union status. Booth noted that this was evident in the organization’s historic lobbying efforts to include engineers as a job classification covered by the Ontario Labour Relations Act, which finally came to fruition in 1971. But the shifts that members saw within Ontario Hydro during the early 1980s drew greater attention to their vulnerability, particularly in terms of job security.

When the Master Agreement was torn up by Ontario Hydro, “It showed the total vulnerability of the Master Agreement. It could be terminated, and the union held ransom to make concessions,” said Booth.

The desire for union certification was a response to this sense of vulnerability. It was also a strategic response to impending threats of company restructuring, which could lead to a new ownership model for Ontario Hydro. Certification delivered successor rights to the Society.

“We had been researching successor rights,” explained Booth. “The legal opinion we had was quite reassuring to the membership. If the company halved off parts, the collective agreement would flow through to that set of employees.” This built the case for legal certification.

This chain of events catalyzed what the Society referred to as “the parallel path.” It would continue to negotiate with the employer while also pursuing union certification. Through this approach, a four-year agreement was negotiated with Ontario Hydro in 1983. It resulted in jointly updating, categorizing and collating all subsidiary agreements, letters, memoranda of understanding, and policies signed and issued over several decades. They were published for the first time together in a Manual of Agreements – a precursor to the first collective agreement.


BUILDING A BASE OF SUPPORT

The years that followed required an incredible amount of groundwork and commitment from Society leadership to organize the membership in support of certification. A key component of the Society’s organizational culture to date was its voluntary membership, which was at odds with the goal to be a legally certified union with access to the Rand Formula.

The Society needed to first obtain a mandate from the membership to pursue certification. It then needed to establish evidence for the labour board that it met a threshold of support.

In 1985, a referendum was held asking members if they wanted the Society to certify as an official labour union under the OLRA. The Executive and Delegates’ Council both adopted positions in support of certifying. Seventy-two percent of members – a total of 3,398 people – cast ballots in the referendum. 54 percent of ballots cast were in support of certification.

The Society now had the mandate it needed to pursue a certification drive. It would collect signed cards that would be used as evidence in its OLRB application. This campaign began on Jan. 23, 1986, and ran for nine months.

It was a massive effort from leadership to run the drive.

“I was always totally impressed by the delegates and executive members, who contributed so much time of their own to provide the kind of network and communications that were required, while performing their Hydro jobs,” remarked Booth.

They continued to build a case for certification among the membership, which was spread out across the province. In an era without Internet, Society representatives still communicated widely with the members, explaining how the benefits of certification exceeded the benefits of voluntary membership.

Leaders highlighted how a signed collective agreement would be protected by law, and not subject to unilateral change during the contract’s term.

“Being uncertified deprives us of legal rights. Lacking those rights (such as wider access to arbitration) frequently leaves us negotiating from a position of weakness,” reads an executive statement in Vol. 19 No. 3 of the member bulletin The Society News, published in September 1986.



Representatives dispelled concerns that a strike would be imminent, noting that the law also provides for arbitration. They highlighted how a mutually respectful relationship with management could grow, not diminish, with certification.

The Society fought off concerns that it could be absorbed into the other larger workplace union. “There was a dynamic there between us trying to get our group certified, and some concerns from different quarters that the Power Workers Union might gobble our group up,” said Booth.

The campaign was an incredible success. By September 1986, 70 percent of all eligible employees were members of the Society. Over the course of nine months, the Society’s membership grew by approximately 1,700 employees. By November 1986, the Society boasted of 6,500 employees working across 170 locations in Ontario.

As reported in Vol. 19 No. 3 issue of The Society News, “The certification campaign is drawing to a successful conclusion. That the Society membership is now solidly behind certification is remarkable considering the historical support for the voluntary relationship.” On Nov. 5, 1986, the Society applied for certification with the OLRB.

Past Presidents Barry Green (1984/1985) and Alda McMahon (1988/1989)

ONTARIO HYDRO OBSTRUCTS THE SOCIETY’S APPLICATION

The OLRA allows for managerial exclusions from a labour certification on the grounds that the employee has hiring and/or firing power. In 1986, Ontario Hydro challenged more than 3,100 employees, obstructing the right of Society members to unionize.

According to Booth, “It was dragging on so long. Ontario Hydro had challenged 1,000s of employees and each would have to have [Ontario Labour Relations] Board meetings. It was ridiculous.” The challenges, which were dealt with one-by-one, were a major delay tactic.

“Hydro management seems to believe that the sky will fall in if the professional and supervisory staff with whom it has negotiated for decades suddenly obtain legal protection for their agreements under the Labour Relations Act,” reads a press statement made by then-Society President Michael Brickell dated Oct. 3, 1990.

“The corporation cannot meet the challenges of the 21st century with a 19th century attitude towards collective bargaining rights,” it continues.

The Society claimed that most M&P staff did not have the right to fire and hire. “They might be an MP6 and they might be part of a project team but there were so many layers of organization between them and a final decision, it didn’t warrant their exclusion,” said Booth.

By 1990, the Labour Board had still not issued decisions on managerial exclusions. After four years of delays, the Society decided to file a fresh application for certification and request a pre-hearing representation vote.

The OLRB granted the Society’s request for a vote. Over the course of two weeks in February 1991, almost 6,000 people – 73 percent of those on the voters list – voted in the polls. This was considered an incredible turnout.

Pulling the vote required a massive mobilization effort from Society representatives.

The Certification Member Support Committee preparing for the representation vote conducted by the OLRB over a two week period in February, 1991. The vote involved nearly 400 Society volunteers, with 37 polling stations across 130 workplaces. It was the largest OLRB certification vote in 30 years.

According to the Vol. 23 No.3 edition of The Society News, “For the Society, planning and organizing for the vote was a massive undertaking, involving a campaign network of almost 400 volunteers working (in many cases, for months) to ensure a strong ‘yes’ vote.”

Approximately 37 polling stations were set up across 130 workplaces. “We had to have scrutineers at every site. It was an immense job,” explained Booth.

The vote was reportedly the largest certification vote conducted by the OLRB in 30 years. There were 8,020 names on the voters list and 5,919 votes cast.

While the vote results were never tallied, it achieved its intended purpose. The move caused the OLRB to host hearings that grouped challenged positions together across the different organizational units in Ontario Hydro. Hearings were held over several months.

But it was a development in provincial politics that ultimately led Ontario Hydro to settle its exclusions dispute with the Society and negotiate a legally binding collective agreement.


BOB RAE’S NDP GOVERNMENT DELIVERS RESULTS FOR THE SOCIETY

1990 was a historic election, when for the first time in history, the New Democratic Party was elected to form Ontario’s provincial government. The political shift was a welcomed development for the Society.

According to the Society’s 1990-1991 Annual Report, “During the election campaign, the NDP pledged to amend the Labour Relations Act to provide coverage for supervisors and to direct Hydro to return to the bargaining table with a ‘flexible and reasonable position’ on managerial exclusions. Since the election, the government has reaffirmed these commitments, both publicly and in the meetings we have held with Ministry of Energy staff.”

Amendments to the OLRA regarding coverage for supervisors was necessary to align it with the Canada Labour Code.
The NDP government directed Ontario Hydro to settle its dispute with the Society. The parties were assisted by mediator George Adams, a respected mediator and arbitrator during salary negotiations under the Master Agreement. A new voluntary recognition agreement was negotiated, approved by members via referendum, and submitted to the labour board.

"While there were compromises made, the collective agreement and the certification were incredible achievements."

To reach an agreement, the Society agreed to a few hundred exclusions, but this figure was significantly lower than the employer’s original list of challenges.

The recognition agreement led to the Society’s certification and first collective agreement, which took effect on Jan. 1, 1993. The first collective agreement was, in many ways, a rollover of the Voluntary Recognition Agreement.

“The struggle was to codify everything that existed, and there were extensive talks considering job evaluation and performance pay, particularly with the redress procedure,” explained Booth. While there were compromises made, the collective agreement and the certification were incredible achievements.

After winning their first collective agreement, Booth said she “felt a sense of tremendous relief and jubilation.” After nine years of dedicated work, the milestone to certify the union and win a collective agreement was finally reached.

“I think in many quarters, there was a real sense that we had accomplished what we had set out to do,” she said. “Was it the best deal we could possibly get? It probably was at the time.”

“I think the majority by far felt it was good for the union and the best that we could accomplish. And we would be wrong to turn our backs on it.”

There were major challenges along the way, but hard work persevered, and a new era in the Society’s existence was ushered in.