President Thomas, Julie Weber, Ministry of the Attorney General MERC Chair and OPSEU staff met with Chris Bentley, Attorney General, on March 31, 2010. The main focus of the discussion was to share with the Minister OPSEU’s concerns regarding the Ministry’s refusal to implement the Hunt et al. decision. The Union reminded the Minister that more than 4 years after the issuance of the Grievance Settlement Board (GSB) award, the Ministry continues to ignore the direction given by the arbitrator. The work that Vice Chair Abramsky identified as bargaining unit work continues to be assigned by the Ministry outside of the collective agreement. The OPSEU members who perform that work continue to be denied their collective agreement rights and entitlements.
The Minister promised to look into it and get back to us.
The Minister replied to President Thomas on June 10. He says that “the Ministry is committed to building on the strengths of the current system and making positive changes to improve the way court reporting and transcript production is performed in Ontario”.
He goes on to say that “the Ministry is interested in working with OPSEU as we move towards the implementation of changes” and he encourages OPSEU to “take advantage of the open invitation to meet with us, through the Ministry of Government Services, and to work cooperatively towards common ground.”
OPSEU has been more than willing to work cooperatively with the Ministry towards the implementation of the Hunt et al. decision. That hasn’t changed. The Ministry continues to stonewall, obviously with the Minister"s acquiescence. We will continue to pursue our case at the GSB.