What’s a Blawg? A Blawg is an online journal or blog dealing with topics related to the law.
This Blawg will contain posts with tidbits of legal info you might find useful in your toolbox for building worker power within OPSEU/SEFPO. Various staff in the Contract Enforcement Division will contribute posts on useful cases and topics. The format will be posts, not a textbook nor comprehensive — rather, a way to share sparks of knowledge you can use while organizing, bargaining, and enforcing workers’ rights.
The Contract Enforcement Division of OPSEU/SEFPO includes the Arbitrations Unit, the Pension and Benefits Unit, and the Worker Safety Unit.
If you have specific questions about contract enforcement issues in your workplace, please speak with your coworkers, steward, local president or connect with OPSEU/SEFPO staff.
Contract Enforcement Blawgs:
Case Comment: How Long Do Settlements Last?
Locals in OPSEU SEFPO frequently come to agreements with Employers on the best way to implement Collective Agreement rights and procedures between bargaining cycles. This is a fairly predictable need – sometimes only when the parties are implementing a new right do they realize that it looks different from what
Case Comment: Without prejudice: a cautionary tale of two forgotten words
The worker who files a grievance has choices along the way about how it gets resolved. The grievor can agree to resolve the issue through a negotiated settlement agreement, can choose to proceed to an arbitration hearing where an arbitrator will issue a final and binding legal decision on the
Issue Comment: What to do with a late grievance
Filed a grievance late? The Arbitrator has the power to extend the timelines Most, if not all, collective agreements provide a timeline within which a worker is permitted to file a grievance. Some Collective Agreement provide a generous timeline, such as 30 days in the Ontario Public Service, others as
Grievance Arbitrations: Frequently Asked Questions
So your Grievance is finally headed to Arbitration, but you have questions. How do you prepare, what is involved, and what is an arbitration, anyway? What should I wear at the arbitration? Arbitration days, both in person and virtual, are business casual. While your representative will likely be wearing a
Case Comment: Safety on your own time?
In November 2021, in a stated attempt to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, the OPS including the Ministry of the Solicitor General and the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services introduced the “Ontario Public Service COVID-19 Safe Workplace Directive”. The Directive required mandatory COVID-19 rapid antigen testing
Case Comment: Legal timelines run whether the Employer – or the Union – wants them to or not
In any Collective Agreement, the grievance procedure will include required steps and timelines for those steps. Employers love to make technical legal arguments and try to avoid dealing with the real problem a worker is raising at the heart of a grievance. It’s important for the Union to stay on
New grievance form and guidelines will help you and your co-workers enforce your contract
The OPSEU/SEFPO Grievance Form has been given a fresh update for the first time in decades. The changes are subtle but important to polish up this tool to enforce the rights workers have fought for and won in their contracts and legislation. The revised form is cleaner and more streamlined,
A complicated road to compensation: the MPAC LOU #1 decisions
Sometimes the road to enforce negotiated benefits is complicated and involves a lot of stops on the way. This is a post about a series of decisions about a letter of understanding in the MPAC Collective Agreement. This letter outlined the compensation that employees were entitled to when leaving their
Pension primer: any pension is great, but a defined-benefit pension is the gold standard
Workers need pensions! It’s important to understand the types of pensions for organizing, bargaining, and arranging your personal financial health. This post is a quick intro to Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution pension plans from the Pension & Benefits Unit. A pension is a form of retirement plan designed to
Case Comment: Workers fight to respect the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation Holiday
In 2021, the Federal government enacted Bill C-5 to create a new federal holiday to be observed on September 30, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The purpose was to respond to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Call to Action #80 by creating a holiday which seeks
Case Comment: Protecting Precarious Employment
In the College sector, partial-load Academic employees deal with a form of precarious employment that involves a series of semester long contracts. Because the work is divided into contracts which last a few months and are episodic in nature, disputes naturally arise with the Employer about what rights these workers
Fighting the WSIB’s Alarming Record of Denying Chronic Mental Stress Claims
The fight to advance workers’ rights includes pushing to expand and enforce just compensation for injured workers. On one front, some progress has been won to recognize chronic mental stress as a compensable workplace injury in Ontario in recent years. But the large number of denials for chronic mental stress