Twin Oaks Memorial Hospital v Nova Scotia Nurses' Union (NSNU)

Document Type

Arbitration Decision

Publication Date

1-24-1983

Keywords

Salary Scale, Satisfactory Experience, Good Faith, Formula, Nurses, Wages

Abstract

Following an Arbitration award (82-88), the Board directed the Employer to reconsider placement on the salary scale of seven Employees, based on their recent "satisfactory" nursing experience. The Board indicated that the Employer was to decide what was satisfactory with the caveat, that it act in good faith, take into account relevant considerations, not take into account irrelevant considerations and not make a decision 'so unreasonable that no reasonable authority could ever have come to it'. The Employer subsequently established a formula for determining whether experience was satisfactory. Percentage values were assigned to various types of experience, based on the percentage of types of nursing done at the hospital. Therefore only experience corresponding to the nursing done at this hospital was "satisfactory". In this way only a portion of experience may have been considered satisfactory. The Union, on behalf of three Grievors who received no increase in salary under the scheme, submitted that previous experience could not be segmented but had to be assessed as a whole as to whether it was satisfactory or not. Alternatively, Counsel argued that the formula failed to recognize overlap in certain skills, thereby failing to take into account relevant considerations.

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