Canada. Public Service Staff Relations Board : The Public Service Staff Relations Board was established in 1967 under provisions of the Public Service Staff Relations Act (S. C. 1966-67 c.72, s. 11, R S C 1993 c. P-35). This innovative legislation set up a formal regime of collective bargaining in the federal Public Service as between certified bargaining agents of the employees and (for the most part) Treasury Board representing the government of Canada as the employer. The role of the PSSRB is that of a quasi-judicial statutory tribunal.
The core legislated mandate and activities of the Board after 1967 in the sphere of the public sector collective bargaining were innovations that had not been performed as such by any predecessor. Since 1967, the scope of these functions have remained relatively stable. The Public Service Staff Relations Board constitutes under its legislative mandate an independent arbiter which serves as a labour board operating within the scope of the federal Public Service with the responsibility for: determining bargaining units, certification (and decertification) of bargaining agents, complaints resolution and quasi-judicial arbitration of formal grievances against unfair practices or violations of the terms of collective agreements (as well as certain major disciplinary actions), conciliation, mediation and arbitration procedures under the Act, the exclusion of confidential and managerial personnel from collective bargaining, the designation of workers essential for public safety and security in the case of a strike and any other procedures defined by its own formal regulations. In effect, the Board acts as the formal staff relations referee of the due processes defined in the Act to ensure the balance of rights and responsibilities of the employer and bargaining agents in all their interactions up to and including legal strike or lock-out. The Board also has jurisdiction in its legislated sphere to review complaints and references of safety officers' decisions arising under provisions of the Canada Labour code related to matters of occupational health and safety. The scope of these core activities was extended to Parliamentary employees in 1985 under the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act (R S C 1985, c.33 (2nd Supplement)).
Under this regime of collective bargaining, the Board regulates, on the one hand, the activities of the government of Canada as employer represented in most cases by the Treasury Board but also up to a dozen or so much smaller separate employers (where Treasury Board acting as the employer was deemed to be prejudicial to the independence or effective operations of the listed agencies). The National Research Council is, for example, the largest of these separate employers with about 3000 unionized staff. On the staff side, the Board regulates upwards of 165 bargaining units representing approximately 200,000 public employees, 90 per cent of whom are represented by two unions, the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada and 10 per cent of whom are represented by another 20 to 25 other certified bargaining agents (for example the Social Science Employees Association).
Besides the activities of a labour board per se, the PSSRB incorporated up to 1992 the activities of the Pay Research Bureau which was originally set up in 1957 under the Public Service Commission. The Pay Research Bureau possessed a focused mandate to conduct independent and impartial research. It conducted its own comparative surveys into pay, compensation, wage and benefit patterns throughout the Canadian Labour market in order to facilitate collective bargaining in the Public Service. The Bureau supplied results of its findings impartially to both bargaining agents and representatives of the employer. During most of its life, the Bureau received advice and input from the Advisory Committee on Pay Research, a body of representatives of the employers and bargaining agents. In 1992 the government of the day unilaterally terminated the ancillary (non-statutory) functions of the Pay Research Bureau through the simple expedient of removing its entire budgetary allocation from the PSSRB estimates.
Though there have been several attempts to amend the Public Service Staff Relations Act quite radically, the Board has retained its basic mandate and role since 1967. In 1975 the structure of the Board was fundamentally altered when all appointments were made to represent the public interest instead of an explicit balancing of employer and employee representation which had characterized the board up to that time. Up to 1975, the formal dispute mechanism of compulsory arbitration was performed through the expedient of a Public Service Arbitration Tribunal. In keeping with the legislative restructuring of the Board in 1975, the arbitration procedures were integrated into an activity of the reconstituted Board and a separate Tribunal disappeared. The legislative changes to its internal make up in 1975, however, did not affect the board's mandate, role or functions.
In 1992 the Public Service Reform Act provided the most substantive changes to the Public Service Staff Relations Act since its inception in 1967. Under these changes the alternate dispute resolution mechanism known as (compulsory) arbitration was eliminated (though the Board retained its role in voluntary mediation and conciliation functions). The procedures for approving designation and exclusion decisions were shifted from incumbent to position, thus reducing the scope in which the Board could make its assessments. At the same time the Board became responsible for hearing complaints alleging a breach of duty of a bargaining agent to provide fair representation to both parties in a harassment case. The Board also gained a new authority for resolving impasses in collective bargaining through the mechanism of issuing a fact finder's report. Under this mechanism, an official appointed by the Board may with the mutual consent of both parties inquire into the state of the bargaining process and make a report on the substance of the issues outstanding after which the parties must either come to an agreement in a fixed time period, or face publication of a report potentially embarassing to one or both parties.
Since 1975, the Board has consisted of a full-time chairperson, a vice-chairperson and not more that three deputy Chairpersons appointed for 10 years and such additional full or part time members as the Governor in Council considers necessary. Part time members are appointed specifically to adjudicate grievances (and before 1992 to arbitrate in disputes settlement recourse). The Chair of the PSSRB has reported to Parliament through a variety of ministers, most recently through the President of the Privy Council. Perhaps the two officers of the board with the greatest public profile have been the original Chairperson, Alvin Finkelman, who served 1967-1976 and made the adjustments associated with the legislative amendments of 1975 and Ian Deans, 1987-1997 who had to deal with a second and more substantial adjustment of roles and responsibilities in 1992 and who experimented in taking a more activist role in the interpretation of his mandate.
The massive and unilateral initiative through the Treasury Board to reconstruct a new universal classification system of the entire public service in 1998 together with substantial reorganizations and downsizing initiated in 1993 are fundamentally altering the entire underlying framework of bargaining units, bargaining agents and representatives of the employer who operate through the staff relations system over which the Board presides.
