The TSO dispute, the famous compulsory overtime imposed on nurses, went before the Court of Appeal on Tuesday in Montreal.
The starting point of this long cause is a request from the Interprofessional Health Federation (FIQ), which had asked the Administrative Labor Tribunal to force employers in the health network to use all available means to limit the use of overtime required.
In 2019, the Administrative Labor Court considered that this was a right of management over which it had no control, since the service was still provided. He had accepted an objection from the employers, which meant that he had not ruled on the merits of the FIQ’s request for intervention.
The FIQ challenged this decision before the Superior Court.
In March 2022, the Superior Court agreed with him, finding that there is perhaps “abusive or so-called abusive use” of the TSO, “because it is less complicated or less costly, according to the claims of the unions”, but that this cannot be decided without examination. The Superior Court therefore returned the file to the Administrative Labor Tribunal “so that it can be ruled on the merits of the request for intervention” from the FIQ.
Now, it is the Employer Negotiating Committee, which represents 27 employers in the health network, which has addressed the Court of Appeal, asking it to reject the Superior Court’s decision.
30,000 grievances
The employers’ lawyer argued that the law does not allow the Administrative Labor Tribunal to rule on the quality of services, but only on the fact that they are provided or not. However, they are returned when there is TSO.
And, according to her, the FIQ’s request implies that the service provided when there is TSO is a bad service, which is “an intellectual shortcut”.
She also recalled that not all employers use it with the same frequency and that certain local collective agreements mention the fact that the employer must exhaust other means before coming to TSO.
The FIQ lawyer, for her part, reported 30,000 grievances accumulated over several years relating to TSO — proof according to her that these are not a few disputes targeting a limited number of employers, but of a management method.
In many cases, employers don’t even bother to contact other nurses to see if they would be available; OST has become an easy solution, she reported.
The nurses’ union is convinced that “the public service is threatened by such practices”, in the short, medium and long term, because nurses are exhausted and end up resigning – which further aggravates the shortage of workers. work, therefore the phenomenon of TSO.
The three judges heard both sides on Tuesday; they took the matter under advisement.