{"id":17491,"date":"2019-11-11T09:00:04","date_gmt":"2019-11-11T14:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.benefitscanada.com\/news\/arbitrator-rules-hoopp-must-compensate-pensioner-rehired-part-time-for-benefits-138711"},"modified":"2019-11-11T09:00:04","modified_gmt":"2019-11-11T14:00:04","slug":"arbitrator-rules-hospital-must-compensate-pensioner-rehired-part-time-for-benefits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/2019\/11\/11\/arbitrator-rules-hospital-must-compensate-pensioner-rehired-part-time-for-benefits\/","title":{"rendered":"Arbitrator rules hospital must compensate pensioner rehired part time for benefits"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Julius Melnitzer<\/span> | November 11, 2019<\/p>\n

An arbitrator has ruled that part-time employees who have returned to work after retiring and are receiving pension benefits from the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan aren\u2019t \u201cmembers\u201d of the plan for the purpose of calculating their benefit entitlements if they choose not to re-enrol in the HOOPP on resuming service.<\/p>\n

The upshot of arbitrator Christine Schmidt\u2019s decision is that these employees were entitled to 14 per cent of their straight-time hourly rate for all straight-time hours worked in lieu of benefits, as opposed to the 10 per cent to which \u201cmembers\u201d were entitled under article 32.01 of the collective agreement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe decision reflects a case of simplistic drafting that didn\u2019t fit the facts in the case at all,\u201d says Jordan Fremont, a partner and pensions lawyer at Bennett Jones LLP.<\/p>\n

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The case originated when a part-time employee of Norfolk General Hospital in Simcoe, Ont. \u2014 and a member of the Service Employees International Union Local 1 \u2014 retired but then returned to the hospital as a part-time employee. On retirement, the employee, who had enrolled voluntarily in the HOOPP during her initial tenure, began receiving pension benefits and continued to receive them when she returned to work. However, she didn\u2019t re-enrol in the plan when she returned on a part-time basis, nor did the hospital make contributions on her behalf.<\/p>\n

Article 32.01 of the collective agreement states that part-time employees are entitled to receive 14 per cent of their straight-time hourly rate for all straight-time hours paid \u201cin lieu of all health and welfare benefits and income protection plans and paid holidays.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it also allowed part-time employees \u201cto enrol in the hospital\u2019s pension plan when eligible,\u201d and went on to say, \u201cFor part-time employees who are members of the pension plan, the percentage in lieu of benefits is ten per cent.\u201d<\/p>\n

The union argued that, read in context, the collective agreement reflected the fact that an employee who enrolled in the HOOPP received the advantage of the hospital\u2019s contribution. Since the employee in this case didn\u2019t receive that advantage, she was entitled to the 14 per cent in lieu of benefits.<\/p>\n

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The difference in percentage, according to the union, was to prevent \u201cdouble-dipping,\u201d which hadn\u2019t occurred in this case because the hospital wasn\u2019t making pension contributions.<\/p>\n

The hospital\u2019s position was that the collective agreement made it plain that an employee collecting a pension was a \u201cmember\u201d of the HOOPP. And article 32.01 clearly provided that \u201cmembers\u201d were entitled to just 10 per cent in lieu of benefits.<\/p>\n

The arbitrator sided with the union. \u201cThe hospital is entitled to pay such employees less of a percentage in lieu presumably because, as members of HOOPP, they are receiving something else of value from the hospital,\u201d wrote Schmidt.<\/p>\n

In this case, however, the employee hadn\u2019t enrolled in the HOOPP on returning to work and, therefore, the hospital wasn\u2019t making contributions to the pension plan on her behalf. Subsequently, she was receiving nothing in substitution for the four per cent that was attributable to the pension portion of the 14 per cent.<\/p>\n

That couldn\u2019t have been what the parties intended, concluded Schmidt. \u201cWhen article 32.01 is read in its entirety within a labour relations context, it is clear that \u2018part-time employees who are members of the pension plan\u2019 means members of the pension plan for whom the hospital is matching the members\u2019 contributions to the pension,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

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In that light, it was irrelevant that the employee was already receiving pension benefits based on her previous service and membership in the HOOPP.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe key to this decision is the arbitrator\u2019s reasoning that article 32.1 had to be read in the context of the collective agreement as a whole,\u201d says Andrea Boctor, a pension law partner at Stikeman Elliott LLP.<\/p>\n

Read the full article at BenefitsCanada.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Julius Melnitzer | November 11, 2019 An arbitrator has ruled that part-time employees who have returned to work after retiring and are receiving pension benefits from the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan aren\u2019t \u201cmembers\u201d of the...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17491"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17491\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}