No. 19

May 8, 1998

TRIBUNAL DECISION OUT IN JULY

The Tribunal hearing the federal pay equity complaint has decided not to hear submissions regarding the Justice Muldoon decision. The reason the Tribunal gave for making this decision is that they saw no benefit in receiving submissions on a decision which is under appeal. (The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers' Union has filed an appeal against the Muldoon decision regarding their complaint against Bell Canada.

The Tribunal went on to say that their decision will be ready for publication in July, unless there is unanimous agreement by the parties to hold the decision pending the outcome of the appeal. The Alliance will not agree to any further delay. No specific date in July on which the decision will be issued was given at this time.

The Alliance's position all along has been that the Muldoon decision should not affect our federal complaint and the Tribunal's eventual ruling. In order to ensure that the Muldoon decision does not have a negative impact on future Alliance complaints not yet before tribunals, the union is seeking approval from the court to intervene in the appeal case so that we can add our arguments to have the Muldoon decision overturned.

Alliance members are to be congratulated for their hard work and perseverance in seeing this case to the end in spite of the tactics by Marcel Massé, Treasury Board and both Liberal and Conservative governments over the years.