Grievance Case Summary - G-224

The members, employed in their Division's emergency response team, wanted to be compensated for the time they were required to be on standby. Following the RCMP's refusal to grant their request, these members presented a grievance. It was denied by the Level I Adjudicator. The Grievors took their grievance to Level II, and it was referred to the External Review Committee.

The Committee asked the RCMP for a copy of the policy or directive authorizing the Force to pay for standby duty. At first, the RCMP declined to provide this, and then sent only a few Treasury Board policies on overtime pay for RCMP members. The Committee then requested that the RCMP either confirm that these were in fact the policies that it (the RCMP) interpreted and applied for the purpose of compensating for overtime within the Force, or identify the policy that was applicable. The parties were also asked for their opinion on the question of whether, in light of these policies, the Committee had jurisdiction to examine the grievance pursuant to paragraph 36(a) of the Regulations. Under that paragraph, grievances relating to "the Force's interpretation and application of government policies that apply to government departments and that have been made to apply to members" are to be referred to the External Review Committee.

In response, the Division grievance coordinator wrote to the Committee to request that the case be returned to the RCMP on the ground that it was not within the Committee's jurisdiction and had been referred to it in error. The members asserted that the Committee was indeed competent to examine the grievance. The Appropriate Officer in turn challenged the Committee's jurisdiction. In his opinion, it was not a government-wide policy on standby pay which applied to members of the RCMP. The Appropriate Officer did not address the Committee's question of what the applicable policy was.

On March 11, 1999, the ERC issued its findings and recommendations. The Committee concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to consider the grievance. The grievance did not fall within any of the specific categories provided in paragraphs b) through e) of section 36. Therefore, in order for the Committee to be competent to consider this matter, the grievance would have to fall into the general category described in paragraph a). In this case, however, despite the Committee's many attempts to obtain additional information about the basis for the RCMP's policy on standby pay, no information was provided to the Committee that would enable it to establish that standby pay was authorized by a Treasury Board policy. There are indeed policies governing overtime, but they make no provision for compensating members of the RCMP for their time on standby. And while numerous collective agreements between the government and the unions of certain groups within the Public Service contain clauses which provide for standby pay, there is no uniform policy concerning the payment of a premium for standby duty "that appl[ies] to government departments" and has been made to apply to the RCMP. Also, the RCMP's Administration Manual contains provisions for giving members the right to be compensated for time during which they are on standby. However, since these provisions do not appear to have been sanctioned by the Treasury Board and--even more tellingly--they do not reflect a Treasury Board policy that applies to the rest of the Public Service, a grievance based on the application of these provisions may not be referred to the Committee.

The Committee also observed that subsection 22(1) of the Act stipulates that "The Treasury Board shall establish the pay and allowances to be paid to members" of the RCMP. Consequently, in view of the fact that the payment of compensation for time on standby is beyond any doubt a matter within the jurisdiction of the Treasury Board under subsection 22(1), the Committee commented that it would have expected the Appropriate Officer to answer the question the Committee had asked him, namely, what the policy applicable to the matter at issue was.

In the belief that it did not have jurisdiction to examine the grievance, the Committee refrained from making any recommendations to the Commissioner on the merits.