Tardy arbitrator asks for more time, leaving city work on the hook again


Thestar.com
March 1, 2015
BY Marco Chown Oved

Ajay Misra waited almost two years for an arbitrator to give him his job back, and another eight months for her to provide her reasons for denying him back pay. Now she assures the returned City of Toronto employee that she’s “working feverishly” on the matter.

Misra needs the overdue reasons - in writing - before he’s allowed to appeal the back-pay ruling, to get the money he believes he deserves. The 44-year-old Harvard-educated financial analyst claims he’s out more than half a million dollars in back pay.

The law gives arbitrators 30 days to render a decision and requires written reasons to be provided “within a reasonable period of time.”

Misra was fired in 2009 and his hearing before Saltman about his dismissal finished in July 2012; her ruling finally arrived in June 2014. Two weeks ago, Misra filed a complaint with the Ontario Labour-Management Arbitrators Association, claiming the arbitrator’s written reasons are so late that they constitute a breach of the association’s code of ethics.

After being informed of the complaint, arbitrator Maureen Saltman - who has repeatedly invoked her right to extend the deadline for providing written reasons - asked for more time to respond.

“I am working feverishly to complete the reasons,” wrote Saltman in a letter obtained by the Star. “Accordingly, I think it would be in the Grievor’s and the parties’ interests to allow me to focus my efforts...rather than putting aside the decisions to answer the complaint.”

The delay shows how labour arbitration, which was set up to be a rapid and inexpensive alternative to litigation, can end up being slower and more cumbersome than the courts.

Saltman’s lawyer, Gavin Tighe, said Saltman cannot comment on an ongoing matter.

“Arbitrator Saltman has been diligently working on this matter and that extensive reasons will be released as soon as practicable,” he wrote.

“She has been saying this for the last two and a half years: ‘I’ve been working day and night,’ and all that,” said Misra. “But she hasn’t done anything to show us that she will deliver her reasons any time soon.”

Saltman issued a “bottom line” decision (without reasons) in a two-paragraph email last June, reinstating Misra in his job but denying him back pay. She wrote that she was preparing decisions on his four other related grievances and would provide written reasons for them all.

In July, Misra wrote to the Minister of Labour, whose office began negotiating a deadline.

“It is not unprecedented in a matter of such complexity with multiple grievances for a comparable amount of time to elapse,” Saltman wrote in response to the minister. This week, Misra’s lawyer applied for a divisional court order to compel Saltman to issue her decisions with written reasons by a fixed deadline.