111A

IN THE MATTER OF AN ARBITRATION

BETWEEN

CN / CP TELECOMMUNICATIONS

(The Employer)

- a n d -

CANADIAN TELECOMMUNICATIONS UNION

(The Union)

Arbitrator :

David M. Beatty

For the Employer :

D. W. Flicker - Counsel

For the Union :

M. Levinson - Counsel

Heard at Toronto February 5, 1981.

On December 23, 1980, the Employer gave the Union notice that it intended to cease making payments to a certain group of employees, covered by the collective agreement between these parties, for the days that they were absent due to sickness and which fell within the designated waiting period of the Weekly Indemnity Benefit Plan that it had procured pursuant to Article 30 of that agreement. The thrust of the Employer’s notice, which it reiterated at the hearing before me, essentially was that there was absolutely nothing in the terms of the collective agreement which obligated it to make those payments and that the recent corporate reorganization, which resulted from the partnership agreement which had been entered into by Canadian National Railway Company and Canadian Pacific Limited, and which had brought the present Employer into existence, had made its continuation administratively unfeasible. Essentially after the creation of CN / CP Telecommunications, management had determined that it was simply indefensible not to apply the terms of the Weekly Indemnity Benefit Plan, that was common to four of the five bargaining units that it had inherited as a result of the partnership agreement, equally to all of the employees covered by it. In the Employer’s opinion there was neither any contractual obligation nor pragmatic justification for such preferential treatment, for what amounted to about 20% of its workforce, to survive.

The Union, not unexpectedly took a different view of the matter. Its position, quite simply, was that this group of its employees, (who are primarily those in the Technician Group, that had been previously employed by Canadian Pacific Telecommunications) had had their wages paid for the entire duration of their absences due to sickness, essentially on a regular basis for in excess of thirty years and it was just not fair for the Employer to unilaterally terminate this policy in the middle of their current collective agreement. In the jargon of the law trade, the Union claimed that the practice of paying these individuals for that length of time "estopped" the Employer from relying on Article 30.1 and insisting otherwise.

The issue then, as joined, represents a textbook illustration of the well rehearsed tune of estoppel by conduct. Although it appears in its written submission that the Employer may think otherwise, I do not believe it is any longer a debatable issue that an arbitrator has the jurisdiction to entertain such a submission. Indeed at the hearing, Mr. Flicker conceded that it was too late in the day to deny the arbitral practice of applying the doctrine of the terms of the parties’ relationship. Arbitrators do it, (see Brown and Beatty, Canadian Labour Arbitration at para. 2:2200 and ff) and courts have condoned it. (For a summary and discussion of these cases, see Re Edwards of Canada Ltd. (1974), 6 L.A.C. (2d) 137, 141

(Adams), Re City of Penticton (1978), 18 L.A.C. (2d) 307 (Weiler). And see Re General Concrete of Canada Ltd. and Local 487 of the United Cement, Lime and Gypsum Workers (1978), 22 O.R. (2d) 65. The rationable for the assumption by arbitrators of this "remedial" jurisdiction has been well summarized by Paul Weiler in his City of Penticton award, in these terms :

"That brings us to the problem of estoppel, another legal concept of the same genre. In its classic form, the application and the attractiveness of the notion of estoppel is quite easy to appreciate. One party enjoys a legal right under a contract. That party says that it is not going to enforce that right on a particular occasion. The other party relies on that representation and acts accordingly. Then the first party changes its mind and decides that it does want to enforce its strict legal rights ; but only after its counterpart has irretrievably committed itself. The equitable doctrine of estoppel is designed to prevent such an unfair tactic. In the words of a noted Canadian arbitrator, Dean Arthurs, "to use a common metaphor, you are not allowed to let someone go out on a limb so that you can saw him off": see Re City of Toronto and Civic Employees Union, Local 43 (1967), 18 L.A.C. 273 at p. 280. Unquestionably, that policy is a propos in the administation of collective agreements. There has been some debate in the Courts about whether labour arbitrators could be trusted to use the remedy in order to relieve against the dictates of the collective agreement. (Cf. Re Hospital Com’n, Sarnia General Hospital and London District Building Service Workers’ Union Local 220, S.E.I.U. (1972), 30 D.L.R. (3d) 660, (1973) 1 O.R. 240, 73 C.L.L.C. para. 14,157, p. 21 (Ont. Div. Ct.) ; and Ben Ginter, supra. That issue is thoroughly canvassed by the arbitrator in Re Edwards of Canada, Unit of General Signal of Canada Ltd. and U.S.W., Local 7466 (1974), 6 L.A.C. (2d) 137 (Adams). Thus, at the outset, this Board wants to make it crystal clear that arbitrators in this Province definitely do have the remedial authority under the Labour Code to apply the equitable doctrine of estoppel in order to provide a final, binding, and sensible settlement of grievances under a collective agreement".

Consistent with this general consensus as to the "arbitrability" of the issue of estoppel in labour arbitration, there is also now general agreement as to what the doctrine entails. In an earlier award this jurisprudence was summarized as follows :

"The doctrine of promissory estoppel, or more properly on the facts of the case before us, estoppel by conduct, has as its modern source the judgment

of Denning, J., in Central London Property Trust Ltd. v. High Trees House Ltd., (1947) 1 K.3. 130. This doctrine as subsequently developed and elaborated by Denning, L.J., in the case of Combe v. Combe, (1951) 1 All E.R. 767 at p. 770, holds that :

The principle, as I understand it, is that where one party has, by his words or conduct, made to the other a promise or assurance which was intended to affect the legal relations between them and to be acted on accordingly, then, once the other party has taken him at his word and acted on it, the one who gave the promise or assurance cannot afterwards be allowed to revert to the previous legal relations as if no such promise or assurance had been made by him, but he must accept their legal relations subject to the qualification which he himself has so introduced, even though it is not supported in point of law by any consideration, but only by his word.

More specifically as elaborated in an extrajudicial exposition, Denning, L.J., explained that the doctrine is only applicable in those circumstances (i) where the parties have already entered into a definite and legal contractual or analogous relationship (but see Watson v. Canada Permanent Trust Co. (1972), 27 D.L.R. (3d) 735, (1972) 4 W.W.E. 406 (B.C.S.C.) and generally David Jackson, "Estoppel as a Sword", 81 L.Q.R. 84 (1965) ; (ii) that these must be some conduct or promise ‘which induces the other party to believe that the strict legal rights under the contract ‘will not be enforced or will be kept in suspense’ ; and (iii) that ‘having regard to the dealings which have taken place between the parties’ it will be inequitable to a-low that party to enforce their strict legal rights. With respect to this last condition Denning, L.G., has written :

But where the party has made no promise, express or implied, and all that can be said against hin is that he by his conduct has induced the other to believe that the strict rights under the contract will not be enforced or kept in suspense, then the position is different because there is no question of good faith - no question of a man keeping his word. In those circumstances it may be necessary for the other party to show not only that he acted, but also that he acted to his detriment, in the relief that the strict rights would not be enforced. That is what is necessary in the case of an estoppel and there is no good reason why it should not be necessary here.

A.T. Denning, "Recent Developments in the Doctrine of Consideration", 15 Mod. L. Rev. 1 (1952) at p. 5

Re General Concrete of Canada Ltd. (1976), 11 L.A.C. (2d) 187, 200-201 rev’d on other grounds in Re General Concrete of Canada Ltd. (supra).

In the instant case, there is no dispute that a valid and existing collective agreement exists between the parties and that by virtue of s. 144 of the Code, the Employer is bound by its terms. What is in issue is (1) whether there was some conduct on the part of the Employer that induced the Union to believe that the strict legal rights under Article 30 would not be enforced and (2) whether, "having regard to the dealings wich have taken place between the parties", it would be inequitable to allow the Employer to insist on those rights.

The first issue is a question of fact. The question is whether there was a practice or course of conduct which, reasonably construed, could have induced the Union to believe that the Employer would not insist on its strict legal rights under Article 30 and the Weekly Indemnity Plan. In the Employer’s view there was not and for at least two reasons. Firstly, it took the position that because the benefit was not consistently provided to all of the members of the bargaining unit, there was no established or "ascertainable" practice on which the Union could rely. And secondly, even if there was, the Employer argued that the Union could not reasonably have relied on it because it fully realized it was only in the nature of a gratuitous benefit provided by the Company and not a legal obligation to which it was bound.

With respect to the existence of a practice or course of conduct, I have no doubt that one existed and that it was definitely ascertainable. The best evidence of its existence and the details of its particulars lies in paragraphs 10 and 11 of the parties’ agreed statement of facts. They stipulate :

10. For many years CPT paid certain members of the bargaining unit wages respecting absence due to sickness during the period of time before indemnities under the plan became due.

11. Such payments were not consistently accorded to all members of the bargaining unit. They were accorded to only the following employee groups :

Testing & Regulating All Technicians

Technicians All Regions 326

Computer Technicians All Technicians

One Region 11 (only work in the

Atlantic Region)

Automatic Plant All Technicians

Technicians All Regions 299

Power Plant All Technicians

Technicians Two Regions 10 (Ontario and

Eastern Region out

of total of 14)

Printer Traffic Chiefs Pacific and Eastern 16 (these are the only

Regions regions were such

employees work)

____

TOTAL 664

Certain of the above-mentioned employees, approximately 20-30 in number, who abused the practice are not granted pay for such absences. In some instances, the above employees received a maximum number of days per year.

The following employee groups did not receive payment of indemnity during the period of time before such payments were due under the plan.

Installer Technicians All Regions 61

Fabricators All Regions 8

Power Plant Technicians 4 (These persons were

in Prairie Region)

Clerks All Regions 196

Printer Traffic Chief 4 (Pacific Region only)

Computer Operators All Regions 17

Teleprinter Operators All Regions 125

___

TOTAL 415

These paragraphs it seems to me reveal quite clearly an established practice of paying an ascertainable group of employees covered by the collective agreement their wages during an absence due to sickness which fell within the eligibility provisions of the Weekly Indemnity Plan. Indeed, according to the evidence of Mr. Dunstan, the Employer’s Manager of Labour Relations, except for very isolated cases, the presumption was that all of the Technicians listed in the first part of paragraph 11 "basically got it" unless they abused the benefit or unless they exceeded a cumulative total of days of absence (usually five) that was imposed in the Atlantic Region on an annual basis. That was the basic practice and the fact that it does not cover all of the employees in the unit (essentially because its origins preceded the introduction of the Weekly Indemnity Plan) or may have been ignored in isolated instances does not detract from its general application to the groups described. As Mr. Dunstan said, outside the cases of abuse, the presumption was the employees listed in the first part of paragraph 11 got it and that practice was followed on a regular basis in some cases for in excess of 30 years.

But then the Employer says that even conceding that a practice can be ascertained, the Union could not have relied upon it as suspending the Employer’s rights under the collective agreement. And it took this position essentially because it claimed that on other occasions when one of its bargaining agents, including the Union, wanted to preserve a benefit for a group of employees which exceeded that provided in the various Master Agreements, they would add a note to the terms of that agreement or indeed, negotiate the additional benefit right into their own individual agreements. By way of example, the Employer referred to just such a note that this Union had required to be added to the Master Agreement in 1967 to preserve an additional benefit it had secured in the area of vacation entitlements. According to the Employer, the Union’s failure to negotiate a similar caveat to the Master Agreement with respect to sickness benefits (or to negotiate a separate clause in their own agreement as another bargaining agent has done) provides clear and convincing evidence that the Union could not have reasonably claimed that it regarded this particular "additional" benefit as being anything other than a mere gratuity.

In my opinion, this alternate argument of the Employer cannot be sustained. Indeed, in my view, when the Employer’s action which gave rise to this grievance is set against the entire history of this particular benefit it seems to me that it was entirely understandable and reasonable for the Union to have assumed (as Mr. Parnell testified he did) that the Employer would continue to pay the wages of the technician group in this bargaining unit according to the practice

that it had followed for the past thirty years. Thus, after the parties first introduced the Weekly Indemnity Benefit Plan in 1956, the Employer continued to pay the benefit to this select group without the express reference to its undertaking to do so being sanctified by way of a "note" to that Master Agreement. Moreover, in 1967 and again in 1974 when the eligibility periods set out in the Weekly Indemnity Plan were substantially changed, the Employer still made no change to its practice of paying on a regular basis, the wages of the employees in the first part of paragraph 11 during the waiting period under the Weekly Indemnity Plan. From the Union’s perspective then, the Employer had never changed its practice in the past even when the eligibility provisions had been amended and there was no reason, in my opinion, for the Union to have thought that the Employer would do so during the life of this agreement in the absence of a "note" restricting its right to do so. No "note" had ever been required in the past, even in the context of its repeated amendment, and I do not see how it could be said the Union was acting unreasonably in assuming one was not required to protect its rights under the latest agreement.

In short I am satisfied that the Union has made out the first aspect of the doctrine of estoppel by conduct. It has shown that the Employer adhered to a course of conduct which reasonably induced it to believe that the entitlement of the employees in question to sickness benefits would not be governed by the strict legal rights set out in Article 30 and the Weekly Indemnity Plan but rather would conform to the long-standing practice of paying their wages during the waiting period.

Nor on the evidence I heard, do I have any doubt as to the Union’s ability to meet the second condition or the doctrine of estoppel, viz. that of showing that it would be inequitable to allow the Employer to insist on the terms of Article 30 as the limit of its obligation to the employees. As Mr. Justice Denning has described it, in cases of estoppel by conduct, this aspect of the doctrine turns essentially on a finding of detrimental reliance, and on the evidence before me, there can be no doubt of that result if the Employer were allowed to "saw off the limb" and deny these employees the benefit they have enjoyed for thirty years. As Mr. Parnell, the Vice-President of the Union, testified, had he known that the Employer had intended or reserved the right to apply the terms of Article 30 strictly to the employees who previously enjoyed the additional benefit, he would have insisted on including a clause in the Master Agreement to preclude the Employer from doing so. But because the Employer gave no indication that it was contemplating changing its practice or even reserving the right to do so, he

never got the chance to protect the Union’s position. And, if the Employer were permitted to do so during the life of the agreement, he would not get the opportunity until the termination of this agreement. The detrimental reliance then of assuming the practice would continue, lies in the Union’s inability to require the Employer to negotiate its change in its practice during the life of this agreement. After a practice of this duration, if the Employer anticipated changing it, it had an "affirmative duty" to alert the Union of its intention in order to give it an opportunity to negotiate a note of the kind the parties fashioned for their vacation package. See Re City of Penticton (supra) at p. 317.

The employer made two additional submissions with respect to the application of the doctrine of estoppel to the facts of this case. In the first place, Mr. Flicker argued that in the circumstances described the Union was endeavouring, improperly in his opinion, to use the doctrine as a "sword" rather than as a "shield" ; that it was endeavouring to found its claim on an estoppel. Such a characterization of the nature of the Union’s grievance is, in my view, to miscontrue the nature of an estoppel. Mr. Justice Denning, in a careful explication of the doctrine, described its effect in these terms :

"Much as I am inclined to favour the principle of the High Trees case, it is important that it should not be stretched too far lest it should be endangered. It does not create new causes of action where none existed before. It only prevents a party from insisting on his strict legal rights when it would be unjust to allow him to do so, having regard to the dealings which have taken place between the parties. That is the way it was put in the case in the House of Lords which first stated the principle - Hughes v. Metropolitan Ry. Co. - and in the case in the Court of Appeal which enlarged it - Birmingham and District Land Co. v. London & North Western Ry. Co. It is also implicit in all the modern cases in which the principle has been developed. Sometimes it is a plaintiff who is not allowed to insist on his strict legal rights. Thus, a creditor is not allowed to enforce a debt which he has deliberately agreed to waive if the debtor has carried on business or in some other way changed his position in reliance on the waiver . Re Porter (William) & Co. Ltd., Buttery v. Pickard, Central London Property Trust Ltd. v. High Trees House, Ltd., Ledingham v. Bermejo Estancia Co. Ltd., Agar v. Bermejo Estancia Co. Ltd. A landlord who has told his tenant that he can live in his cottage rent free for the rest of his life is not allowed to go back on it if the tenant stays in the house on that footing : Foster v. Robinson. Sometimes it is a defendant who is not allowed to insist on his strict legal rights. His

conduct may be such as to debar him from relying on some condition, denying some allegation, or taking some other point in answer to the claim. Thus, a government department, who had accepted a disease as due to war service, were not allowed afterwards to say it was not, when the soldier, in reliance on the assurance, had absained from getting further evidence about it : Robertson v. Minister of Pensions. A buyer who had waived the contract date for delivery was not allowed afterwards to set up the stipulated time as an answer to the seller : Charles Rickards Ltd. v. Oppenheim. A tenant who had encroached on an adjoining building, asserting that it was compromised in the lease, was not allowed afterwards to say that it was not included in the lease : J.F. Perrott & Co. Ltd. v. Cohen. A tenant who had lived in a house rent free by permission of his landlord, thereby asserting that his original tenancy has ended, was not afterwards allowed to say that his original tenancy continued : Foster v. Robinson In none of these cases was the defendant ued on the promise, assurance, or assertion as a cause of action in itself. He was sued for some other cause, for example, a pension or a breach of contract, or possession, and the promise, assurance, or assertion only played a supplementary role, though, no doubt, an important one. That is, I think, its true function. It may be part of a cause of action, but not a cause of action in itself. The principle, as I understand it, is that where one party has, by his words or conduct, made to the other a promise or assurance which was intended to affect the legal relations between them and to be acted on accordingly, then, once the other party has taken him at his word and acted on it, the one who gave the promise or assurance cannot afterwards be allowed to revert to the previous legal relations as if no such promise or assurance had been made by him, but he must accept their legal relations subject to the qualification which he himself has so introduced, even though it is not supported in point of law by any consideration, but only by his word".

Combe v. Combe, (1951) 1 All E.R. 767 (C.A.)

From that passage, it is clear that all the doctrine of estoppel accomplishes is to support a cause of action. It does not create a cause of action itself. Put otherwise, it only applies in the circumstances where there already exists a pre-existing agreement (in this case the collective agreement) or other legal relation and its effect is to modify that agreement or relation. That is what is meant by the statement that the doctrine does not give rise to a cause of action itself. Thus, in

the instant case, the grievance, or cause of action, as Mr. Justice Denning describes it, is on their legal relations (in this case the collective agreement) as qualified by the representation or conduct which the party against whom the doctrine applies has introduced.

From this passage in this seminal judgment it is clear that it is never a question of whether the doctrine can act as a shield or sword. As Mr. Justice Denning makes plain by his reference to cases such as Charles Pickards Ltd. v. Oppenheim (supra), sometimes it is the defendant who is not allowed to insist on its strict legal rights ; which is to say, of course, that sometimes it is the plaintiff who is allowed to rely on the doctrine. All that is required is that the conduct or representation be related to - or more properly modify - some pre-existing legal relationship. To repeat that is all that is meant by the assertion that the doctrine cannot have any effect on its own. Aside from that limitation, which obviously has no application in the circumstances of this case, where it is conceded a valid collective agreement exists between the parties, there is no purpose to drawing a sword / shield distinction. The courts have doubted its utility, see Re Tudale Explorations and Bruce et al. (1979), 20 O.R. (2d) 593 ; the academics have roundly condemned it, see Reiter, B.J., "Courts, Consideration and Common Sense" (1977), 27 U. of T.L.J. 439 and some arbitrators have (wisely) ignored it. (See e.g. Re Jamaica Mfg. (Canada) Ltd. (1966), 18 L.A.C. 13 (Christie). Indeed, as Mr. Levinson quite properly argued, if it were not ignored, the doctrine could almost never the utilized by trade Unions except in cases in which they were responding to a grievance of the Employer. Such a result, which would systematically allow one side to the collective agreement bargaining relationship to avoid the obvious "attractiveness of the notion of estoppel" reduces to rubble the already crumbling support of the distinction in the context of labour relations.

The second argument the Employer advanced to support its position that the doctrine, even if it were made out on the facts described, was not available to the Union, was based on the fact that CN / CP Telecommunications is the successor Employer to the Company which actually conducted itself in a way which caused the Union to rely to its detriment and that by virtue of s. 144 of the Canada Labour Code, it could not be bound by that estoppel. According to the Employer, by virtue of that enactment, CN / CP Telecommunicaitons is only bound by the terms of the collective agreement. In my view that is an unduly narrow reading of s. 144. That section does not say that the extent of the Employer’s obligations are set out in the written terms of the agreement. To the contrary, the section simply says that the successor Employer is bound by the collective agreement of the predecessor and in my view that provision ought to be

read as embracing any obligations that arise out of and are related to those terms of the agreement even if they are not expressly set out in writing. It makes no sense, labour relations or common, to exclude obligations, such as those embraced by a doctrine of equitable estoppel, which arise out of the terms of the agreement simply because they are not in writing. As Denning, L.J. said in the passage quoted from Combe v. Combe (supra) above, the effect of the doctrine is that one party, in this case the Employer, must accept their legal relations (i.e. their collective agreement) subject to the qualification which it has introduced itself, and it seems to me that must also be true of any Employer who succeeds to that agreement. It too must accept the terms of the collective agreement subject to the qualifications and allegations imposed by law.

In defence of its notice of termination of the practice in issue, the Employer advanced one final justification. In this ultimate submission Mr. Flicker claimed that even if the doctrine of estoppel was within my jurisdiction to apply, was made out on the facts and was binding on this Employer, nevertheless the Employer was entitled to bring the estoppel to an end and revert to the exact terms of the agreement.

In theory, of course, an estoppel can be brought to an end on reasonable notice in certain circumstances. That is what distinguishes it, in the case of promissory estoppel, from promises supported by consideration. In the Re General Concrete of Canada Ltd. award (supra) noted above, the board summarized this aspect of the doctrine in these terms :

"From the above and as has been recognized in earlier arbitral awards (Re Westrock Industries Ltd. and United Cement, Lime and Gypsum Workers, Local 366 (1973), 3 L.A.C. (2d) 102 at p. 110 (Beatty) it is manifest then that even when all of the conditions stipulated by Denning, L.J., have been met, the doctrine of promissory estoppel merely suspends rather than extinguishes legal rights unless the promise is absolute and irrevocable by its terms or unless the party to whom the representation was made cannot resume their original position. That is to say, perceived as an aberration to or derogation of the doctrine of consideration, Courts have generally recognized that such promises or conduct which is construed as tantamount to a promise, unsupported by consideration generally could not be enforced in the same manner or in the same fashion as a promise which was supported by consideration. Rather, as the case law has developed, Courts have expressed the view that where the party to whom the

representation, whether by words or conduct, was made can revert to its

original position, the party against whom the estoppel is asserted may bring it to an end either on reasonable notice or when the conditions which supported the estoppel have come to an end : Tool Metal Manufacturing Co. Ltd. and Tungsten Electric Co. Ltd., (1955) 1 W.L.R. 761 (II.L.) ; Central London Property Trust Ltd. v. High Trees House Ltd. (supra). Indeed it has been held that the notice which may be given to bring the promise or representation to an end need not be formal notice so long as the party to whom the representation was made had a reasonable opportunity of reverting to its original position ; Ajayi v. R.T. Briscoe (Nigeria) Ltd., (1964) 1 W.L.R. 1326 (J.C.P.C.) And see generally J.F. Wilson, "A Reappraisal of Quasi-Estoppel", (1965) Camb. L.J. 93" .

However, as that excerpt makes plain and as a later passage in that same award elaborates, "in certain circumstances, when for example, the party to whom the representation was made cannot as a result of their reliance resume their original position" the representation is final and irrevocable, for the life of agreement. See Ajayi v. R.T. Briscoe (Nigeria) Ltd., (1964) 1 W.L.R. 1326 (J.C.P.C.) ; Conwest Exploration Co. Ltd. v. Lefain, (1964) S.C.R. 20. And that, surely, is precisely the position the Union finds itself in in the circumstances of this case. Until it is in a legal position to require that the Employer to renegotiate its obligations under the collective agreemnt it could not be put back into its original position. Until that time the detriment the Union would suffer if the Employer were permitted to unilaterally and without warning abrogate a work practice of long standing duration could not be undone. Until that time then, that is until the expiry of their current collective agreement, the estoppel must be considered irrevocable.

In the result, I am satisfied that the Employer was not entitled to insist that limits of its obligation with respect to sickness benefits to the employees set out in the first paragraph 11 of the agreed statement of facts are defined by the terms of Article 30 and the Weekly Indemnity Plan that is subsumed under that provision. Although the Employer argued that an order, such as the Union sought, to require it to adhere to the practice for the duration of the agreement was so vague as to be uncapable of application, I am confident the parties will have no difficulty in carrying out such an order. As I noted earlier the Employer was able to ascertain in some considerable detail the specifics of this policy and the broad contours of it have been described in paragraphs 10 and 11. Essentially the order the Union sought and which I would grant is simply to require the Employer to continue the practice as Mr. Dunstan discovered it to be. If, however, the parties should have any difficulty in the implementation of such an order, I shall remain seized of the

matter for 30 days following the release of my award so that such matters may be brought to me for clarification and disposition.

For all of the reasons given, this grievance must be allowed.

Dated at Toronto this 12th day of February, 1981.

____________________________

David M. Beatty, Arbitrator