An Algoma University associate professor’s complaint alleging pay discrimination compared to newly hired colleagues can proceed, a labour arbitrator has ruled, rejecting the university’s bid to have the grievance thrown out as a repeat of two earlier complaints over his salary.
The grievor, hired as a limited-term professor in 2017 at step seven of the salary grid before converting to tenure-track status in 2018, filed a formal complaint that September alleging his grid placement was incorrect. That complaint was abandoned in October 2018 following discussions with the academic dean. A second complaint filed in February 2021 argued his salary and benefits did not reflect his research, scholarship and teaching experience, and pointed to a newly hired faculty member placed at a lower grid level than the grievor had been.
Arbitrator Norm Jesin dismissed the 2021 grievance in a 2023 decision, finding it raised the same complaint the grievor had abandoned in 2018 — that his initial grid placement was miscalculated. Jesin ruled it was not appropriate to let the grievor resurrect that complaint more than two years after abandoning it.
New complaint filed in 2024
The grievor filed a new complaint on April 11, 2024, followed by the grievance at issue on June 17, 2024. Unlike the earlier complaints, this grievance does not reference his starting salary or initial grid placement and does not seek adjustment of his pay back to his date of hire. It instead invokes the collective agreement’s equity provisions and alleges the grievor’s salary treatment relative to at least one other newly hired faculty member amounts to discrimination based on race and ethnicity.
The university brought a preliminary motion to dismiss the grievance on grounds of res judicata, issue estoppel and abuse of process, arguing it was substantially the same complaint as the 2018 and 2021 matters, dressed up with new labels and comparisons to different colleagues. The union countered that the new grievance was different in substance, raising discrimination claims under the Human Rights Code and comparing the grievor’s pay to individuals hired after the 2023 arbitration decision, under a renewed collective agreement containing new equity and inclusion language.
Arbitrator finds new facts at issue
The arbitrator found the current grievance could not be characterized as “precisely the same complaint” as the earlier matters. The grievance raised new concerns about equity and discrimination tied to the comparative pay of employees hired after the grievor’s previous complaints, which amounted to a new complaint based on new facts rather than a relabelled version of the abandoned claim, the arbitrator found.
The university’s reliance on a Divisional Court decision involving five individual grievances tied to a previously argued policy grievance was distinguished on the basis that the earlier case involved a new legal argument applied to an issue already determined, while the grievor’s current complaint rests on new factual allegations involving newly hired comparators.
Grievance proceeds on limited basis
The arbitrator emphasized the ruling was narrow, allowing the grievance to proceed only to the extent it raises the new complaint tied to comparative pay and discrimination. The union was barred from relitigating any aspect of the grievance considered the same in substance as the abandoned 2018 complaint or the matter Jesin dismissed in 2023, including the grievor’s initial grid placement and progression through the wage grid. The decision does not address the merits of the underlying allegations.
The university’s preliminary objection was dismissed, and the grievance was permitted to proceed on the limited new complaint identified in the ruling.
For more information, see Algoma University v Ontario Public Service Employees Union, Local 685, 2026 CanLII 83018 (ON LA)
Counsel for the Employer
Alex Lemoine
Counsel for the Union
David Wright
Decision Maker
Lindsay Lawrence
