Toronto, ON — April 10th, 2026 — In unionized environments, employers and unions negotiate collective agreements using the full suite of bargaining tools available to them, including strikes and lockouts. In some sectors, however, strikes and lockouts are removed by legislation and replaced with interest arbitration – a process by which an arbitrator (or a panel of arbitrators) resolves outstanding issues and imposes final terms and conditions of the collective agreement.
This is the framework governing the hospital sector, where the Hospital Labour Disputes Arbitration Act, or HLDAA, applies.
In Ontario Nurses Association v. London Health Sciences Centre, a HLDAA panel recently considered one issue and one issue only, provided by Protea LLP’s client, London Health Sciences Centre (“LHSC”).
LHSC’s One Issue Interest Arbitration
LHSC and Ontario Nurses Association (“ONA”) resolved all but one local issue at the bargaining table.
The outstanding issue concerned long-standing collective agreement language (decades old) providing employees with premium pay for working three (or in some cases two) or more consecutive weekends in a row. The hospital sought to amend the language so that nurses who switched shifts on their own accord would not be paid the premium pay where those voluntary switches set up the opportunity for the premium pay.
The issue had been a persistent challenge for the hospital. It was previously litigated in a 2016 arbitration hearing testing whether the premium was due where nurses switched shifts into their third consecutive weekend (2016 CanLII 54369 (ON LA) | London Health Sciences Centre v Ontario Nurses’ Association | CanLII). At the time, the hospital argued that if nurse switches counted, the financial impact would be substantial – it turned out that this was an understatement. The arbitrator in the 2016 case found that switched shifts were premium eligible. In the 10 years that followed, the amount the hospital paid for nurses working weekend premium shifts rose 1500%. Not all these increased costs were directly a result of nurses switching shifts, but it was one of many factors creating cost pressures on the hospital.
As a result of the costs, the hospital implemented many strategies to limit the weekend premiums, including filling vacancies, working short where patient care was not reduced or jeopardized, and redeploying nurses. Still, the hospital continued to note instances where nurses would switch shifts in ways that created consecutive weekend patterns. The hospital maintained that the weekend premiums existed for nurses working at the behest of the hospital (i.e. on the hospital’s schedule or where the hospital called nurses in to work), not where nurses switched their regular shifts for convenience.
The Decision
LHSC was successful. The HLDAA panel (with a dissent) awarded the hospital new language removing the consecutive weekend premium where the premium resulted directly or indirectly from a shift exchange initiated by nurses.
In its decision, the majority of the panel noted the hospital’s demonstrated need, and concluded that the circumstances warranted revisiting and revising the language of the collective agreement.
Protea LLP was proud to represent our client, LHSC, in achieving this important outcome – one that will meaningfully impact collective bargaining in the healthcare sector.
If you are preparing for bargaining – and facing a HLDAA panel or otherwise – Protea LLP is ready to help!
