Thursday, Apr 03, 2008
Financial Post
Workers beat Hydro One again
The Financial Post reported on SGM's victory in obtaining a partial wind up of the Hydro One pension plan so that 73 terminated employees will have access to their pension funds.
In 2002, Hydro One terminated the employment of 73 middle managers. Unlike other employees who left Hydro One's employment in the same period, these employees were not represented by a trade union and were not given the option of taking an early retirement package. The middle managers asked the Financial Services Commission of Ontario (FSCO) to order a partial windup of the Hydro One pension plan. FSCO denied the request on the basis that the 73 employees did not constitute a "significant number" of members of the plan.
The employees appealed to the Financial Services Tribunal (FST) which ruled in their favour. Hydro One appealed the decision to the Divisional Court, which recently dismissed the appeal. The Divisional Court agreed with the FST that "significant number" could be determined by looking at categories of employees within the pension plan and did not have to be determined by comparing the number of terminated employees against the total number of active plan members .
The 73 middle management employees were represented by Howard Goldblatt and Dona Campbell.
