Commission on the Reform of Ontario's Public Services

A Balanced, Effective and Transparent System
A Balanced System
Essential Services
Chapter 15: Labour Relations and Compensation
It is generally accepted that negotiated settlements or outcomes achieved between parties
through unconstrained collective bargaining with the right to strike/lockout are superior to other
mechanisms for achieving contracts. The reasons for this are that the parties are best
positioned to understand the trade-offs that allow them to optimize in negotiations, and the
parties are more likely to live with the settlement or outcomes if the contract is freely
negotiated (e.g., a lower grievance rate is more likely).
Some occupations are often regarded as essential. If the parties do not agree on a settlement
and the union decides to exercise its right to strike, the public at large takes an immediate
interest. “Many of the services provided in BPS industries are considered ‘essential’ insofar as
the withholding of the provision of the services would materially affect the health and/or
security of the public.” 17
It is very difficult to determine which services should be deemed to be “essential” because
there is no litmus test of hardship. In some medical or personal security cases, it is fairly clear,
but in many other cases it is not. Some medical procedures can wait, others can wait but not
for too long, and still others may require immediate assistance. Furthermore, there is the issue
of consumer/public and political tolerance. There may be little tolerance for any service
disruptions in health care and primary and secondary education by the affected public, while
the non-affected (i.e., the healthy or those without children in school) may have a greater
tolerance for service disruptions. So there is no clear distinction to divide specific services that
are essential and those that are not.
Various governments have tended to undertake policy measures to respond to public
pressures to avoid the public outcry that would result from public service delivery disruptions.
Policy measures that governments undertake usually take one of these options in response to
the public’s pressure:
I. Increasing the number of designated workers in a bargaining unit (i.e., increase the
proportion of employees designated as essential, to maintain a basic level of what is
viewed as an essential service to the public); and
II. Increase usage of outright strike bans.
17 Chaykowski and Hickey report, p. 12.
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