Jewitt McLuckie is pleased to welcome our newest Articling Student, Mary Farag, who has joined us for her 2023-2024 Articles.  Mary is trilingual (English, French and Arabic) and an Ottawa University French Common law student whose background has focused on social justice issues including access to justice for survivors of domestic violence.  Mary has worked with a regulatory college, an immigration and refugee law firm, and the Canada Council for the Arts, where she did some employment law. She has also volunteered in an Oshawa emergency department.

Samantha Lamb, Dina Mashayekhi, Alison Longmore and André Pritchard joined CUPE 503 for their annual Golf tournament at Manderley on the Green.

Randy Slepchik successfully represented CUPE 503 in an “LTD Offset” policy grievance filed against the City of Ottawa.  The Union grieved that the Employer was improperly counting time spent by employees working in accommodated positions as time that would reduce their entitlement to Long Term Disability benefits during their own occupation period.  In the decision, an Arbitration Panel chaired by Arbitrator Brian Keller found that the Employer should not have reduced the “own occupation” period as the employees were actively employed and in receipt of wages.

Ottawa(City) v Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 503, 2023 CanLII 50239 (ON LA)

Dina Mashayekhi defeated a preliminary motion brought by Carleton University when it tried to argue that Arbitrator Kevin Burkett had no jurisdiction to make a determination about a salary adjustment for members of the Carleton University Academic Staff Association.  Arbitrator Burkett sided with the Union on the basis that section 48(1) of the Ontario Labour Relations Act requires there to be an adjudicative process chaired by a neutral third party and that the procedure followed by the University did not meet that test.

Carleton University v Carleton University Academic Staff Association, 2023 CanLII 12176 (ON LA)

Samantha Lamb and Dina Mashayekhi represented the Carleton University Academic Staff Association in Superior Court in a successful challenge to Bill 124, the Provincial Government’s wage restraint legislation.  In the challenge, CUASA, along with a host of other unions, argued that the Act infringed on their members’ freedom of association, freedom of speech and equality rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  Not only were the applicants successful in establishing that the legislation violated their freedom of association under section 2(d) of the Charter but that it was not saved by section 1 of the Charter.  The Government is currently appealing the decision.

Ontario English Catholic Teachers Assoc. v. His Majesty, 2022, 2022 ONSC 6658 (CanLII)

On October 22, 2023, John McLuckie once again had the pleasure of speaking to the paramedics, ambulance communications officers and logistics staff that make up CUPE’s Ambulance Committee of Ontario. This year, John brought CUPE members up to speed on recent decisions involving essential services designations.

This was John’s 20th annual visit to the CACO conference.

On Thursday, October 26th John McLuckie will be one of the moderators for the Lancaster House Panel discussion addressing trends and changes to worker’s compensation law.

Lancaster House will once again be hosting an annual Labour Law Conference in Ottawa from November 1 – 3 and Alison Longmore was a member of the Conference Advisory Committee that helped map out topics and speakers for the very well attended Ottawa event.

Jewitt McLuckie & Associates LLP is a moderately sized Ottawa law firm (with eight professional staff) specializing in the areas of union side labour law, employment law, human rights litigation, long term disability litigation and workers compensation cases. We are committed to using the law to improve the lives of workers and to advance the cause of social justice. We are looking for an experienced legal assistant to join our small, tight knit, administrative support staff team. In lieu of experience, we will consider candidates who have completed a legal assistant diploma program.

Candidates must be:

Your responsibilities will include:

We provide:

The position will start as soon as possible. Please send resumes, references and transcripts (if applicable) to the firm’s managing partner, John McLuckie, at jmcluckie@jewittmcluckie.ca.