Delayed decision: Saskatchewan healthcare workers await court ruling on pension indexation amid legal dispute over plan terms
May 14, 2024
Members of the Saskatchewan Healthcare Employees’ Pension Plan will have to wait to find out if their benefits will be boosted via indexation after a dispute resolution process was paused by an order of the province’s top court.
A Chambers judge originally ruled that the union-sponsored indexation proposal was properly issued under the terms of the pension plan, triggering a compulsory process requiring the dispute to proceed first to mediation and failing agreement, to arbitration. View our summary of the original decision here.
However, a Saskatchewan Appeal Court judge agreed to the employer’s request for a stay of the lower court order until the resolution of an appeal by the employer. The judge noted that if the two sets of proceedings were allowed to run in tandem it would have the potential “of calling into question the legitimacy of either the court or arbitral processes or both.”
The appellate judge also urged the court’s registrar to schedule a hearing as soon as possible for the employer’s appeal, which will focus on alleged errors in the Chambers judge’s interpretation of the trust agreement that governs the pension plan.
Click on more information below to read the judge’s decision:
