More than a decade after the union representing the faculty at Okanagan College brought forward a grievance over long-term disability benefits, an arbitrator has given them their last win. 

The full 480-paragraph Labour Arbitration Award published on Sept. 6, called on the college to immediately move to update its plans so that employees aged 65 and older have access to Long Term Disability (LTD) benefits. 

The union had filed the grievance in 2013 after the Human Rights Code was updated in 2008  to remove mandatory retirement at 65, however, the college employees' Group Life Insurance (鈥淕roup Life鈥�), LTD and Accidental Death and Dismemberment (鈥淎D&D鈥�) continued to expire at the former mandatory age of 65. 

The grievance argued that the coverage ending either three months before or once an employee turned 65 was discrimination based on age.

One of the personal grievances provided was a 75-year-old faculty member who stated he intended to teach until he was 80. 

Arbitrator Arne Peltz noted in their ruling that there certainly was discrimination based on age with the LTD's policy and that hitting the age of 65 was an "immutable obstacle" to receiving the benefits. 

"Other causes of ineligibility may be addressed or reconsidered, but the employee has no recourse when they reach age 65," wrote Peltz. "Faculty have asked themselves 鈥� 'If I am performing the same work as my colleague across the hall, why do I receive lesser compensation and why do I have no recourse to the disability plan, if I need it?'"

The Group Life and AD&D issues were extended to cover up to age 75 as part of collective bargaining for the 2022-25 agreement and were dropped as part of the grievance. 

Testimony from actuaries gave a cost estimate of $17,000 a year to provide steadily decreasing LTD from age 65 to 70, or 0.01 per cent of the college's payroll. The LTD plan as a whole accounts for 1.2 per cent of the college's payroll. 

Part of the time it took to deal with the case was that the union argued that if the discrimination was permitted under an exception in the Human Rights Code, the exception raised a Constitutional question as to whether the code violated the Canadian Charter of Rights on Freedoms. 

That question forced the involvement of the B.C. Attorney General's office in the case. 

Multiple hearings were held in 2022, followed by written submissions in 2024 and a final oral argument in April. 

In the end, following three preliminary awards, the arbitrator ruled that the LTD policy was discriminatory. Further, Peltz found that it did not meet the bona fide plan exception, because expanding it would not make the LTD plan unsustainable or otherwise unable to be provided. 

Because the LTD failed to meet the bona fide plan exception, the arbitrator did not need to rule on whether the bona