Ontario’s Ministry of Labour publishes the collective agreements filed with it, free and online. Here is how to find a single agreement, and how to search thousands at once.
To find a collective agreement in Ontario, search the agreements filed with the Ministry of Labour. The free Ontario Collective Agreement Database, a Courtready.ca tool, lets you search and compare them in one place. If the agreement covers you, your union or your employer’s human resources office can also give you a copy.
People looking for an agreement usually need one of two things. Some need a single document: the contract at their workplace, or the one a client signed. Others need a set: every nursing home agreement near Sudbury, or every hospital contract expiring next year.
The Ministry’s e-Library Is the Source
Once an employer and a union reach a new collective agreement, Ontario’s Labour Relations Act, 1995 requires them to file a copy with the Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development. The Ministry posts those filings in its e-Library, open to anyone, with records reaching back to 1967.
The Ministry also publishes an inventory of the filings as open data and refreshes it monthly. For each agreement, it records the employer, the union, the term, the sector, the governing statute and the size of the bargaining unit. Workers, employers, arbitrators and researchers all rely on this public record, and the Ministry deserves credit for keeping it open and current.
Search One Agreement or Compare Many
The e-Library works best when you already know the employer or union you want. Comparators call for something else: filters for sector, place and size applied together.
Courtready.ca built the Ontario Collective Agreement Database for that job. It indexes the Ministry’s inventory and lets you narrow it by:
- Sector and industry, from hospitals to the construction trades
- Union, with locals grouped under their parent union
- Statute, such as the Hospital Labour Disputes Arbitration Act
- Unit size and distance from any Ontario town
- Status and expiry date, including agreements expiring in the next three months
You can also describe what you need in plain language. Ask Nimbus, the database’s librarian, for “manufacturing agreements within 100 km of Windsor with more than 300 employees” and it sets the filters for you. Every result links to the agreement on the Ministry’s e-Library, so you read the document the parties filed.