The opposition is publicly calling them out. The Ontario government is grumbling about them behind closed doors. Both hold them responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in wage costs that could put the squeeze on public services, as the province struggles to climb out of deficit.
Meet the arbitrators called in to settle public-sector labour battles when employers and unions can't reach deals on their own. Only about 20 in number, their individual decisions affect the compensation of thousands of public employees - most often those who can't strike, because they perform "essential services."
They stand accused of "thumbing their noses" at last year's call by Premier Dalton McGuinty for a public-sector wage freeze. Handing out raises of up to 2.5 per cent annually to workers at hospitals, universities and other government-funded institutions, they've refused to take direction from government, which indeed is not within their mandate.
The situation appears to be coming to a head, with growing rumblings that the party holding power after October's election will seek to overhaul the arbitration process. But how exactly the Liberals or Conservatives would achieve that is unclear.
The Tories seem to be a little further along in their thinking; a party official said they're developing a "mechanism" that would involve new legislation. But it has to be a little daunting that former premier Mike Harris - who had a stronger stomach for confrontation than today's leaders - went down this road in the 1990s and emerged with little to show for it.
The legacy of that era is a set of criteria that arbitrators are supposed to consider when making their decisions. But putting "the employer's ability to pay in light of its fiscal situation" at the top of the list has proven a meaningless gesture, because arbitrators have taken the view that governments can always bring in more revenue by raising taxes.
But then, that was only a small part of Mr. Harris's plan. His bigger aim was to create a so-called Dispute Resolution Commission, a pool of provincially appointed arbitrators. That would have marked a major change from the pre-established system, in which the government appoints independent arbitrators based on lists submitted by the two bargaining parties.
Unions were incensed at the system being stacked against them. And amid threats of a general strike over that and other reforms, the commission was scrapped.
Mr. Harris's Tories did not entirely abandon their attempt to change the selection process; they began unilaterally appointing retired judges to mediate hospital labour disputes, without the usual agreement from the two sides. But in 2002, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that this appointment method was "antithetical to credibility," because it undervalued experience and "broad acceptability."
Mr. Harris, in other words, proved unable to change either the arbitrators or what they base their decisions on. One of his successors could go back at either one, but it's an uphill battle.
There are other options. One would be "final-offer arbitration," in which arbitrators choose one of the two sides' proposals rather than coming down the middle. Another, floated by labour-relations expert Maurice Mazerolle, would be a form of peer review in which other arbitrators would sign off on their colleagues' decisions, giving individuals less control over precedent-setting contracts. (Mr. Mazerolle adds that he doesn't necessarily advocate that approach.)
How far a future government goes will depend partly on whether Ontario experiences a backlash, akin to the one south of the border, against public workers perceived to have been coddled from the after-effects of recession. If so, going after arbitrators may be part of a broader strategy targeting unions. If the mood is calmer, it may be seen as more trouble than it's worth.
But the more they claim arbitration is a problem, the more politicians will be expected to articulate solutions. And those don't come easy.
Adam Radwanski