PrintUNA submission included in Sask Labour Federation's appeal of province's labour law
The Supreme Court of Canada will hear arguments this week on whether changes to Saskatchewan's labour laws are constitutional, a case in which United Nurses of Alberta has been granted intervener status.
The Saskatchewan Federation of Labour asked the Supreme Court to rule on the provincial legislation that restricts who may legally strike as well as on changes designed to make union certification difficult. The federation argues the changes infringe on the freedom of association and freedom of expression.
UNA will argue more broadly in its written submission that the freedom of association guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects workers’ liberty to collectively withdraw their labour and that taking away the liberty of two or more workers have acted together to withdraw their labour is a breach of their fundamental right to association and thus violates the Charter.
UNA’s submission argues that the issue before the court should not be whether freedom of association includes the right to strike as a feature of collective bargaining, but whether the Charter freedom includes a freedom to collectively withdraw labour for any reason independent of modern labour legislation.
SFL President Larry Hubich said last year that the federation is also asking for a declaration that the 2008 changes to the Saskatchewan Trade Union Act “substantially interfere with workers’ right to form unions of their own choosing, for the purpose of bargaining collectively with their employers.”
The right-wing Saskatchewan Party introduced the legislation in December 2007 after winning its first provincial election. So-called “essential services” provisions in the legislation state that employers and unions should agree on which workers are essential before a strike takes place. If an agreement can’t be reached, however, the law allows employers to dictate whichever employees it pleases, and as many as it please, as essential.
In practice, this effectively renders all strikes ineffective.
UNA, working with the Alberta Federation of Labour, sought intervener status because of the impact the Saskatchewan law could have on law in other parts of Canada and because of parallels with recent labour legislation in Alberta that is also subject to court appeals.
Court challenges began in Saskatchewan after the law was passed in May 2008. A Regina Court of Queen's Bench judge ruled in February 2012 that the law was unconstitutional.
The judge said that “no other essential services legislation in Canada comes close to prohibiting the right to strike as broadly, and as significantly” and gave the provincial government a year to fix the law.
Instead, the government went to the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal and argued that the lower court’s decision broke new ground when it stated there is Charter protection for the right to strike.
The Appeal Court agreed with the province and ruled the right to strike does not have Charter protection.
The federation, on behalf of several provincial unions, is now seeking the Supreme Court’s opinion on a related matter, whether the lower court was right to say the legislation did not violate the Charter.
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