Scaling up by law? Canadian labour law, the nation-state and the case of the British Columbia Health Employees Union (original) (raw)
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For the first twenty-five years after the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enacted, it appeared that it would have little impact on Canadian labour laws. The Supreme Court of Canada took the view that the guarantee of freedom of association in the Charter did not include a right to strike and did not provide protection for collective bargaining. Common law rules regulating picketing did not come within the scope of the Charter’s rules on freedom of expression. Academic commentators were divided on whether this was a good or a bad thing, some espousing the hope that the Charter could be applied in pursuit of greater justice in the workplace while others were thankful that the courts were not interfering with legislative formulation of collective bargaining law and policy. Slowly, however, the courts have come to a different view of the Charter, finding that its values serve to provide protection for picketing, and in a sweeping revision of former jurisprudence in 2007 holding that the guarantee of freedom of association does provide protection for collective bargaining. This article describes the changing judicial views of the Charter through three distinct periods, each roughly a decade long: the formative period, the period of consolidation, and the period of re-assessment. It also traces some of the academic reaction to these developments. It concludes by an assessment of how trade unions are attempting to harness the changing view of the Charter to pursue a variety of challenges to the existing legislated collective bargaining schemes in Canada. In doing so, the paper uses the metaphor of the Charter as a cathedral, with the judges and academic commentators as artists painting a variety of views of the Cathedral. It is only through assessing the multiplicity of views that one can hope to achieve even a partial understanding of the Charter’s role in Canadian labour law. Pendant les vingt-cinq premières années qui ont suivi l’adoption de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés, il a semblé qu’elle n’aurait que peu d’incidences sur les lois canadiennes sur le travail. La Cour suprême du Canada estimait que la garantie de liberté d’association prévue dans la Charte ne couvrait pas le droit de faire la grève et n’offrait pas de protection pour la négociation collective. Les règles de common law en matière de piquetage n’étaient pas visées par les dispositions de la Charte sur la liberté d’expression. Les observateurs du milieu universitaire étaient partagés sur la question de savoir s’il s’agissait d’une bonne ou d’une mauvaise chose; certains exprimaient l’espoir que la Charte puisse être appliquée dans la poursuite d’une meilleure justice en milieu de travail, d’autres étaient simplement reconnaissants que les tribunaux ne s’immiscent pas dans la formulation par le pouvoir législatif des lois et des politiques en matière de négociation collective. Les tribunaux en sont toutefois lentement venus à adopter une opinion différente de la Charte et ont conclu que ses valeurs servent à offrir une protection pour le piquetage, et en 2007, s’écartant remarquablement de la jurisprudence existante, ils ont conclu que la garantie de liberté d’association confère une protection pour la négociation collective.Cet article décrit l’évolution de la jurisprudence en ce qui a trait à la Charte pendant trois périodes, chacune étant à peu près d’une décennie : la période formative, la période de consolidation et la période de réévaluation. Il y est aussi question de la réaction de certains auteurs et observateurs à ces développements. L’article conclut sur une évaluation de la façon dont les syndicats tentent de profiter du changement de point de vue sur la Charte pour poursuivre diverses contestations des régimes de négociation collective qui existent actuellement au Canada. Ce faisant, l’article considère métaphoriquement la Charte comme une cathédrale, les juges et les observateurs du milieu universitaire étant des artistes qui en peignent chacun une vue différente. Ce n’est qu’en procédant à un examen de la multiplicité de vues que l’on peut espérer comprendre, ne fût-ce que partiellement, le rôle de la Charte en droit canadien du travail.
Journal of Workplace Rights, 2011
With increasing vigor, unions are championing the claim that "labor rights are human rights." This is especially true in Canada and is aided by a Supreme Court of Canada ruling in 2007 that affords constitutional protection to the right to bargain collectively. Constructing labor rights as human rights relies on a judicial-based strategy at both the national and the international level, including the use of the International Labour Organization (ILO). This article seeks to determine how useful the ILO is to the Canadian labour movement. It finds that the ILO is of little use to Canadian unions in and of itself, but that it is more useful when Canadian courts apply the provisions of international law to domestic legislation. As a recent case history shows, however, there is no guarantee that the Supreme Court will elect to adopt the provisions of international law.
Forging Responsible Unions: Metal Workers and the Rise of the Labour Injunction in Canada
Labour / Le Travail, 1996
A study of labour history through the prism of the law yields important insights on two of the debates raging within the discipline. The first is on the role of institutions and, in particular, the question of their autonomy and the extent to which the well-being of the labour movement is tied to a supportive state. The second is on the role of discourse and, in particular, legal discourse in setting up categories which delimit the realm of legitimate claims, organize those claims in particular ways, and privilege some claims over others.
Brave New Words: Labour, The Courts and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice
In Health Services and Support – Facilities Subsector BargainingAssociation v. British Columbia, [2007] 2 S.C.R.391, the Supreme Court of Canada overturned precedent andconcluded “that the grounds advanced in the earlier decisions forthe exclusion of collective bargaining from the Charter’s protectionof freedom of association do not withstand principled scrutinyand should be rejected” (at para. 22). The author exploresthe Supreme Court of Canada’s change of heart and what thischange implies, not only for constitutional doctrine, but also forwhat the Court understands about the governance of the post-Fordist world of work. She situates the Court’s reasoning in afew key cases dealing with labour’s distinctive rights – to bargaincollectively and to strike – in the social context that both shapesthe legal discourse about labour rights and influences organizedlabour’s power. She considers the paradox of the Supreme Court’sembrace of Fordist labour rights in a post-Fordist economy, andsug...
2016
It has been a site for discussions over labour and industrial policies between states, unions and employers. As is evident in the article by Foster, McChesney and Jonna (2011), the ILO continues to produce important research on the global labour market. However, from the standpoint of labour organizations and those striving towards workers' justice, there are many critiques of the ILO's efficacy. These critiques are wide-ranging. They include critiques of the tripartite nature of the organization, the unenforceability of its conventions and recommendations, and the waning influence of the ILO on national policy implementation (Rodriguez Garcia 2008). Other critiques include the role of the ILO in supporting imperialism (Taha 2015). 42 Underlying this strategy was support for the prosperity and expansion of American companies and therefore often American imperialist projects as well.
Mutual Promise: International Labour Law and BC Health Services
papers.ssrn.com
Health Services and Support-Facilities Subsector Bargaining Assn. v. British Columbia represents the current high-water mark for international labour law in Canada, overruling 20 years of the Supreme Court's own jurisprudence not the freedom of association in Canada and relying heavily on international labour law to ground its decision. By acknowledging the relevance of international labour law to domestic constitutional normativity, the Court appears to be signalling a willingness to keep its international promises and accept the affirmation in Article 2 of the 1998 International Labour Organization ("ILO") Declaration of Fundamental Principles and Rights and Freedoms and its Follow-up. This article is also fairly broad, in that it seeks both to contextualize the contemporary development of international labour law, and to suggest future interpretive developments. In Part III, I argue that the Supreme Court of Canada's decision to recognize the right to bargain collectively as part of the constitutionally enshrined freedom of association in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms suggests that fundamental principles and rights at work can offer a counterbalance to (rather than mere acceptance of) a particular vision of economic globalization, that is, economic constitutionalism.
2000
ANY ATTEMPT AT A HISTORICAL overview inevitably involves contentious choices, including those of focus, the analytic lens to deploy, and the themes that structure the narrative. The first and most controversial choice that we have made is that of focus. Our topic is the legal regulation of employment in 20th-century Canada. Despite the fact that during the 20th century employment has come to be treated as a synonym for work, these terms are not equivalent. Employment is a mere subset of the broader domain of work; it emerged as a specific legal category in England in the 19th century to specify the rights and obligations that comprised a bilateral labour market contract. Work, by contrast* captures a much broader range of productive activity, including the labour of small independent producers and women in the household. The false equivalence of the terms "employment" and "work" in the 20th century is evidence of the hegemony of the neo-classical vision of the labour market in which employment dominates.
Global Labour Journal, 2019
The year 2017 marked the ten-year anniversary of the Health Services case, a precedent-setting decision by the Supreme Court of Canada that ruled collective bargaining is protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This article explores the impact and legacy of BC Health Services, and finds that while workers’ constitutional rights have been expanded under the Charter over the past decade, governments nevertheless continue to violate these rights. It concludes that the legacy of the case is not an enhanced level of protection for these rights to be enjoyed fully, but rather that the default option has been and will continue to be a financial penalty for the state in instances in which they violate workers’ rights. KEYWORDS labour rights; Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; human rights; health services
Union Democracy and Labour Rights: A Cautionary Tale
Global Labour Journal, 2011
In recent years, trade unions in Canada have become increasingly reliant on constructing workers' rights as part of the broader rubric of human rights. While the topic of labour rights has become popular in recent academic literature, it remains under explored. An important element of constructing labour rights as human rights is its impact on union democracy and rank-and-file mobilization, though this has yet to be fully explored. Utilizing the case study of the Hospital Employees' Union (HEU) struggle against Bill 29, this paper suggests that a reliance on the construction of labour rights as human rights and the corresponding judicial strategy prevents the development of a from a more radical, grassroots social movement unionism and instead facilitates the proliferation of hierarchical, elite dominated forms trade unionism. It concludes by suggesting that unions must be cautious of the potential downfalls of quelling militant grassroots activism in lieu of a rights-based challenge.