A Saskatchewan court has struck down a provincial law that limited the ability of public service employees to go on strike.
In a
decision released Feb. 6, Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Dennis Ball found the province’s new essential services legislation had “significantly deleterious effects on protected rights” under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
“This is an extremely important decision for working people, not only in Saskatchewan, but for those across the country,” said Larry Hubich, president of the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour, in a media release. “The charter is the highest law in Canada, and we must always be vigilant when governments propose to limit people’s basic rights as Canadian citizens.”
In 2008 the province’s labour movement launched a charter challenge against two pieces of labour legislation — Bill 5: the Public Service Essential Services Act and Bill 6: the Trade Union Amendment Act, introduced by the newly-elected Saskatchewan Party government in December 2007.
The unions argued the laws effectively abrogated workers’ freedom to organize, to bargain collectively and to strike.
Essential services legislation exists in every jurisdiction except Saskatchewan, but the unions asserted Bill 5 prohibited the right to strike by too broad a range of public service employees, lacked a dispute resolution process to address employer designations of essential service workers, and was implemented without union consultation.
Although Justice Ball found elements of Bill 5 violated the charter and declared the act invalid, he granted 12 months for the province to revise the legislation. The government said it is appealing the judge’s ruling.
The second part of the judge’s decision upheld Bill 6 that now changes the process for union certification in Saskatchewan.
Before the amendments to the Trade Union Act were introduced, a trade union seeking certification was required to file support cards signed by at least 25 per cent of employees within six months of the application.
The new requirements raise the minimum support level to 45 per cent, reduce the validity of support cards to three months, and makes voting on an application a mandatory secret ballot, a process unions said in affidavits filed with the court that “swings the labour relations pendulum” towards employer interests at the expense of unions and workers. They argued the provisions for certification introduced by the amendments are so onerous that they infringe on workers’ freedom to organize.
Justice Ball found no infringement on the rights of workers and dismissed the unions’ claim that some or all of the provisions were constitutionally invalid.