Free Collective Bargaining Rights

I was talking to some people on the picket line at the Extra Foods strike in Maple Ridge today and heard some interesting news that might help Canadian Postal workers. We were talking about back to work legislation and how Postal Workers were recently screwed by Stephen Harper's over reaching back to work legislation.

One of the members on the line claimed their mother was a nurse. She said the Campbell government legislated the nurses back to work and basically threw out their collective agreement. Please note the difference between back to work legislation for essential services and over reaching back to work legislation that throws out existing contracts and clearly removes free collective bargaining rights. Anyways, they claimed the Supreme Court over ruled the over reaching back to work legislation and they were compensated for it.

I checked it out with the HEU. Sure enough, the BC Provincial legislation called Bill C 29 was indeed overturned by the supreme court. This is a copy of a bulletin about the ruling and this is a copy of the actual decision.

There's more. The HEU claim other Unions were also affected by the legislation and the Supreme Court Decision. They also claimed the BC Teachers recently successfully used their decision as jurisprudence. Sure enough, I found a copy of that decision.

The recent teachers decision is dated April 13 2011 and cites the June 6 2007 decision. The teachers decision argues:

[3] The health services legislation was challenged by various health workers‟ associations as being contrary to the freedom to associate, constitutionally protected by s. 2 (d) of the Charter.

[4] Initially the health workers were unsuccessful at the trial and appellate levels, and the health services legislation, Bill 29, was upheld.

[5] The case went on to the Supreme Court of Canada where the workers ultimately prevailed. In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court of Canada held that collective bargaining was protected by s. 2 (d) of the Charter: Health Services and Support - Facilities Subsector Bargaining Assn. v. British Columbia, 2007 SCC 27, [2007] 2 S.C.R. 391 [Health Services]. Professor Hogg described the impact of this decision as “a 180-degree shift”: Peter W. Hogg, Constitutional Law of Canada, loose-leaf, 5th ed. (Toronto, Ont.: Carswell, 2007), ch. 44 at 44-6. The Supreme Court of Canada had previously held that collective bargaining was not protected by the Charter guaranteed freedom of association: Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada v. Northwest Territories (Commissioner), [1990] 2 S.C.R. 367.

[6] In Health Services, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down several provisions of Bill 29 as being unconstitutional by reason of the legislation‟s interference with the workers‟ freedom to associate guaranteed by s. 2 (d) of the Charter. Some provisions were found not to be unconstitutional.

[7] The teachers brought a court challenge to Bill 27 and Bill 28, similar to the challenge brought by the health services‟ workers. This challenge waited on the sidelines while the Health Services case wound its way through the courts. Now the challenge to the legislation affecting teachers‟ collective bargaining has come before this court for decision.

[8] In this case the legislation dealing with teachers was modelled on the same provincial government theory as in Health Services, namely, that the government had the right to impose legislation which unilaterally overrode provisions of existing collective agreements, and which prohibited collective bargaining on the same subject matters in the future. The legislation was enacted without any prior consultation with the teachers‟ union.

[9] For the reasons that follow, I have found that most, but not all, of the challenged legislation is unconstitutional as violating the s. 2 (d) freedom to associate and to engage in collective bargaining. Specifically, I have found that ss. 8, 9 and 15 of Public Education Flexibility and Choice Act, S.B.C. 2002, c. 3 [PEFCA] (Bill 28) and s. 5 of the Education Services Collective Agreement Amendment Act, 2004, S.B.C. 2004, c. 16 [Amendment Act] are unconstitutional. I have not found s. 4 of Education Services Collective Agreement Act, S.B.C. 2002, c. 1 [ESCAA] (Bill 27) to be unconstitutional. (page 6 Griffin decision 2011 BCSC 469)

Yes this was an over reaching provincial legislation that was over turned by the Supreme court but it was successful through the use of the Federal Charter of rights. I'd say this is very applicable to Canadian Postal Workers.

Personally I see this a ray of light piercing through in a dark cloud of oppression. What Stephen Harper and Canada Post did was dirty. Stealing pensions is wrong and threatens the future prosperity of the entire country.

Big Corporations want to save money any way possible so they can make more and more profit. For a time, Big Corporations saw the large amount of capital sitting in their employees pensions and desperately wanted to get their greedy little mitts on it to use and invest in other things so they could put it to use and profit from it. People objected and said pensions are sacred and not to be invested in high risk stocks.

Then came the corporate brain storm. They thought well then, pension compound into a significant amount of capital. If we stopped paying employees pensions, we could take the money we were putting aside for pensions and put it into another account just for us. That way we'd have the entire fund as well as the interest.

Frightening but true. This was what Moya Greene's pal Catherine not too Swift boldly declared in her letter to the new CEO of Canada Post. Claiming to represent Big Business, she said the private sector has had to make many sacrifices during the recession. She claimed that since many private sector employees don't have a pension, Canada Post and Stephen Harper should steal Postal Workers pensions. She claimed that immoral theft constituted good business. Au contraire.

Just like Moya Greene's Short Term Disability program, it is very short sighted. The STD program said it's not fair employees who have been working with the company for many years have accumulated unused sick leave when new employees don't. Their answer was to steal sick leave from their employees and create a Short Term Disability program where if an employee gets a long term illness they go on EI. I kid you not. This is a Big Corporation trying to save money and make more profit by having their employees go on government Employment Insurance if they have a long term illness instead of paying for sick leave. Ya think that in the long term this will have a draining effect on government taxes and resources?

If employees don't have pensions they contribute top that their employer also contributes to, that will put a further demand on government pensions which are minimal at best. When Moyas Greene rewrote the previous Postal contract she bragged about how she had changed the establish precedent of matching employee contributions. She said the fund had performed so well one year, that the corporation didn't have to match employee contributions that year. She wanted to save money by stealing their pension. That is exactly what she had her friend Catherine not too Swift from the Empire strikes back club confess to.

Let's hope these new Supreme Court decisions will return a fraction of democracy to our lop sided system that obsesses over profit and rolls back wages and benefits at every opportunity. Democracy is good. Free collective Bargaining is good. Stealing pensions is bad for everyone.