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Agricultural Workers and Collective Bargaining: Part Deux

by David Doorey May 21, 2008
written by David Doorey May 21, 2008

The United Food and Commercial Workers were before the Ontario Court of Appeal yesterday arguing that the Charter protects the right of agricultural workers to engage in collective bargaining.  The main challenge is to the Agricultural Employees Protection Act, which was the Conservative government’s response to the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Dunmore.  Recall that Dunmore found that the Ontario Labour Relations Act’s exclusion of agricultural workers from the protections against employer anti-union discrimination  interferes with the rights of those workers to unionize and make collective representations to the employers about workplace conditions.  
The UFCW is arguing that the Agricultural Employees Protection Act still fails to protect the “freedom of Association” of the workers.  They lost that argument in the lower court.   However, since that lower court decision, the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in Health Services, in which it ruled that the Charter actually does protect a right to collective bargaining.  So now the issue is whether the AEPA protects the right to collective bargaining as that right was defined in Health Services.  Are you following this?
But leaving all of this law stuff aside for a moment, why do you think that the Ontario government persists in excluding agricultural workers from the Labour Relations Act?  You can find the answer in the Dunmore decision.  The government argues that agriculture as an industry is “different”, and that employees in that industry ought not to have the same rights as other workers.  Not suprisingly, the ILO has chastised this argument (search case number 1900) in ruling that the exclusion violates Convention 87, which Canada ratified in 1972.  Do you agree with the government’s arguments in this case justifying differential treatment of agricultural workers? 

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David Doorey

Professor Doorey is an Associate Professor of Work Law and Industrial Relations at York University. He is Academic Director of Osgoode Hall Law School’s executive LLM Program in Labour and Employment Law and a Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program. Professor Doorey is a graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School (LL.B., Ph.D), London School of Economics (LLM Labour Law), and the University of Toronto (B.A., M.I.R.).

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David J. Doorey🇨🇦 @TheLawofWork@mas.to Follow

Law Prof. Talking #labor & #employment #law to the masses. @YorkUniversity @OsgoodeNews @LSELaw @CLJEHarvard @Jacobin @OnLaborBlog https://t.co/5V9r8VPHsh

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thelawofwork David J. Doorey🇨🇦 @TheLawofWork@mas.to @thelawofwork ·
37m

It's a stupid legal model.

If IBM gives employee, say, 19 months notice [LESS than what it concedes is required], there is probably no lawsuit. Instead, IBM lowballs, forces employee to lawyer up (hoping he wont or cant), then after expensive lawsuit, court orders 27 months.

David J. Doorey🇨🇦 @TheLawofWork@mas.to @TheLawofWork

Employer (IBM here) tells the court that 'reasonable notice' should be 20-22 months for a 38 yr service employee, but it gave EE only 38 weeks pay, the min required by ESA.

Court orders 27 months.

Milwid v. IBM Canada Ltd., 2023 ONSC 490: https://canlii.ca/t/jv9bq

Reply on Twitter 1641872654356606976 Retweet on Twitter 1641872654356606976 Like on Twitter 1641872654356606976 3 Twitter 1641872654356606976
thelawofwork David J. Doorey🇨🇦 @TheLawofWork@mas.to @thelawofwork ·
42m

Employer (IBM here) tells the court that 'reasonable notice' should be 20-22 months for a 38 yr service employee, but it gave EE only 38 weeks pay, the min required by ESA.

Court orders 27 months.

Milwid v. IBM Canada Ltd., 2023 ONSC 490: https://canlii.ca/t/jv9bq

Reply on Twitter 1641871401299632145 Retweet on Twitter 1641871401299632145 2 Like on Twitter 1641871401299632145 10 Twitter 1641871401299632145
thelawofwork David J. Doorey🇨🇦 @TheLawofWork@mas.to @thelawofwork ·
1h

What an incredible waste of time and resources.

Just release the damned letters and stop wasting legal resources. Jeez.

John Michael McGrath @jm_mcgrath

INBOX: Supreme Court of Canada will hear arguments in Ontario's case to keep the Ford government's mandate letters confidential on April 18. The province's information and privacy commissioner said the letters should be made public, and courts so far have agreed.

Reply on Twitter 1641862579197730823 Retweet on Twitter 1641862579197730823 6 Like on Twitter 1641862579197730823 37 Twitter 1641862579197730823
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