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The Law of Work
Law of Work Archive

Are "neutrality agreements" unlawful employer support to a union?

by David Doorey January 23, 2009
written by David Doorey January 23, 2009

I have written before about the agreement last year between Magna and the Canadian Auto Workers, the key components of which were Magna’s assistance to the CAW in organizing its employees in exchange for the CAW agreeing to a variety of employee relations schemes Magna prefers, including an agreement to not strike.
That agreement was called the “Framework for Fairness”, many of the key documents relating to the agreement are available on the CAW website.   And there is a very interesting and informative debate on the agreement available on the website of the Centre for Industrial Relations at U. of Toronto between McMaster Professor Charlotte Yates and CAW economist Jim Stanford.
I mention this now because there was interesting American decision recently relating to neutrality agreements.  One issue that arises when an employer agrees to give one union access to its employees for the purposes of organizing is whether that amounts to unlawful assistance to the union.  In both Canada and the U.S., the law forbids employers from interfering with the selection of a union by its employees or from giving unions assistance with organizing their employees.   This is a point I explained in an earlier post.  The concern the state has is that the employer could unduly influence the decision of employees whether to support any union, or pressure them to support a particular union that the employer believes is most favorable to it.
The Court of Appeal for the 4th Circuit ruled recently that Freightliner (the employer) had not unlawfully provided “a thing of value” to the United Auto Workers when it agreed to allow the union to hold a meeting with employees at the workplace and agreed to remain neutral during the union’s organizing campaign.  The comparable Ontario statutory language is Section 70 of the Labour Relations Act, which prevents employers from “contributing financial or other support to a trade union”.   We are still waiting to see whether that language will prohibit the sort of benefits Magna gave to the CAW.

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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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